The city of Nahlveth, once a monument to unity forged in divine fire, now festered under a sky painted red with malice. Its spires, once tipped in stardust and crowned in light, had grown jagged—reshaped by hate and conquest. Crimson banners hung like skinned truths across walls of blackstone, each marked with the sigil of the Syre: a blade piercing a sun.
Within the heart of the Crimson Bastion, the Syre sat upon a throne built from the ossified bones of the First Conquerors.
His name was Valtheran Tahl, but none dared speak it now. To his legions, he was simply the Crimson Syre—a monarch of blood rites and silent genocides, a tyrant who thrived on the erasure of lineage.
He rose.
Robes of serrated silk rustled as he approached the central dais, where a map of the fractured realms burned with new light. Across its surface, sigils flickered—marks of old bloodlines, sovereign-descended families scattered across forgotten holds and forgotten names.
He extended a gloved hand. With one motion, seven sigils flared—and then extinguished.
Another family, another house of sacred blood, eradicated.
"They fall like embers in snow," he whispered to the empty hall.
From the shadows stepped his high inquisitor, draped in mirrored armor that reflected nothing but the void.
"The last of the house of Surneth has been buried beneath ash, my lord," she said. "The Voidblood twins died weeping."
Valtheran did not smile. He did not rejoice.
"Not enough," he growled. "He walks again. Althar. The world bends when he breathes. I must break every spine that might still carry his memory."
The inquisitor hesitated. "And if they turn to him once more?"
Valtheran turned his gaze on her.
Then he raised his hand—and reality within a five-foot radius shattered, the very rules of form and sound buckling beneath his will. The inquisitor collapsed, gasping as her lungs turned briefly into dust and flame.
"Then we burn everything," Valtheran said. "Until not even time remembers his name."
Outside, the people of Nahlveth chanted. Their voices had no joy. Only obedience.
Far away, atop the floating fortress of Vireth's Reach, Zeirion stood before a viewing crystal shimmering with red.
"Nahlveth moves against the bloodlines," Aralya said behind him, a tome floating beside her. "He's devoured seven ancestral houses in five days. He's building a ritual of erasure."
Zeirion's gaze darkened.
"The Crimson Syre," he said, "was once my blade-brother. In the old war, I gave him power. When I fell… he took more."
"Should I erase him?" Aralya asked, already conjuring a sigil that could pierce space itself.
"No," Zeirion said coldly. "He is mine. I will reclaim what I left behind."
In the prison-vaults below Vireth's Reach, an echo stirred.
Bound by chains forged from paradox, a voice whispered.
"So the sovereign hunts his fallen child."
It was a voice older than gods.
A prisoner even Zeirion had once feared.
And it laughed.