CHAPTER 1: THE FIRST LIE
The storm smelled like burning metal and rotting fruit.
Kael pressed his forehead against the cracked altar stone, his arms locked around his sister's trembling body. The world screamed above them—not the cry of wind or thunder, but the wet, guttural shriek of something that had never been meant to die. The blood-tide hit the village like a hammer of meat, crushing homes into splinters, turning streets into rivers of thick, shimmering crimson.
Liss squirmed in his grip. "Kael, let me see—"
"Don't look." His voice cracked like the sky above them.
She looked.
And she laughed.
It wasn't a child's laugh. It was too sharp, too knowing, the sound of someone who had just discovered a wonderful, terrible secret. Kael turned his head and saw what she saw—the dying Sovereign, its mountainous body unraveling into ropes of blackened flesh, its blood painting the clouds in long, weeping streaks. The air itself pulsed, the light bending unnaturally around the creature's death throes, as if reality couldn't quite accept what was happening.
Then the blood reached them.
It wasn't like water. It moved like oil, thick and deliberate, curling around their ankles before soaking into their skin. Liss gasped, her small fingers digging into Kael's wrist hard enough to bruise. Her pupils dilated, swallowing the blue of her irises whole.
"Pretty," she whispered.
Kael didn't have time to answer.
A shadow blotted out the storm.
The man landed in front of them with the weight of a falling star, his boots sinking into the blood-soaked earth. His cloak billowed, not from wind, but from something worse—the storm itself seemed to twist away from him, repelled by his presence. Kael had never seen a Ringbearer before, but he knew, instinctively, what stood before them.
Eryndor Veyl.
The Arbiter of the Five Kingdoms.
The man who had killed gods.
His face was a mask of grim focus, his eyes scanning Liss with the detached efficiency of a butcher sizing up livestock. Then, without a word, he reached down and grabbed her by the hair, lifting her off the ground like she weighed nothing.
Kael moved before he could think.
He lunged, fingers outstretched, a scream ripping from his throat—
Eryndor backhanded him without even looking.
The world went white.
Kael hit the ground hard, his vision swimming, his mouth full of the taste of iron and salt. He blinked, dazed, just in time to see the knife.
It was a simple thing. Unadorned. A tool, not a weapon.
Liss didn't struggle. She hung limp in Eryndor's grip, her legs swaying gently, her eyes still wide with that awful, knowing delight.
Then the blade opened her throat.
Kael didn't hear the sound it made. He didn't hear anything. The world had gone silent, the storm muted, as if the air itself had been sucked away. He watched, numb, as his sister's blood—dark, too dark—spilled over Eryndor's fingers, dripping onto the ruined earth.
The Arbiter let her drop.
She landed in a heap, her small body folding in on itself, her hair fanning out in the muck.
Kael didn't move. Didn't breathe.
Eryndor wiped his blade clean on his cloak, his expression unreadable. Then he turned, his gaze flicking over Kael like he was nothing more than another piece of rubble.
"Run home, boy," he said, his voice flat. "If it still stands."
And then he was gone, swallowed by the storm as quickly as he had come.
Kael stayed where he was.
The wind howled, carrying with it the stench of blood and ozone, the whispers of something that wasn't quite a voice.
*You mistake the weapon for the hand that wields it.*
Kael ignored it.
Slowly, mechanically, he crawled to his sister's body. Her eyes were still open, her lips parted like she had been about to speak. He touched her cheek, his fingers leaving smears of red across her pale skin.
Then he leaned down and pressed his mouth to the wound in her throat.
The blood was warm.
It tasted like salt.
Like lightning.
Like a promise.
He swallowed.
And somewhere, deep beneath his ribs, something *stirred*.