(As remembered by General Varkel of House Thryssa, five days before his death)
"Some warriors live through the battle. But none walk away untouched.
Some leave missing limbs. Others… missing parts of their mind."
— Last scribbled note from Varkel's prison cell, Bloodvault-13
I.
He was breathing.
That much, General Varkel knew. Or thought he knew. There was heat in his chest. His lungs stuttered like broken drums. His armor — still seared into his flesh — creaked as he rocked forward on the stone floor of the sanctum.
But the world did not sound right.
Nor smell right.
Nor… feel like it once had.
His senses had become unreliable. Time was… tilted. He kept tasting copper, even though his tongue was gone. He heard music that came from no direction. Once, his own name echoed in his ear — not shouted, but whispered inside his skull.
And he kept seeing him.
Not as a man.
Not as a warrior.
But as something walking through fire without purpose — without hesitation — like fire was his native tongue.
II.
They had told Varkel the Crimson Sigil was a rogue.
A false prophet. A pretender. A broken branch of a dying tree.
They had lied.
What walked through his army that day had not been a man at all. It had not fought.
It had moved.
It had looked.
And everything it looked at, it unmade.
He remembered screaming orders that never left his throat.
He remembered blood flying upward.
He remembered a soldier calling for his mother, and the voice that answered… wasn't hers.
III.
Now, days later, locked in a golden cage deep beneath Soltharyn — the last surviving general of House Thryssa — Varkel twitched and clawed at his face as unseen fingers danced across his memories.
The Embersong King had looked at him.
Just once.
Just once.
And something had followed him from that gaze. A presence. A thing with no eyes, but too many eyes. No voice, but the sound of knives being drawn underwater. Something that lived between seconds.
He woke from nightmares where his skin was reading itself like scripture.
He dreamed of a crown of bone forcing itself onto his skull.
He whispered things in his sleep — ancient names. Some older than flame.
IV.
On the fourth night, he stopped sleeping.
On the fifth, his eyes turned red.
Not bloodshot — glowing.
And when the priest-wardens came to silence his madness, he met them with a smile that didn't belong to him anymore.
"He's not a king," he said.
"He's the one who walks after kings are gone."
Then he vomited up a sigil.
A crimson fang. Still warm.
It was growing.
END INTERLUDE.
Next…
⚔️ Chapter VIII — The Golden City and the Godless Crown
The gates of Soltharyn stand tall. Its god still breathes. Its armies prepare.
But Reginal does not kneel. He claims.