The return to the Motherland was not a triumph; it was a funeral procession draped in the tattered banners of victory. As the transport vessels descended upon the capital, the air was heavy with the silence of those who had seen too much.
Harold stood at the prow, his gaze fixed on Kael, who sat motionless in the hold. The boy was a specter of his former self, his skin still stained with the copper-scented residue of the massacre.
He was the savior of the Sixteen Kingdoms, yet he looked like its most haunted victim.
The arrival was shattered by a single, harrowing cry from the docks.
The Commander of the Tenth Nation, Galadrielle, stood paralyzed as a messenger fell to his knees before him. The words were a death knell: "The North has fallen. The serpent rose, and Galadrielle is no more."
The Commander, a man who had weathered a hundred storms and led the Northern Shield with iron resolve, did not scream. He did not ask for details. He simply looked toward the horizon, where his wife, his children, and his entire civilization had been swallowed by the abyssal hunger of Abyssior.
Before the eyes of the gathered elite, he drew his ceremonial dagger—a blade forged from northern ice-steel.
"I cannot lead a ghost kingdom," he whispered, his voice a brittle thread. "And I will not walk in a world where the North is silent."
With a swift, practiced motion, he ended his own life before Harold could reach him. The blood of the Tenth Commander pooled on the white marble of the Motherland, a grim punctuation mark to the end of an era.
The tragedy forced an immediate, somber council of the remaining rulers. They gathered in the High Hall, the atmosphere thick with the smell of incense and the unspoken terror of the coming war.
"The Tenth is dead by his own hand, and the Seventh is dead by the boy's," the commander of the Kaldaria spoke, her voice echoing off the vaulted ceiling. "Forgemire sits leaderless. A nation of smiths and fire-wielders cannot remain a rudderless ship while a god-serpent scours our coasts."
Harold stepped into the center of the hall, his presence commanding even in his exhaustion. "The laws of Tellus are ancient and unyielding. Strength is the only currency the Sixteen Kingdoms respect. He who slays the tyrant inherits the crown of the fallen."
"You speak of the boy," the commander of the Throkia rumbled, his brow furrowed. "He is a child. A weapon, yes, but a ruler?"
"He is no longer a child," Harold countered, his eyes flashing with a cold, superior clarity. "He defeated Noelle. Even wounded, even drained, he achieved what all of us combined could not. He didn't just kill a man; he dismantled a legacy of darkness. If Forgemire is a nation of fire and iron, who better to lead it than the one who turned their Greatest Saint into dust?"
Kael was brought before the council. He didn't bow. He didn't speak. He simply stood there, his brown eyes reflecting the flickering torchlight like deep, sunless pools.
"Kael," Harold said, his voice resonating with a weight that demanded attention. "By the blood on your hands and the strength in your marrow, the Seventh Nation is yours. Forgemire—the forge of our world—requires a master. You are no longer a refugee or a student. You are a Sovereign."
Mikaela, standing among the advisors, felt a chill run through her soul. She saw the heavy, ornate signet ring of Forgemire—a band of dark, enchanted iron—being offered to Kael.
Kael looked at the ring, then at the rulers who watched him with a mixture of awe and suppressed dread.
"You give me a kingdom because you are afraid," Kael said, his voice a low, melodic rasp. "You want to bind me to a throne so I don't become the monster you think I am."
"We give you a kingdom because you earned it," Harold replied firmly. "And because the North is gone. If the Seven Nations fall, Tellus falls. Lead Forgemire, Kael. Command the fires. Prepare us for the serpent."
Kael reached out, his fingers closing around the iron ring. As he slipped it onto his finger, a faint, golden ripple of the Emperor State flared briefly, as if the very air of the room was acknowledging its new master.
"I will lead Forgemire," Kael said, turning his gaze toward the southern horizon. "But do not mistake my crown for a leash. I am not your protector. I am the serpent's end."
Little did he know, the serpent was the least of his worries, for the continent in the west, a continent of Mystika where the goddess Galadriel had created her species of elves, dwarves, and giants alike had dwelled. These races of mystical creatures had begun to make their move.