Night weighed heavy over Grayfall. Clouds smothered the moon, leaving the village swallowed in shadow. Kael moved like a shade through the quiet lanes, past shuttered homes and empty fields, until the barn rose before him, half-collapsed, its timbers sagging with age.
The door groaned as he pushed it open. Dust stirred in the dark, thick enough to choke. His steps echoed on the wooden floor, and with every breath, he felt something pulling him deeper inside—an old whisper, half-remembered.
Behind a heap of straw, his hand found the chest.
It was old, older than the barn itself, its wood blackened, the iron lock scarred with age. Yet what froze him was the mark etched into its face: a rune, sharp and jagged, burned into memory. A sigil of power he had not seen since the height of his reign.
His breath slowed. His fingers, trembling, traced the air before the lock. He did not need to think; the pattern flowed from him as if his body remembered what his mind did not.
Lines of light bled into the dark, a faint rune scrawled in the emptiness.
The chest answered.
The lock shuddered. A low hum rolled through the barn as the lid split open, stale air escaping like a dying gasp.
Inside lay a single book. Black leather, cracked with age, its cover scarred as though it had survived fire. No title marked it. No crest. Only silence.
Kael reached for it. The moment his fingers brushed the cover, the air convulsed.
Power pressed down on him—cold, invisible, suffocating. The barn creaked, the beams shivered, straw scattered as though the walls themselves recoiled. A sphere unfolded around him, unseen yet undeniable, humming at the edge of his skin.
And Kael knew.
This was no child's relic. This was his throne in waiting. His crown made manifest.
The pulse of forgotten strength coursed through him, bitter and intoxicating. He had been beaten, betrayed, slaughtered. But the world had erred in letting him touch this power again.
Kael's lips curled, slow and merciless.
For the first time since his death, he felt whole.
****
AVow Beneath the Stars
The fields stretched wide and empty, their stalks of wheat swaying like whispers in the night. Kael stood alone at the center of it, the black book heavy in his grip, its leather cold as stone. Above, the sky burned with stars—sharp, distant, indifferent. They had looked down on him once before, when he was a king, and they had watched him die.
The night wind cut through his thin body, sharp enough to raise gooseflesh. He ignored it. The boy's frame felt fragile, but the will inside it was iron. He breathed in the dark and tasted earth, grass, and smoke drifting faintly from the village hearths. Such a small, pitiful place. Yet here, in this forgotten corner, his second life began.
His gaze fixed on the horizon, and when he spoke, his words came raw, torn from a throat too young for them.
"This world cast me aside once. It gave me a crown, then drowned me in blood. But it made one mistake."
He raised the book, pressing it against his chest, where his heart hammered hard.
"It let me return."
The sphere of unseen power pulsed around him, faint but real. It brushed his skin like the breath of some sleeping beast. The ground seemed to hush, the night itself bending to listen.
"I will not march with armies this time. Not yet. I will not bleed my strength dry on fools who cannot see beyond their own walls. I will build slower. Deeper. Stronger." His voice hardened, steady, every word an oath.
"And when I rise, no throne will topple me. No betrayal will undo me. Not ever again."
The wind surged, fierce enough to bend the wheat flat, as though the earth itself shuddered at his vow. The stars above glimmered with cold indifference, but Kael's gray eyes locked onto them as if daring the heavens to deny him.
His lips curled into the faintest smile—a grim, bitter thing.
"Watch me," he whispered.
"I'll break you again. And this time, I'll hold the pieces in my hand."
The sphere around him throbbed once more, steady as a heartbeat.
And in the treeline beyond the fields, the hooded figure lingered in silence. Professor Elion's eyes never left him. The old sorcerer had seen kingdoms rise and fall, but never had he seen a corpse walk again in borrowed flesh.
The Conqueror King had returned. And the night itself seemed to know it.