The poison was not quick, but it was meticulous.
It extinguished life; it dismantled the architecture of the soul, burning Kaelen's immense magical core from the inside out.
Arch-Mage Kaelen, the Savior of the Azure Empire, the man who had personally driven the Dreadlord back into the Abyss, lay on the cold stone floor of the deepest dungeon, reduced to a trembling caricature of himself.
"Why, Elam?" His voice was a rasp, thick with the metallic taste of his own dissolving blood.
His oldest friend, Lord Elam, stood above him, the flickering torchlight catching the indifferent curve of his lips.
"It was necessary, Kaelen. Your power was... disruptive. The Empress seeks stability, not a lone, unreadable god on her doorstep. And your death secures me the Arch-Mage's title without having to do all the arduous study and research."
Betrayal, Kaelen reflected bitterly, was rarely about grand schemes; usually, it was just pathetic envy cloaked in political expediency.
He remembered the celebration two days ago.
Oh, the cheers, the feasting, the Empress's gracious toast to his victory. The wine, a rare vintage given only to heroes, was already doing its work.
The poison, a colorless alchemical agent, was designed to target and neutralize high concentrations of magic, turning Kaelen's greatest strength into a source of unending agony.
He felt the last vestiges of his Arch-Mage core shatter, releasing a shockwave of pain that should have killed him instantly. But Kaelen's will was forged in a thousand battles; his soul refused to accept oblivion.
He lunged, a desperate, clumsy effort to reach Elam, but the movement only caused fresh spasms. He collapsed, his vision fading to pinpricks of light.
This is it, then. Not a hero's pyre, but a dog's death.
The pinpricks vanished, leaving only an absolute, crushing void. He felt his consciousness begin to thin, stretching into a fading filament. The darkness was not silent; it was filled with the deafening roar of a thousand forgotten spells.
His last conscious thought was a promise, etched not in blood but in pure, raw spirit:
I will not forgive this.
If a second exists, I will reclaim what was lost.
Then, Kaelen ceased to be.
The first sensation of his return was pain. Not the refined, magical agony of the poison, but the raw, physical ache of a body that had been neglected, underfed, and recently flogged.
Kaelen—no, that name now belonged to a ghost of the past—gasped, sucking in air that smelled of damp mold, stale fear, and cheap, rough-spun fabric. He lay on a narrow cot in a small, miserable chamber. The room was sparse: one chipped basin, one wooden chair, and a single, shuttered window letting in slices of weak afternoon sun.
His eyes snapped open.
In the window's reflection, he could see that they were unfamiliar eyes, brown and dull, reflecting the rough ceiling beams. He instinctively sought his magical core, the massive, churning engine of mana he had spent centuries cultivating.
It was gone.
A sickening emptiness resided where his power should have been. The residual magic of the planet flowed past him, deafeningly loud, yet he could not touch a single thread of it. He was a statue in a waterfall, untouchable by the tide.
He tried to sit up. His muscles protested, weak and thin. The body was slight, almost boyish, and utterly useless. A sudden, dizzying influx of fragmented memories, none of them his, slammed into his mind, causing him to clutch his temples.
My name is Alaric... Prince Alaric. Sixth son of Emperor Valerius. The Magically Crippled.
The Failure.
The title, "Prince," was a mockery. The memories confirmed he was in the capital, but not in the palace proper.
He was in the servants' wing, scheduled for an immediate, strategic exile.
He stumbled off the cot, catching his reflection in the dusty, cracked looking glass. His new face was unfamiliar, possessing the proud, aristocratic angles of the Imperial line, defined by a shock of ash-blond hair, but marred by a nervous twitch and eyes that were perpetually wide with anxiety.
He looked barely twenty-some years old. Kaelen had been a man of fifty-five, hardened by war and magical discipline.
Ten years. The Arch-Mage's spirit calculated the time using the historical markers from Alaric's useless memory.
He had been reborn ten years before the Dreadlord's predicted second campaign. Ten years before the Empress's poisonous schemes reached their zenith. Ten years before the final destruction of the Empire he had died to save.
When he died, there had been a dozen years left until the predicted return of the Dreadlord. He had been reborn two years after his death, then…
Nonetheless, he still had time, but he had no strength, no influence, and no friends.
His enemies were still in power, and the entire continent was marching toward the same inevitable catastrophe.
A knock came at the door, sharp and demanding.
"Prince Alaric! The carriage to Stonehaven is prepared. Do not tarry, or the Empress will be displeased."
Stonehaven. The crumbling fortress near the northern border… it was a monstrous, dilapidated barracks considered a grave, not a garrison. It was where the Imperial family sent sons they wished to forget, a place infested with low-grade monsters and plagued by eternal frost.
They want me to freeze or be eaten. They don't want the body back.
A flicker of the old Kaelen, the cold, strategic mind that governed armies, returned. This was not a death sentence; it was an opportunity.
An exile meant freedom from the watchful, envious eyes of the Imperial court.
Stonehaven, remote and ruined, was for others a death sentence, for him the perfect place to hide.
He searched the room and found a single, worn leather satchel. Inside, a meager purse of coins and a small, tarnished silver signet ring. The only inheritance of the sixth son.
As he closed his hand around the ring, a forgotten theory from his Arch-Mage days surfaced with startling clarity. It was a fragment of forbidden knowledge, detailing the process of forcibly integrating the shattered consciousness of a powerful entity into a bloodline-compatible host. It was a dark, dangerous path known as Draconic Blood Magic, a legend whispered only among the most ancient families.
The key was lineage and pain.
Prince Alaric possessed the pure Imperial bloodline, a direct descendant of the founding Dragon Kings. And Kaelen's current pain, the raw, lingering trauma of his soul's recent poisoning and rebirth, was the necessary fuel.
The path would be agonizing. It would take years. It might kill this fragile body before yielding any power. But it was a path outside the established Imperial magical system, a power that even the Empress and her court would not anticipate.
It was the only way to resurrect his former might.
Kaelen straightened his spine, ignoring the dull, constant ache in his ribs. He adopted the arrogant, slightly vacant expression the memories suggested Prince Alaric usually wore.
I am Kaelen of the Shadowed Peak, reborn as Alaric, the Forsaken Prince. The Empress has given me the perfect shadow to work from.
He walked to the window, threw open the shutters, and surveyed the sprawling, deceitful expanse of the capital city.
You killed me once. This time, I won't just defeat the Dreadlord. I'll unmake the foundations of the power structure that allowed your betrayal.
The Arch-Mage's eyes, now trapped in the dull brown of the prince, glinted with the terrifying resolve of a creature given a second chance—a dragon preparing for its second ascent. He had nothing left to lose, and a world to save.
He picked up the satchel and opened the door, stepping out into the cold, damp corridor to face his new life, a life built on vengeance and a dangerous, forbidden magic.
"Stonehaven," he murmured, the name sounding like a grim promise. "Let the rebuilding begin."