The news from Silvermere did not travel to Vairogs on perfumed parchment. It came on the wind that whipped through the shattered keeps and across the blood-soaked fields of the Blackstone foothills. It was carried in the grim silence of soldiers too tired to celebrate a victory that felt like just a pause between horrors, and in the bitter curses of farmers who had lost everything to the scorched-earth tactics of the retreating demons.
In the stronghold of Vairogs, a fortress of grim, smoke-blackened granite that seemed less built and more hewn from the very mountains it guarded, the air was thick with the smells of forge-fire, boiled leather, and unwashed desperation. This was not the calculated power of Zelts; this was a raw, frayed nerve at the edge of the abyss.
Lord Hakan, a man whose body was a map of his people's suffering, received the news not in a sunlit solar, but on a windswept battlement. His frame was massive, a bear of a man clad in scarred plate armour over worn furs. His face was a mask of grim endurance, with a beard matted by the elements and eyes that held the permanent, cold fire of a man who has stared into the darkness for too long. A messenger, caked in the dust of the hard ride from the capital, stood before him, delivering the words that turned the cold fire in Hakan's eyes into a blaze of pure, undiluted fury.
"Asel… is with child. The King's child."
The silence that followed was broken only by the distant, mournful cry of a carrion bird. The men around Hakan—his captains, their faces hard and lined—exchanged glances. This was not the news they needed. This was a political complication in a time that demanded simple, brutal survival.
Hakan's fist, encased in a steel gauntlet, slammed against the merlon of the battlement. Chips of ancient stone flew. "One month!" he roared, his voice echoing over the desolate landscape below. "One month after that golden bitch from Zelts, and now my daughter shares the same… honour?" He spat the word like a curse. "This is no blessing. This is the King's weakness! He plays us all against each other while our sons die holding his border!"
He turned, his gaze sweeping over his land—or what was left of it. The once-lush valleys of Vairogs were now a scarred wasteland of burned villages and abandoned farms, the advance posts of a kingdom slowly being eaten alive. They had borne the brunt. They had bled the most. Their lands were the buffer upon which the survival of the softer, richer south depended. And for what? To watch Lord Theron Goldwyne, safe behind his coffers and fertile plains, buy his way to the throne without swinging a single sword?
"Zelts sends us gifts," Hakan snarled, his voice dropping to a venomous whisper. "Bribes. They polish their gold while we wallow in the mud and blood of their protection. They think their wealth can crown a king. They think a pregnant girl is a victory." A harsh, mirthless laugh escaped him. "We shall see what constitutes a victory."
He stormed back into the keep, his captains following in his wake. The great hall was a functional, bleak place, its walls hung with captured demon talismans and battered shields, a testament to a never-ending war.
"He seeks to balance the scales," one of his older captains, Borin, ventured cautiously. "The King is wary of giving Zelts too much power. Asel's pregnancy is his answer. He uses our pride as a counterweight to their gold."
Hakan slumped into his high seat, a throne of oak and iron, and wiped a hand across his brow. "He plays a dangerous game. We are not a counterweight, Borin. We are the anvil upon which this kingdom will be broken or reforged. He gives Theron a son, and he gives me a… a token. A consolation prize." His eyes narrowed. "But a child of Vairogs blood is no token. It is a claim. A stronger claim than any gilded prince from the soft south. What king will Westerol need? A coin-counter? Or a warrior?"
A plan, brutal and direct, began to form in his mind. The King wanted balance? He would have it. He would have such a balance that the entire court would tremble.
"Send a message back to Silvermere," Hakan commanded, his voice now cold and precise, all the rage forged into a weapon. "Tell my daughter she has made her father and her people proud. Tell the King that House Vairogs rejoices at the news. And tell him that to ensure the safety of his unborn child—my grandchild—I am dispatching a personal contingent of my own household guard to Silvermere. The finest warriors from the front lines. To protect both royal mothers-to-be. After all," he added, a grim smile touching his lips, "in these troubled times, can one ever be too careful?"
The message was a threat wrapped in courtesy. It placed his own men inside the royal court, a constant, armed reminder of his influence and his stake in the game. It signaled to Theron that he would not be bullied by wealth. And it told the King, in no uncertain terms, that Vairogs would not be pacified with a mere gesture.
The game had changed. The shadow of the demons looming over the kingdom was now matched by the shadow of a brewing civil war within its heart. Two children, unborn, were now the most powerful—and dangerous—pieces on the board. The hope of a saviour was now tangled with the seeds of a conflict that could tear Westerol apart before the demons even got the chance.