The throne room of Greywick was never meant for kings.
It was a hall cobbled together from what had once been the guild chamber of a smuggling syndicate. Its walls were patched with scavenged banners, and the cracked stone was repaired with crude mortar. Torches guttered in their brackets, their smoke curling up into rafters where shadows lingered, thick as tar. The seat Blaze had claimed—the so-called Blood Throne—was nothing but a reinforced chair draped in black cloth and beast hide. Yet the air around it carried a palpable weight. Anyone who stepped inside understood without being told: this was where power sat.
Blaze leaned back into the chair, his crimson eyes catching the firelight. The chamber was empty save for two presences lingering at the edges. Garrick, his broad-shouldered second spawn, leaned against a pillar, arms folded across his chest, the very image of coiled violence. Asha, wolf-blooded and watchful, crouched on the high beams above, her yellow eyes glinting faintly in the dark. They said nothing. They didn't need to.
The silence was a balm, a stillness in which Blaze could breathe—until the ring stirred.
They scorned you, came the whisper, curling through his mind like smoke seeping under a door. They laughed when the gods turned their faces away.
Blaze's jaw tightened. He hadn't summoned the memory, but it rose anyway, vivid and sharp, as if it had happened just yesterday.
He was back in that throne room in the Empire—marble floors polished to a mirror sheen, banners of gold and white draped from the vaulted ceilings. His classmates stood in a line beside him, their faces alight with excitement and awe as they awakened their gifts one by one.
A girl he had once studied beside in high school—Hana, quiet, mousy, always sketching in the margins of her notebook—gasped as wings of radiant light sprouted from her back. The court erupted in applause.
Marcus, brash and loud, who had always played the part of class clown, now held a gleaming warhammer conjured from pure flame. The nobles whispered of divine blessing.
Even timid Isolde, who had cried during presentations, now commanded blades of silver light that hovered at her shoulders like angelic guardians.
One by one they awakened, their faces lit with awe and smugness, their voices lifting in celebration.
And then—him.
Blaze remembered stepping forward, his heart pounding, waiting for something—anything—to stir within him. The priests intoned the rites, the summoning circle glowed. The Emperor himself leaned forward expectantly.
Nothing happened.
No light. No weapon. No blessing.
Nothing.
The silence in that hall had been heavier than any jeer. And then came the whispers.
"Is it broken?"
"No… no, the gods have rejected him."
The priests had declared it with cold finality: "This one was not chosen."
He had stood there, frozen, every muscle in his body screaming to move, to fight, to scream. But he had done nothing. He had only clenched his fists until his nails bit into his palms. And then the laughter had begun.
Marcus's smirk. Elias's narrowed, smug eyes. Even Hana, who had always been so soft-spoken, had turned her gaze away, unwilling to meet his. That betrayal had cut deeper than the laughter.
The memory flickered, but Blaze clung to it, feeding on it like a flame to dry kindling.
In the present, his hands gripped the armrests of his throne. The wood creaked under his fingers.
From above, Asha's voice broke the silence, quiet, uncertain. "The ring speaks again?"
Blaze didn't answer immediately. His crimson eyes narrowed, the images still burning behind them. He could hear Marcus's booming laugh, feel the Emperor's disdainful gaze, smell the choking sweetness of the incense in that holy chamber.
"Yes," he said finally, his voice low, rougher than usual. "It reminds me of things I don't need reminding of."
Garrick shifted against the pillar, snorting. "If they wronged you, then why not simply kill them when the chance comes? Dwelling on the past is for weak men."
Blaze's gaze flicked to him—and Garrick lowered his eyes first. The silence stretched until the spawn looked away entirely, cowed.
Asha dropped lightly from the beams, landing in a crouch near the steps of the throne. Her wolfish ears twitched, and her tail swayed lazily. "The past is why he is what he is," she murmured, almost to herself. "To forget it would be weakness. To remember is to sharpen the blade."
Blaze said nothing. His eyes unfocused, the hall dissolving again into memory.
He remembered the look Elias had given him that day—Elias, golden boy of their class, always first in sports, first in charm, first in leadership. The Church had all but declared him their new champion. Elias had turned to Blaze with that smug pity, the kind that burned worse than outright mockery.
"You don't belong here, Blaze," Elias had said. Quiet, so that only Blaze could hear. "You never did."
The words still echoed, even now. Blaze's lips parted in a whisper, more to himself than to his followers. "And yet… here I am."
The ring pulsed once on his finger, a faint warmth seeping into his skin, feeding on his anger.
They will kneel, it whispered. Each one. Their blood will be yours, and their light will drown in your shadow.
Blaze leaned back slowly, his grip loosening on the throne. He forced his breathing steady. The memories still clung to him, sharp as glass shards, but he wore them now like armor.
Garrick, unsettled, shifted his stance again, but did not speak. Asha watched Blaze with a steady gaze, as though weighing the strength of his silence.
Finally, Blaze closed his eyes, speaking into the dark. "They think me weak. They think me forgotten. Let them come."
When he opened his eyes, the torchlight caught the crimson glow within, burning cold and steady.
The message came on a wind that smelled faintly of metal and dust. A scout slipped into Greywick before dawn, cloaked and his eyes too wide for someone who'd just seen a battlefield. He found Ledo first, then Garrick, then Asha—and finally, he was brought before the throne where Blaze sat as if the night itself had placed him there.
"Master." The scout's voice cracked. He sank to his knees without being told, his breath fogging in the chill. "They march. The Heroes of the Light—Elias leads them. They passed the ford before dusk. Hundreds—no, thousands in retinue. Paladins, priests, banners. The Church has thrown their weight."
A hush fell in the chamber. Even the rats in the corners of the hall stilled, as though listening.
Blaze's hand tightened around the armrest. The ring at his finger pulsed faintly, a tiny, dangerous heartbeat against his skin. The voice in its depths rose like a tide, warm and hungry. Come. Bring them. Drink them. Let the gods' blood wash your hands and crown you.
Blaze's jaw worked. He let the urge run through him like a fever and, with a slow, deliberate motion, clamped it down. He inhaled once, deep and cold, then lifted his head. His crimson eyes softened into that mask of patient cruelty he'd worn so well.
"Let them march," he said, his voice low and steady. "Let them think they come to destroy me. Let them sing and pray and polish their blades. Pride is a fine cloak until someone knows how to pull at the seams."
Around him, the court reacted the way creatures do when they sense a storm: Kael's fangs flashed in a predatory grin; Garrick's knuckles whitened on the haft of his spare axe; Asha's ears flattened, not in fear but in the anticipation of the hunt. Ledo swallowed hard, sweat beading on his brow. Seren only watched, unreadable, the faintest idea of a smile barely tugging at one corner of her mouth.
Armand—who had not feigned blood-bond but had his hands deep in the town's lawful racket—stepped forward, his voice tight with a mixture of calculation and fear. "This is dangerous. If the Empire's champions come, they will not be content with raids. They will raze Greywick. They will burn us out of existence."
Blaze considered him for a long moment. The ring's whisper grazed his mind again, urging the decisive cruelty. Strike them now. Take their headstones. Drink leadership from their mouths.
But Blaze's reply was colder, more precise. "Armand, do you still see Greywick as your ledger and coin? Or do you finally see it as my nest?" He let the question hang like a noose. "If the Empire scours these streets, you will have nothing to launder. Patience buys us more than bloodlust tonight."
Armand's shoulders sagged a fraction before he bowed. "As you command, Lord."
Asha crept forward, her gaze intense. "Let them get close enough for doubt to settle in their bones," she said. "Heroes walking in the sun become careless. They will sleep with their weapons polished and their guards staggered with pride. That is when we take them—one negligent prayer at a time."
Garrick spat. "Or we lick our wounds and let them march unopposed? Let our brood be butchered because you like a game?" The mercenary's temper flared, raw and impatient. "We fought beside you when the Church first burned. We drank their blood. We earned our right to strike!"
"You earned much," Blaze said flatly. "But right now, the cost of the first violent strike is too high. You saw tonight—the Dawnbreaker. He nearly took Kael. A thousand paladins with conviction behind them and the Empire's banners could suffocate us in stone and flame."
Garrick's anger dimmed into something like calculation. He nodded stiffly. "Then we wait. We strike where they are weak."
"Exactly." Blaze's smile was small, but it carried a razor's promise. "We will not outfight them in broad daylight. We will outthink them, outlast them, and carve their pride into trophies." He rose, the shadow at his heels unfurling like a cloak. "Let them march beneath sunlit banners. Let them boast of their righteous march. They will come closer than they imagine."
Seren's voice was a soft exhale from the darkness. "They will bring scouts, men of cunning. We will catch them before they gossip the truth."
Blaze nodded to her. "Set your nets." He turned, looking at each of them in turn. "Garrick, keep our muscle ready but hidden. Kael, you and Asha handle the feral measures—packs, ambushes, terror by night. Ledo, double the street watch; find those who would sell us out and remind them of their place. Armand, keep trade moving while keeping eyes on the empire lines. Seren, you and your blades will move like rumor."
The lieutenants murmured assent, some with eagerness, others with a cold, professional quiet.
Blaze paused a heartbeat longer, then leaned forward. The ring burned bright for an instant, as though pleased that a hunt was at last being planned. He tasted the future like copper on his tongue, a promise of violence and remembrance.
"One of them," he said then, his voice low and personal, "will kneel for me. I won't be satisfied with ashes and bones. The look of broken pride is sweeter than the sharpest blade. Find their pride. Break it. Return that head to me."
Asha's eyes flashed. "Who do you want?" she asked.
Blaze considered, and the red glow in his irises seemed to flare as he said the name that had haunted him since the Empire. "Elias."
A dozen reactions unfolded like whispers in the dark: Garrick's jaw tightened; Ledo's face puckered with a new worry; Seren's posture didn't change, but her focus sharpened. Even Armand's eyes flicked, calculating the political cost.
"Elias," Blaze repeated, softer now. "Let him believe himself the blade the gods wield. We will prove to him that he was only a hand, and that a hand can be broken."
Outside, the first line of the heroes' march receded into the dim horizon: flags, trumpets, the arrogant shimmer of sunlight on polished steel. Inside, the spire hummed with plans, with shadows moving quietly to their appointed stations.
Blaze pressed his palms flat on the armrests and closed his eyes, listening to the chorus of his court move into motion like puppeteers tugging at strings. The ring thrummed one last sweet note, promise and demand braided together.
Come, it whispered. We will drink them to the bones.
Blaze let out a breath that sounded suspiciously like a laugh, low and cold. "Let them come," he said again. "And when they fall, they will kneel for what they once scorned."
The night outside answered him only with the soft scrape of wind over stone—and, somewhere beyond sight, the heroes continued marching, unaware that a shadow already waited in the path they chose.