The stream was the only sound.
Low and steady, running somewhere beneath the dark, filling the silence between the trees. The campfire burned low at the center of the clearing, and the knights sat around it in a loose ring — talking quietly, eating, pretending not to watch Julius.
Every time he turned, they looked away.
He almost smiled.
"When do we reach the capital?" he asked.
"Morning," Valerie said from across the fire, not looking up. "The horses need the rest."
Hana appeared beside him and held out a piece of bread.
"Stole it from the pantry before we left," she said. "My mother is going to kill me."
Julius took it. "Thank you."
She sat down next to him, close enough that her shoulder almost touched his.
"Are you alright?"
He was quiet for a moment.
"I feel bad for leaving Gnorm. He's been with me since the beginning — I didn't even get to say goodbye properly."
Hana looked at him. "He's probably already on his way. Knowing him, he'll reach Eirsuol before we do."
Julius looked at the fire.
Then — slowly — he smiled.
"Yeah," he said. "Probably."
---
*Midnight.*
The fire had gone out. The knights slept.
Julius lay still, staring upward at nothing, and eventually gave up.
He made his way down through the trees to where the stream cut through the earth — a thin silver line in the dark, barely visible. He crouched at the edge and cupped water in both hands, pressing it against his face.
The cold hit him like a thought he hadn't been ready for.
He blinked.
There was a figure in the water.
Not his reflection. Something smaller. A child's version of himself, looking back up at him from beneath the surface with calm, patient eyes.
Julius straightened. Turned around.
Nothing behind him.
*"Julius."*
The voice was small. Almost nothing.
*"Here."*
He turned back to the water. The figure was still there.
*"You're too loud,"* it said.
Hands broke the surface. Julius opened his mouth — and couldn't. His voice was gone, his body locked still, every muscle refusing the command to move.
The hands pulled him in.
Darkness.
Then grey.
He woke — or something like waking — gasping, coughing water from his lungs, hands braced against dead earth.
The world around him was colourless. A single leafless tree stood in the middle of a flat, lifeless plain. No sky worth speaking of. No wind.
The younger version of himself sat beneath the tree, watching him.
"It's you," Julius said, catching his breath.
"Where are you going?" the figure asked.
"They need help. The people of Eirsuol—"
"While you waste time, Surtr grows stronger." The boy's voice carried no urgency, no emotion — just the flat weight of fact. "His allies are already moving. Their only purpose is to break my seal before you're ready."
"I know." Julius stood. "You don't need to keep reminding me. I made a decision. I'll honour it." He met the figure's eyes. "Now let me out."
A pause.
Then Valthor stood.
"My staff," he said. "I can sense it. You're heading toward it."
"It's in Eirsuol?"
"It is the source of everything that's changed in you — your growth, your strength, all of it. The staff is why you are what you are right now." He stepped closer. "And it is why your enemies are racing to reach Eirsuol before you do. If it falls into their hands—"
He stopped. Leaned forward.
And said one word directly into Julius's ear.
---
Julius woke with his heart hammering against his ribs.
"So gods have bad dreams too."
Valerie sat beside him on the grass, arms resting on her knees, watching the horizon with her usual composure.
"How long was I out?" Julius asked.
"About an hour," Hana said from behind him.
He turned. The trees were gone. The camp was gone. The world ahead was open — a broad road cutting through low hills, and at the end of it, vast and unmistakable against the morning sky:
The gates of Eirsuol.
Julius climbed to his feet. As he did, something moved through him — not pain, not quite warmth. A sensation like a current running just beneath his skin, spiraling upward from the ground.
*It's here,* he thought.
Hana glanced at him. Just for a moment.
Then the gates opened.
---
Neither of them had been ready for what was inside.
The moment they passed through, the drums started. The road ahead was lined on both sides — people packed shoulder to shoulder, faces turned toward them, voices already rising. Knights in formation. Children perched on walls. Merchants frozen mid-step.
"He's here—"
"It's him—"
People dropped to their knees. Julius raised both hands immediately — *no, stop, please* — and the crowd read it as a greeting and roared back twice as loud.
"This is too much," Hana muttered under her breath.
Julius stood there for a half-second. Then he laughed — short and helpless — and started waving.
The road seemed to go on forever before they reached the palace.
At the entrance, Valerie and the knights stopped.
"You're not coming in?" Hana asked.
"Go straight ahead," Valerie said.
The doors opened into a hall that swallowed sound. High stone ceilings, wide floors, light falling from windows set far above. Their footsteps echoed.
*"Welcome."*
The voice came from ahead. Deep, measured, belonging to a man who was accustomed to rooms like this.
Hana dropped immediately to one knee.
Julius looked between her and the figure at the end of the hall.
"There's no need for that," the man said.
"Lord Alaric Vayne," Hana said quietly, rising. "Lord of Eirsuol."
"No pleasantries." Vayne descended the steps toward them with the ease of someone who has never once in his life felt out of place. "Welcome to Eirsuol."
"Thank you for having us," Julius said.
Movement at the edge of his vision — someone watching from the side of the hall, hand half-raised in a small wave.
"My daughter," Vayne said, following his gaze. "Elaine — come."
She stepped forward with a composed smile and a slight bow. "Welcome."
"Please show our guests to their rooms," Vayne said. "They've had a long journey."
Julius glanced sideways. Hana was looking at Elaine, then at Julius, her expression unreadable.
---
*In the corridor.*
"This is your room," Elaine said, stopping at a door.
"And Hana?" Julius asked.
"She'll have her own — she's a lady. It wouldn't be proper otherwise." A polite smile.
"Oh." Julius looked at Hana. "Right."
"See you," Hana said.
He watched her go.
Outside Eirsuol — the road.
"It is too small," Hana's mother announced, looking at the cart they'd been travelling in for three days.
"It was fine yesterday," the farmer said.
"Please," Gnorm said from the front, "I need quiet."
"What is that?" The farmer's wife pointed at the road ahead.
Gnorm pulled the horses to a stop.
He descended slowly, hand out, reading the air.
Dead animals. Scattered across the verge, not torn but crushed — something enormous had passed here and hadn't cared what was beneath its feet. The tracks were deep and wide and not made by anything with four legs.
"This is more than wolves," Gnorm said.
"What is it?" the farmer asked.
"Something that shouldn't be this close to the capital." Gnorm turned back to the cart. "We have to move. Now."
The palace — Julius's room.
A knock.
"Come in."
The door opened. Vayne stood in the frame, took one look at Julius floating cross-legged a foot above the floor, and his eyebrows rose.
"Marvellous."
"Oh—" Julius dropped to the floor. "Sorry."
"Walk with me."
---
The balcony faced the edge of the city. From here, Julius could see where the buildings ended and the open land began — and beyond that, the new fortifications. Fresh stone. Hasty construction.
"We've had to add to our defences three times this season," Vayne said. He clasped his hands behind his back. "First — thank you. For coming."
"It's no trouble."
"It is, and I won't pretend otherwise." Vayne turned to face him. "Which is why I intend to be direct with you."
A pause.
"I know about the staff, Valthor."
The name landed differently here — heavier, more deliberate. Julius went still.
"My father spent his life studying the gods," Vayne continued. "Every text he could find. He believed that what made Thornhold great — what gave it power beyond all other kingdoms — was a single visit from a god, long ago. The bloodline that came from it. He wanted that for Eirsuol." He paused. "He never found a way."
"What are you saying?" Julius asked.
"I'm saying I have your staff. And I'm saying I will return it to you — in exchange for one thing." Vayne's expression didn't change. "Breed with my daughter. Give Eirsuol a divine bloodline. Your full strength restored, the staff returned. That is my offer."
Julius stared at him.
"You're sick," he said.
"You have one choice," Vayne said, unmoved. "Agree, and you leave here whole. Refuse, and the staff stays buried — and when this city falls, it falls with it."
Then — from somewhere deeper in the palace — Julius heard Hana's voice.
It cut off too quickly.
Julius crossed the room in two strides and lifted Vayne off the floor by the front of his coat. Around them, every knight in the room drew steel in the same instant.
Vayne raised one hand.
The blades stayed where they were.
"Put them away," he said calmly. "He could kill every one of you if he chose to." He looked at Julius. "But he won't. Because he needs me."
Julius set him down.
"Where is she."
"She'll be returned to you when you agree to reason."
A sound rolled in from outside — not thunder, not drums. Something lower. Something moving.
Julius turned to the balcony.
At the far edge of the city, where the road met the open land, shapes were pouring through the gaps in the new fortifications. Low to the ground. Fast. Too many to count.
Demon dogs.
Valerie burst through the door behind them.
"My lord — we're under attack."
Julius was already in the air.
---
The street tilted as he landed.
Civilians running in every direction — children being carried, merchants abandoning carts, voices layered on top of each other into a single continuous sound of panic. Knights in formation tried to hold the line at the main road and were being pushed back, step by step.
Julius brought his hands together.
The clap sent a wall of compressed air rolling outward, catching a dozen of the dogs mid-stride and flinging them back like paper.
The street went quiet for half a second.
A little girl sat in the middle of the road, frozen, too small to have run with the others.
Julius crossed to her in two steps and crouched down.
"Are you okay?"
She stared up at him.
"Everyone — run!" he called out.
Something moved.
Fast. From the left. Julius turned and felt the impact before he registered the sight — a blade, precise and deliberate, and his right arm separating from his body at the shoulder in a single clean arc.
Blood hit the little girl's face. Her eyes went wide.
Julius looked down at where his arm had been.
"It's alright," he said to her, voice steady. "You're alright. Run now."
She ran.
Julius straightened.
Laughter drifted down the empty street — unhurried, comfortable, the kind that belongs to someone who has been looking forward to this for a while.
A figure stepped out of the smoke.
"So," they said, looking Julius over with a smile. "You're him. Valthor."
To Be Continued…