I was not born in a palace. I was born in the mud of the Southern Marches, where the air smells of salt and wet iron. My father was a blacksmith who believed that every piece of steel had a heartbeat, and my mother was a woman who could weave a fishing net while reciting the tactical poetry of the Old Kings.
In those days, Ohm was not an empire; it was a collection of frightened city-states huddled together against the dark. My childhood was measured in the rhythm of the hammer. Strike. Cool. Temper. Repeat. It is a rhythm I eventually applied to men. You cannot lead a man until you have broken him down to his base metal and built him back up into something that can withstand the heat of the front line.
I remember the first time I saw a soldier. He was a scout for the Royal Guard, his armor rusted from the sea spray. He looked tired—not the tiredness of a man who hasn't slept, but the tiredness of a man who has seen the end of the world and realized it was boring. I realized then that I didn't want to be the man who made the swords; I wanted to be the man who gave them a reason to be swung.