Chapter One: The Quiet Beyond
Kael had expected fire.
When his heart stopped, somewhere between the final scream of his warhorse and the plunge of the assassin's blade, he thought the afterlife would come as flame. A warrior's pyre. Smoke. Blood. A feast in the hall of champions.
Instead, he awoke to silence.
No wind. No sun. Just an endless, pale field under a sky that seemed made of ash. His body was whole, though he remembered the pain in his ribs and the blood in his mouth. He wore armor, but it bore no crest. His sword lay beside him, nameless.
He rose slowly, hands trembling.
"Another one wakes," came a voice—soft, distant.
He turned. A figure in a long gray cloak stood not far away, barefoot, pale-skinned, neither man nor woman. Eyes like pinpricks of white light.
"Where am I?" Kael asked.
"The Veil," said the figure. "Where the forgotten sleep. Where the remembered wander."
Kael spat, testing the taste of this place. It had none.
"Am I dead?"
"You are no longer alive."
"Then where is my reward? Where are the halls of my fathers? The women? The wine? The songs?"
The figure gave a sad smile. "Not every story ends where you think it should."
Another figure stirred in the distance. A woman, tall, with hair like fire and eyes like frost. She stepped toward them, bow slung across her back. She blinked once at Kael, then at the cloaked figure.
"Ilyra Windthorn," the figure intoned. "Huntress of the Northern Wilds. Slayer of the Sky-Tyrant. You are remembered."
Her voice was cold. "Not by the ones I needed."
Kael narrowed his eyes. "So this is it? Limbo? Purgatory?"
"No. This is the beginning."
The cloaked figure stepped aside, revealing something behind them—a dark gate, cracked and thrumming with pale blue light. Symbols moved across its surface like living ink.
"You have one final task," the figure said.
"And if we refuse?" Ilyra asked.
"Then your name will fade. And you will become one of them."
She turned. In the distance, shapes wandered the field—silent, shambling, blank-eyed.
"Souls who did nothing," said the figure. "Heroes who accepted death without question. Forgotten by the world, and by themselves."
Kael picked up his sword. It felt lighter than he remembered.
"Fine," he growled. "One more war."