A metallic tang hung heavy in the air, a constant companion that had seeped into my very bones. Each crunch underfoot was a grim symphony, a broken cadence of shattered armor plates and splintered bone. This wasn't a path, it was a graveyard, and I, Asher Astralborn, the Thirteenth Prince of the Astrean Empire, was its unwilling pallbearer.
My gaze swept across the gruesome tableau. These weren't just bodies; they were faces. Faces I'd seen laughing around campfires, faces contorted in training exercises, faces that had sworn allegiance to me just weeks, even days, ago. Young, old, seasoned veterans, fresh recruits – the battlefield was an indiscriminate reaper. Their uniforms, once vibrant with the Astrean crest, were now indistinguishable rags, caked with mud and something far darker. They had become separated from me, yes, but in truth, they had become separated from everything. From their families, their dreams, their very breath. And here I was, still walking.
The Astrean Empire. They called us conquerors. We were, undeniably. Our sprawling dominion, twice the size of any other, our population a surging tide, yet, even with such vastness, order was a brutal fist. It was enforced, not maintained. And within that iron grip, a chilling truth echoed through the royal halls: 95% of us wouldn't see our thirtieth birthday. A macabre lottery, drawn by ambition, betrayal, and the relentless grind of war.
Caden. The name echoed in the hollow chambers of my mind, not with a roar, but a whisper, barely audible above the ringing in my ears. He was here somewhere, among these shattered forms. My closest aide, my shadow, my confidante. He had fallen in the final surge against Imperium Sagax, on this very western border that had consumed six months of our lives. But even as the memory of his quick wit and unwavering loyalty flickered, there was no welling of tears. No burning in my eyes. It wasn't a testament to my coldness, but to the sheer, crushing weight of repetition. Death was a constant, a dull ache that had long ago replaced the sharpness of grief. Caden's loss was another stone added to the cairn of my soul, each new addition dulling the edge of the one before.
The battle, if you could call it that – a relentless, brutal exchange of lives – was over. For now. "Ended" was a word for optimists, for those who hadn't seen the cycle repeat countless times. Imperium Sagax would lick its wounds, gather its strength, and return, a ravenous beast sniffing out weakness. But for me, for a brief, fleeting moment, my duty was done.
My body screamed for respite. Every muscle throbbed, every nerve shrieked in protest. The exhaustion was a tangible weight, pressing down on me, threatening to buckle my knees. I moved on instinct, one foot after the other, a ghost drifting through a charnel house.
"Prince Asher!"
Alaina's voice, surprisingly clear, cut through the oppressive silence. She reached me, her brow furrowed with concern, her movements swift and practiced. She tried to halt my progress, a futile gesture. I couldn't stop. Not yet. There was nowhere to stop, nowhere to rest, not truly. As I continued my slow, grim march, I felt the familiar warmth spread across my skin, the gentle tingle of healing magic. She was mending the wounds, the visible ones at least. But what about the others? The invisible gashes on the soul, the silent screams of the spirit? Those, not even Alaina's potent magic could touch.
Alaina's touch was a phantom warmth, a whisper against the cold embrace of the battlefield. It wasn't enough. Nothing was. We walked, or rather, I stumbled, and she glided beside me, her light footsteps a stark contrast to the heavy thud of my own boots on shattered earth. The sun, a blood orange orb sinking below the horizon, cast long, distorted shadows that danced like vengeful spirits among the fallen. Each shadow, a momentary illusion of a figure standing, only to dissolve into the macabre reality of a corpse.
"Prince Asher," Alaina began, her voice soft, yet laced with an undeniable steel, "we need to return to the temporary command post. Your injuries…"
"Are superficial," I cut her off, my voice a gravelly rasp. The taste of dust and copper clung to my tongue. "They always are." It was true. I was rarely gravely wounded. A lifetime of combat, a ruthless education in self-preservation, had honed my instincts to a razor's edge. I dodged, I parried, I anticipated. But the smaller cuts, the bruises, the bone-deep fatigue – those were a constant, a dull hum beneath the surface of my existence.
She sighed, a sound of gentle exasperation. "Even superficial wounds fester, Prince. And the exhaustion… you've been on your feet for seventy-two hours straight, leading the final push."
Seventy-two hours. It felt like seventy-two years. Each hour a century of screams, of clashing steel, of the sickening thud of bodies hitting the ground. I remembered the final moments, the desperate charge against the Sagaxian lines. Caden had been right beside me, his shield arm raised, his blade a blur. Then, a roar, a surge of enemy soldiers, and he was gone, swallowed by the chaos. I hadn't even seen him fall. Just a momentary blank space where he had been, and then the next enemy was upon me.
"It matters little now," I mumbled, more to myself than to her. "The line held. For now."
Alaina's hand reached out, not to heal, but to steady me as I swayed. Her touch, usually so composed, held a tremor I hadn't noticed before. "It matters, Prince. To the men, to the Empire, that you recover. That you lead us again when the time comes."
Lead them again. The words were a heavy shroud, stifling the last vestiges of air from my lungs. Every battle was a drain, not just on my physical reserves, but on something deeper, something vital. A piece of me chipped away with each fallen soldier, each strategic retreat, each brutal victory.
We reached the edge of the battlefield, where the chaos slowly gave way to the organized disarray of the temporary encampment. Tents, hastily erected, dotted the landscape. Fires flickered, casting flickering shadows that mimicked the macabre dance I'd just witnessed. The air here was still thick with the stench of blood and sweat, but underlying it was the faint aroma of cooked rations, a stark reminder that life, however brutal, persisted.
As we approached, a few soldiers looked up, their faces grimy and etched with fatigue. A few offered tired salutes. Their eyes, though weary, held a strange mixture of awe and pity. They saw the Prince, the victorious general, but they also saw the man who walked among the dead, untouched by tears.
Alaina led me towards a larger tent, designated as the command post. The flap was pulled back, revealing a dim interior lit by a flickering oil lamp. Inside, a few grim-faced officers were poring over maps, their voices low and strained.
"Prince Asher!" General Valerius, a man whose grizzled beard and scarred face spoke of decades of conflict, rose immediately. His eyes, usually sharp and calculating, held a rare glimmer of concern. "You're back. Good. We were… concerned."
Concerned. A polite euphemism for expecting me to be another casualty on the field.
I merely nodded, the effort of forming words too great. Alaina, sensing my exhaustion, stepped forward. "He needs rest, General. And proper treatment."
Valerius's gaze softened slightly as he looked at me, truly looked at me. He had seen too many battles, too many princes. He knew the cost. "Of course, Alaina. Get him settled. I'll send for the healers."
As Alaina guided me to a cot in a secluded corner of the tent, the murmur of the officers' voices faded into a dull drone. I sank onto the rough canvas, the sudden cessation of movement jarring. My vision swam. The world tilted.
Just as my eyelids began to droop, a faint rustle caught my attention. Lying on the small, makeshift table beside the cot was a single, crumpled piece of parchment. It was a drawing, hastily sketched. A stick figure, undeniably me, holding a tiny, disproportionate sword. And beside it, another, slightly taller stick figure, holding a shield. Caden. Underneath, in a childish scrawl, were the words: "Prince Asher and Sir Caden, the bravest!" It was from a small village girl, one we had passed through on our march west, who had offered us a handful of wild berries and a shy smile. Caden had joked about framing it, his eyes twinkling.
A tremor, finally, went through me. Not from the cold, not from exhaustion, but from something deeper. A raw, piercing ache. He was gone. Truly gone. And for the first time in what felt like an eternity, as the faint scent of charcoal and dried blood filled my nostrils, a single, solitary tear traced a path through the grime on my cheek. It was cold. So cold. And it was not for the Empire, not for the victory, but for a simple stick figure drawing, and the man who would never joke about framing it again.
The night stretched on, a suffocating blanket woven from silence and the distant sounds of the camp. The tear, a single, defiant drop, had been a prelude. Now, they came in a silent deluge, hot and relentless. They tracked burning paths down my face, each one a memory unearthed, a shard of grief too long buried.
I lay there, on the rough cot, fully clothed, the acrid scent of the battlefield still clinging to me like a shroud. Alaina, bless her unwavering patience, had applied salves to the worst of my cuts, but she hadn't pressed me to remove my armor, sensing, perhaps, the fragile dam holding back the torrent within. She had simply dimmed the lamp, murmured a soft, "Rest, Prince," and left me to my darkness.
Rest. The word felt like a cruel joke. How could I rest when the faces of the fallen swam before my closed eyes? Not just Caden, but others. Gareth, who had always insisted on sharing his meager rations. Ava, the fierce archer who could hit a coin from a hundred paces. Even young Finn, barely out of his teens, who had boasted about seeing his first battle, only to become another statistic. They had all looked to me. I was their prince, their leader, their shield. And I had led them to this.
The Astrean Empire. A machine of conquest, fueled by blood and ambition. My blood, their ambition. We were born into this. From the moment we drew our first breath in the opulent, yet suffocating, halls of the Imperial Palace, our destinies were etched in iron. Train. Fight. Conquer. Die. Or, perhaps, worse, survive to fight another day, carrying the ghosts of those who didn't.
I thought of my father, the Emperor, a mountain of a man, whose eyes held the cold, calculating glint of a predator. He would expect a full report, a detailed account of the victory, of the enemy's losses, of our gains. He wouldn't ask about the cost in human lives, not truly. He would ask about strategic advantage, about resources expended. He wouldn't see the faces that haunted my dreams, only the numbers on a ledger.
And my siblings, my brothers and sisters vying for the throne, each one a viper in a silken robe. They would view this victory as a potential threat, another notch on my belt, another step closer to a claim they believed was theirs alone. I had survived this battle, but the war for power within the palace was a far more insidious beast, fought with whispers and poisoned chalices, not swords.
A shudder wracked my frame. The tears had stopped, leaving my face stiff and cold. The raw, open wound in my chest where Caden had been was still there, but now it was a dull ache, sinking deeper, becoming a permanent fixture. This was the cost of being an Astralborn. This was the price of survival. Every victory a funeral, every step forward a descent into a deeper pit of isolation.
I pushed myself up, my muscles protesting. The exhaustion was still there, a leaden weight, but the raw emotional storm had passed, leaving behind a chilling emptiness. I looked at the crumpled drawing again, its simple lines a stark reminder of a camaraderie that was now gone. I smoothed it out carefully, tucking it into a hidden pouch inside my tunic, over my heart.
The war on the western border was over for now. But the war within me, that had only just begun. I was Asher Astralborn, the Thirteenth Prince, a conqueror, a survivor. And I was utterly, irrevocably alone.
What do you think awaits Asher back in the Astrean capital after such a costly victory?