The resistance camp looked like it had grown from the mountain itself.
Kael stood at the edge of a pine forest, staring down at the collection of stone structures built into the cliffside. They were cunningly concealed, nearly invisible against the grey rock, and would have been impossible to find without the mark on his wrist burning like a compass pointing true north.
He'd been traveling for three days since the old woman's sacrifice, following the path his grandmother's book had outlined. The journal contained more than just history—it held maps, coded messages, and instructions for reaching the hidden strongholds where loyalists had fled after the fall. Places where the survivors of Aethermoor's destruction had been waiting, preparing, hoping against hope that one day their rightful heir would return.
Kael wasn't sure he was what they'd been hoping for.
"Don't move," a voice said from behind him, cold and precise. "And keep your hands where I can see them."
Kael froze, cursing himself for not sensing the approach. The journey had exhausted him more than he'd realized, dulling his newfound instincts. He raised his hands slowly, palm out.
"I'm not your enemy," he said carefully. "I'm looking for the camp. I'm—"
"I know who you are." The voice moved around to his left, revealing a woman perhaps a decade older than Kael, with auburn hair bound back in a warrior's braid and a crossbow aimed at his chest. Her eyes were the color of storm clouds, hard and assessing. "The real question is what you think you're doing here."
"I was told there were survivors. People who could help me understand what I am."
"Help you?" The woman's laugh was bitter. "Is that what the old witch told you before she died? That we'd welcome you with open arms and teach you to play at being king?"
The casual mention of the old woman's death made Kael's throat tight. "She gave her life to save mine. To give me time to reach you."
"Elyssa always was sentimental." The woman lowered her crossbow slightly, though her expression remained guarded. "She was also a fool if she thought bringing you here would change anything. The war is over, boy. We lost. What's left of us is just waiting to die with some dignity intact."
"Then why are you still here?" Kael challenged. "Why build a camp, train soldiers, maintain defenses if you've already given up?"
Something flickered across the woman's face—pain, or perhaps the ghost of old hope. "Because we made a promise. To your grandmother, to everyone who died in the fall. That if—when—the bloodline returned, we would be ready. But promises are easy to make when you think they'll never have to be kept."
She studied him for a long moment, her gaze taking in his travel-stained clothes, his exhausted posture, the white-knuckled grip he maintained on his composure. Whatever she saw must have satisfied some internal test, because she finally lowered the crossbow completely and sighed.
"My name is Lyra. I'm captain of what remains of the Aethermoor Royal Guard. Or I was, twenty years ago, before I was old enough to grow breasts and naive enough to think loyalty meant something." She gestured toward the hidden camp below. "Come on, then. If you've come this far, you might as well meet the others and see what your birthright has cost them."
Kael followed her down a narrow trail that switchbacked between boulders and scraggly pines. As they descended, the camp revealed itself in greater detail—not just stone buildings, but training yards, gardens carved into terraces, even a small forge whose chimney was designed to disperse smoke so it looked like natural mist.
"How many are you?" Kael asked.
"Seventy-three souls. Last count. We were twice that five years ago, but age and disease take their toll, and Malkor's hunters occasionally get lucky." Lyra's voice was matter-of-fact, but Kael heard the weight of loss behind her words. "Most of us were children during the fall. The adults who survived the initial purge didn't last long afterward. We're what's left—orphans, outcasts, and the desperately stubborn."
They reached the camp proper, and Kael felt dozens of eyes tracking his movement. Training stopped mid-exercise. Conversations died. An old man repairing armor let his hammer slip from nerveless fingers, the clang of metal on stone unnaturally loud in the sudden silence.
"Is it really...?" someone whispered.
"The mark," another voice breathed. "Look at his wrist."
Kael resisted the urge to hide the silver crown that had begun glowing beneath his sleeve. These people had spent twenty years waiting for this moment, and he owed them the truth, however inadequate he might be to fulfill it.
Lyra led him to the largest of the stone buildings, its entrance marked by ancient symbols that made the power in Kael's blood resonate painfully. Inside, a handful of older survivors sat around a rough-hewn table, their faces carved by years of hardship into masks of weathered determination.
"The heir has come," Lyra announced, her voice flat. "Elyssa's last gift to us all."
The oldest of them, a white-haired man with burn scars covering half his face, stood slowly. His eyes—one blue, one milky white—fixed on Kael with an intensity that made him want to step back.
"Show me the mark," the old man commanded.
Kael pulled back his sleeve, revealing the silver crown in full. The old man approached, reaching out with a trembling hand to touch the mark. The moment his fingers made contact, light erupted between them—silver flames meeting silver flames, recognition and resonance.
Tears began streaming down the old man's scarred face. "Merciful gods. It's real. He's real."
"Commander Theron," Lyra said softly. "Are you certain?"
"I would know this magic anywhere, child. I bore a mark like this once, before..." Theron's hand moved to his scarred face, and Kael understood. He'd been part of the Royal Guard, marked with magic to serve the crown. When Aethermoor fell, that magic had been torn from him, leaving scars that would never heal.
"Then he's truly the heir," another council member said, a woman with grey-streaked black hair and archer's calluses on her fingers. "After all these years."
"The heir, yes. But that doesn't make him a king." Theron released Kael's wrist and stepped back, his expression hardening. "Tell me, boy. Do you know what it means to rule? Do you understand the weight of every decision, every command that sends good people to their deaths? Do you grasp the terrible responsibility of an entire kingdom's hope resting on your shoulders?"
Kael met his gaze steadily. "No. I don't. Three days ago I was a farmer. I've never led anyone, never commanded an army, never made a decision more important than which field to plant. I don't know how to be a king, and I won't pretend otherwise."
The honesty seemed to surprise them. Theron's expression softened slightly. "At least you're not a fool. That's more than I dared hope for."
"But I know what it means to lose everything," Kael continued, feeling the words rise from somewhere deep and raw inside him. "I know what it means to watch your home burn, to carry your father's body to his grave, to kill for the first time and feel the weight of those deaths on your soul. I know what it means to be hunted like an animal. And I know that Lord Malkor needs to pay for what he's done."
"Revenge." Lyra's voice was sharp. "That's what drives you? Simple, bloody revenge?"
"Is that so wrong?" Kael challenged. "After what he did to our kingdom? To all of you?"
"Wrong? No. Insufficient? Absolutely." Theron moved back to his seat, gesturing for Kael to join them at the table. "Revenge is what keeps us warm on cold nights and gives us a reason to wake up each morning. But it's not enough to win a war against someone like Malkor. He's not just a tyrant, boy. He's a strategic genius who spent decades planning Aethermoor's destruction. He commands armies, wields dark magic that corrupts the very soul, and has built an empire on the bones of countless kingdoms."
"Then teach me," Kael said simply. "Teach me everything you know. How to fight, how to lead, how to wield the power in my blood without losing myself to it. I'm not asking you to follow me blindly. I'm asking for the chance to become worthy of following."
The council members exchanged glances. Finally, the archer woman spoke. "It will take years. Perhaps a decade to properly train you in warfare, politics, magic. And even then, there's no guarantee—"
"We don't have years." Kael pulled out his grandmother's journal and laid it on the table. "My grandmother wrote about a prophecy. She said that when the heir returns, a great darkness will also awaken. Something even worse than Malkor. Something that's been sleeping since the fall, waiting for the bloodline to resurface."
Theron's face went pale. "The Void. She told you about the Void?"
"Only that it exists. Only that it's what Malkor was really afraid of when he destroyed Aethermoor. Our kingdom wasn't eliminated because we were a threat to him—it was eliminated because we were the only thing standing between the realm and something far worse."
"And now you've come back, ringing the dinner bell for whatever horror your ancestors imprisoned." Lyra's voice was cold with fury. "Do you understand what you've done? By awakening your power, by coming here, you've potentially doomed us all."
"Or given us the only chance we have to survive what's coming." Kael met her anger with calm determination. "My grandmother believed the heir was necessary. That's why she left instructions for me to find you. She knew the risks and judged them worth taking."
"Your grandmother was a brilliant woman who died screaming as they burned her alive," Lyra shot back. "Forgive me if I question her judgment."
"Enough." Theron's voice cracked like a whip. "What's done is done. The boy is here, the power is awakened, and if what he says is true, we have larger problems than old grudges and dead dreams."
He stood, placing both hands flat on the table, his scarred face set with determination. "We train him. Fast and hard. We teach him everything we can about warfare, magic, and leadership. And then we prepare for what comes next, whether it's Malkor's army or something worse."
"And if he fails?" someone asked quietly. "If he's not strong enough, not smart enough, not ruthless enough to do what must be done?"
Theron's good eye fixed on Kael with terrible intensity. "Then we die anyway, but at least we'll die knowing we tried. That we didn't spend our final days hiding in these mountains, waiting for death to find us. We'll die as we lived—as soldiers of Aethermoor, serving our rightful king."
"I'm not your king," Kael protested. "I haven't earned—"
"Then earn it." Lyra's voice was hard but no longer hostile. "Starting tomorrow, you begin training. You'll learn to fight like a soldier, think like a commander, and wield magic like your ancestors. You'll be pushed beyond your limits, broken down and rebuilt. And if you survive—if you prove yourself worthy—then maybe, just maybe, you'll become the king we need instead of the boy who stumbled into our camp."
Kael looked around the table at these scarred, stubborn survivors who'd kept hope alive through two decades of darkness. They were offering him exactly what he needed, even if their reasons were tangled with resentment and desperate hope.
"When do we start?" he asked.
Theron's scared face split into a grim smile. "Now."
Before Kael could react, Lyra grabbed him by the collar and hauled him to his feet. "Training starts immediately. First lesson: always be ready, because your enemies won't wait for you to prepare."
She dragged him toward the door, and Kael caught a glimpse of the training yard beyond—and the dozens of hardened survivors waiting there, weapons in hand and challenge in their eyes.
As Lyra shoved him out into the highland sun, Theron's voice followed them: "Welcome to the resistance, Your Majesty. Try not to die on the first day."
Kael barely had time to raise his arms before the first attack came, and his education in becoming a king began with blood, sweat, and the bitter taste of his own inadequacy.
But as he fought, as he fell and rose and fought again, he felt something shift inside him.
Purpose. Direction. Belonging.
For the first time since his father's death, Kael was home.