The sky above the capital of the Imperium was a deep iron gray, streaked with the crimson glow of orbital beacons that hung like silent wardens in the heavens. From the towering spires of black stone and steel, banners of the Crimson Imperium stretched down like rivers of blood caught in a perpetual wind.
Each banner bore the emblem every soul on Earth knew: a downward-pointing sword, sharp and unyielding, set against the burning circle of a crimson sun. The commoners looked upon it and felt safety. The enemies of mankind saw it in their nightmares, etched upon the horizon in fire.
And now, as Nael Caelum Crimson stood at the gates of the Imperial Academy of Execution, that emblem looked down on him as both heritage and burden.
The Academy loomed before him like a fortress carved from the bones of titans. Its walls were blacker than night, tall enough to scrape the ashen heavens, their peaks crowned with jagged spikes and crimson standards. Watchtowers lined its perimeter, each manned by sentinels in obsidian armor, their visors glowing with the faint light of ocular implants. Between the towers stood colossal gates, engraved with a thousand names — graduates who had ascended to the rank of Executioner and marched out into the stars to paint galaxies crimson.
Nael's heart pounded, but not with the uncertainty of youth. He was no boy trembling before his first test. He was a man of forty-seven years who had walked this path before. A man who had conquered the galaxy's deadliest foes, only to watch everything burn in betrayal. His body might be fourteen again, his frame yet untempered by time, but his mind carried the scars of another lifetime.
This time, he would not falter.This time, he would shape the galaxy to his will.
The thunder of the gates shook the ground beneath his boots. A regiment of new cadets, boys and girls from across the Imperium, surged into the courtyard. Some marched stiffly, already drilled into discipline. Others shuffled nervously, their eyes wide at the immensity of it all. But whether noble-born or commoner, all were bound by the same destiny — here, they would be stripped of weakness, reforged, and released as Executioners.
The air itself seemed to vibrate with expectation, heavy with the scent of steel, oil, and ozone.
At the courtyard's heart, a figure stood waiting. Tall, broad-shouldered, his presence filled the space like a storm rolling across a battlefield. High Commander Severian Crimson, uncle to Nael, enforcer of the Imperium, and master of the Academy. His armor was a relic and a terror — black steel traced with crimson etchings, its plates scarred by wars uncounted. Over his chest, stitched upon the thick black fabric beneath the plates, lay the sigil of their House.
Nael's gaze fixed on it instantly.
The Sigil of House Crimson was no mere emblem. It was a declaration. A sword pointing downward, its double edges engraved with runes of conquest, its crossguard shaped into sharp, predatory wings. Behind it burned a crimson sun, rimmed by a wreath of blades. The sword's tip pierced the circle, declaring that House Crimson's dominion was without boundary. From the rim bled faint strokes — droplets resembling blood cast outward, a silent promise of sacrifice and conquest eternal.
The cadets saw it as a symbol of power, a mark of the dynasty that ruled them. But Nael knew the deeper truth.
"By the blade we judge.By the blood we bind.From the crimson sun, none escape.We are the hand, we are the blade,We are House Crimson eternal."
The words whispered in the back of his mind, memories from a childhood in another lifetime. The secret creed of his bloodline, spoken not in public courts or shouted across battlefields, but in chambers dark and sacred. The Imperium's soldiers marched beneath banners of the Crimson Sun. But House Crimson carried this oath in silence, etched deeper than flesh.
Nael's jaw tightened. Once, those words had been a source of pride. Now, they were a vow. The galaxy had taken everything from him — his family, his world, his future. But reborn in this moment, standing before the gates of his destiny once more, he swore that this time he would turn those words into the chain that bound the galaxy beneath his heel.
Severian's voice crashed over the cadets like the crack of artillery.
"Cadets of the Imperium!" His words carried the weight of command, forged in decades of war. "You stand at the threshold of the crucible. From this day forth, you are not children. You are not sons or daughters. You are not noble nor commoner. You are nothing — until the Imperium makes you something."
The cadets stiffened, some swallowing hard, others clenching their fists.
"You will endure pain. You will endure hunger, exhaustion, despair. You will be broken and reforged. And those who fail will be cast aside. But those who rise…" Severian paused, his crimson eyes sweeping across the assembly. "…those who rise will be Executioners."
The word itself seemed to echo through the courtyard.
Not soldiers. Not warriors. Executioners.
They who drowned enemies in crimson without hesitation.They who turned slaughter into duty, annihilation into daily labor.They were not heroes. They were inevitability.
Severian raised his gauntleted fist high. "Repeat after me!"
A thousand voices answered, rising as one:
"From blood we rise! In blood we reign! For the Crimson Imperium!"
The shout thundered against the black walls, reverberating through the marrow of every cadet. Even the banners above seemed to ripple harder, as though the creed itself gave life to the wind.
Nael's voice joined theirs, sharp and unyielding. In his past life, he had shouted these words with the blind passion of youth. Now, he shouted them with a man's certainty, with the memory of everything they had cost. The oath no longer bound him. It armed him.
The drills began at once. Cadets were driven into formations, their boots pounding the black stone in unison. Barked orders rained down, and hesitation was punished with strikes from shock-staves that left arcs of lightning dancing across flesh. They were pushed to exhaustion before the day was half over, tested for discipline, endurance, and resolve. Some stumbled. A few vomited from the strain. None were shown mercy.
And always, Severian's gaze cut across them like a blade.
When the drills ended, the High Commander gathered them again.
"You will rise through ranks not by time, but by merit," Severian declared, pacing before them with measured steps. "The Academy does not coddle. The Academy does not wait. Those who prove themselves ascend. Those who falter remain behind, or perish."
He stopped, planting his boot hard upon the stone.
"There are four ranks you must know. Memorize them. Breathe them. They are the ladder you will climb, or the noose you will hang from."
His voice deepened.
"Initiates. The lowest. You are stripped of your old selves. You learn discipline, obedience, and endurance. Only when you shed weakness may you ascend."
"Strikers. The iron in the flame. You will command formations, march into live deployments, border skirmishes, even covert missions. You are no longer boys and girls — you are weapons sharpened on the whetstone of war."
"Harbingers. Those who rise higher still. You will not only fight but command. Strategy, assassination, sabotage, war games — you will wield minds as blades, and enemies will break before your foresight."
"Executioners." Severian's voice thundered like a war drum. "The apex. Few will reach this rank before four years are complete. Fewer still will reach it before their eighteenth year. But those who achieve it… graduate early, their names etched into the marble of our halls. They are unleashed upon the galaxy as the Imperium's hand of death."
He paused, letting the silence drag until it cut deep.
"Remember this — every child of the Crimson line has walked through these gates. Every heir must be tested in this crucible, for the Imperium does not hand power. It tempers it. At your eighteenth year, the trial begins. The War of Succession will decide who claims the throne."
The words fell like thunder. A ripple of awe and dread swept through the cadets.
Though the Crimson Imperator himself still reigned within the spire of the capital, his children and kin were bound to the Academy, bound to prove their worth or be cast aside. The Imperium had no patience for untested heirs. Power was earned here, or not at all.
Nael's fists clenched at his sides. He remembered this speech. He remembered the years of blood that followed. But this time, he would not climb slowly. He would tear his way to the top, faster, sharper, merciless. And when he stood at the peak, when his name was carved into black marble, he would carve something else into the galaxy itself: vengeance.
As the cadets were dismissed to their barracks, Nael lingered a moment longer, his gaze fixed upon Severian. Or rather, upon the sigil stitched across his chest.
"By the blade we judge…"
The words rang in his mind, not as the creed of a family but as the whisper of destiny.
"By the blood we bind."
This time, the blood would not be his family's.
"From the crimson sun, none escape."
No, not even the Galactic Council.
Nael's lips curved into the faintest shadow of a smile. This time, the galaxy would bleed crimson.
And from that river of blood, he would rise.