The world did not end in fire, nor in shadow, but in silence.
The banners of Veyron once flew high over the iron mountains, their red and gold rippling proudly in the wind. A kingdom of strength, order, and discipline—until ambition bled into betrayal. The silence came after the screams, after the sword strokes, after the house of Draven burned to cinders under a moonless sky.
Kael remembered the scent of ash before he remembered the pain.
They came without warning—men in black armor, bearing no heraldry, no mercy. He fought, as a soldier should. But when he reached the gates of his family estate, it was already too late. His father's blade was snapped in half on the steps. His mother's pendant, crushed beneath a boot. His younger sister's voice... gone.
He buried them beneath a weeping tree, the roots drinking the blood of innocence.
In the ruins, Kael found not peace, but a relic. A sword untouched by flame, pulsing with warmth in his hands. It spoke not with words, but with memory—visions of wars long past, of ancient kings and darker things hidden beneath the soil of Valmera. The blade was cursed, or blessed. He could no longer tell. All he knew was this: it would not let him die until vengeance was fulfilled.
Five names.
Five kingdoms.
Five rulers who sat on thrones carved from lies and betrayal.
He carved their names into stone.
And then he vanished.
From the ashes of the Draven line, a shadow rose—a ghost clad in leather and steel, with eyes colder than northern frost and a blade that screamed for blood.
In the east, they whispered his name with fear. In the west, they offered gold for his head. But in the hearts of the guilty, Kael Draven had become something else.
A reckoning.