A fortnight had passed since they passed the Crag. The half-flooded plains had given way to fields of gold, where wheat and barley swayed beneath the hinterland’s breath.

  With every league they marched, the world grew more deliberate, less wild and untamed. Desolation begat people, people begat work, and work begat civilisation.

  Canals bordered the road, their waters clear and regimented, fed by white stone sluices carved with the Empire’s signet.

  Signs of known settlements began to rise on the horizon. Thin, vertical threads of smoke rose above them in ordered patterns as though mimicking the army’s pace.

  These were not of torchings but of forges and hearths alike, smelting iron and cakes in perfect rhythm.

  The army’s ranks crested the final ridge and saw the first village unfold from the hills encircled by golden meadows and distant vineyards.

  Everything was built to measure: roofs black with slate, walls grey with stone.

  The men watched in silence as the Empire rose to meet them once more brick by brick.

  “Home,” one of them breathed. A few answered with hushed tones, others simply nodded and kept their peace.

  Alric shared some of it, but distantly, as though the feeling belonged to another life. For he saw home, but approaching judgement with it.

  There, he knew which type of beasts waited. None made of thought or fog like the Crag, but of marble and writ, parading through the gilded halls of majesty.

  The thought soured his return, and the warmth of it ebbed and flowed like a tide that reached the shore just enough to be felt, only to be claimed by colder waters.

  As they advanced, the road widened, its cobbles laid in flawless union. This was the beginning of the Southern Passage.

  Said to be the same one the first Emperor had marched upon when he brought fire and dominion to the tribes of Artanthia.

  But history had grown cold with the winter winds. The same road that once carried the heat of victory, now bore the weary boots of return.

  With every step they took, more of the Empire revealed itself. Watchtowers rose in ordered fashion along the ridges, their banners gleaming against the light.

  Guards stationed there saw the legions approach, and with disciplined reverence, struck their fists to their chests. Duty acknowledging duty.

  From the highest tower came a sound like rolling tempest. A mounted horn had been blown, its sonorous call sweeping through the valleys, answered by others downstream.

  Travellers and peddlers alike halted by the roadside, eyes downcast, heads bowed as the host advanced.

  None spoke a word to them. To some it was reverence. To others, fear.

  Alric watched the horns speak in tongues he knew well: that of ritualised iron. It was the same breath the Empire drew through its ancient stone lungs, pulling air from every century it had endured unscathed.

  He remembered the first he had heard such sounds, and how they terrified him as a child. How he hid behind his father’s leg, clutching his cloak tightly, and tried to slip away into some alley to play with stones instead of steel.

  How he heard them again when his father died, and learned what it meant to be a man of the Empire.

  How he heard them once more when he was soaked in the Great River, reborn in baptismal rite, and learned what it meant to live as Lord of War.

  The horns fell silent, as did the wounds in his memories.

  Only the steady rhythm of boots and hooves remained, echoing against the stone.

  “My Lord,” Klethiar called from behind.

  Alric turned. “Speak.”

  “The prisoner has been escorted safely. Procedure has been kept and she is with Molvane.”

  “Good.” He faced forward again, eyes drawn to the horizon.

  When they crested the final bend, they saw it through late autumn’s haze.

  Valekyr.

  Its walls and towers rose like ribs from an ancient beast long turned to bone. Spires lanced the sky, their shadows spreading across the fields like a dark veil over the world.

  Even from afar, the city seemed alive. Its wind carried the scent of metal and bread wrought in the sweat of a thousand men.

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  Its labouring heartbeat, the toll of iron bells rolling through the plain like a storm.

  The men halted upon the ridge, silence passing between them.

  After three years of death and toil, their home stood before them at last.

  The descent began with Alric riding at the fore. His first steps were enough to break the spell that had enraptured the men.

  Slowly, the cobbles gave way to marble, and obelisks, to statues of ancient kings.

  With every pace the city loomed closer, its walls no longer distant, shadows falling over the men’s faces now.

  Flags of violet, scarlet and crimson stirred across the battlements, the colours of victory in troubled times.

  Alric raised his hand to the runners. They sped down the ranks, relaying the call of division.

  The bulk of the legions would not enter the city proper. Instead, they would halt along the southern fields and riverbanks, where old granaries and barracks waited to be used.

  Alric gave a second signal, to which six thousand men answered. From the rear, golden-black rose to meet him like a tide of dark suns.

  They would follow him in; the Honour Guard flanked by the thirty-eight Hekatons and his officers, their march polished over ten thousand steps.

  The host’s horns sounded, slow and steady, like a beast preparing before the chase.

  Drums began to beat soon after, low and heavy, their hum like omens of slaughter.

  The rest remained in ordered silence as the Honour Guard advanced, a living wall of memory and steel watching their commanders move toward the Ivory City.

  Alric knew it was ceremony, nothing more. Yet something within him stirred in its old sleep, as if war itself had not forgotten his name, and was calling him back to where it first found him.

  The gates of Valekyr presented themselves before the army in all their magisterial grandeur. Faces of beaten steel and hammered gold looked down upon them; heroes of old, saints and emperors long turned to dust. Each gaze fixed, carved in ornate remembrance.

  Interlocking beams of iron encased in oaken timber began to lift, chains broader than a man’s back clattered through the gatehouse.

  In the distance, Alric could hear the posted guards yelling orders to each other from the ramparts.

  The grind of metal and the groan of winches filled the air between each syllable like ritual music, grating yet melodic.

  It was the sound of return, of the Empire’s dark embrace.

  As the gates opened wide, the city exhaled through the ranks. Its breath carried the scents of smoke, fire, incense, metal, and gold.

  Alric gave the order for the lines to tighten. Rows of armour began to shift in synchrony, the sound of leather and hoof merging into one deliberate motion.

  He was first to enter through the portcullis, feeling the weight of the city close around him. The men followed after, step by measured step.

  Sound changed. Open wind yielded to echoes that struck polished stone and ran along the narrow channels of water that fed the inner sanctums of the capital.

  The light that filtered through the archway was colder and restrained, as if even the elements themselves were bound to obey the Great City.

  Generations were passing beneath these ancient stones now, raised by forefathers long interred, the weight of memory encasing the moment and its menaing.

  Valekyr unfolded before them. Every arch, every column spoke of eons of history unforgotten, unblemished by time. Every window glimmered, their golden shimmer reflected across each Honour Guard’s armour like sacred torches.

  Even the roads bore the weight of splendour, polished and repolished over centuries of conquering returns.

  People had gathered behind cordoned barriers and filled the balconies above. Blue and scarlet draperies flowed like unspoken oaths, their garments moving in the same current as the banners.

  Noone of them cheered. Instead, some prayed beneath their breath with bowed heads as the legions passed. Others simply saluted in silence, eyes heavy with respect.

  Children stopped their play and stared wide-eyed as the army trod the main streets of the city, their small hands gripping tightly their fathers’ and mothers’ palms.

  Cathedral bells rang overhead, their resounding call stirring the souls of all who listened, beckoning power to remembrance.

  Alric entered the main square, Honour Guard in tow, their forms folding inward to form an ordered semi-circle around him at the center.

  Twelve spires rose from the ground behind them like spears glinting in the pale light, each one etched in stone, carved with the names of those who came before, and those yet to march.

  Above them towered a balcony, hewn from ancient marble and standing like a prow of some colossal ship. Its doors were overlaid in beaten gold, carved from the first tree the first imperial regent had grown.

  When they opened, a figure stepped out, robed in crimson and light.

  Upon his brow, rested a circlet of gold set with twelve precious stones, each one reflecting the sun like moon and star.

  The city fell silent. Even the waters running through the lower channels seemed to still, their whispers swallowed by the gravity of his presence.

  Doves were released from their cages; their wings cut through the air in sweeping arcs, painting the world in the colour of white jade.

  The Emperor fastened his gaze upon the masses below and lifted his hand.

  “My children, citizens of the Great Empire of Valekyr,” he began, his voice echoing through the square with a depth no mortal throat should command.

  “I sent you into ruin for three years. Blood, brothers and bond have you shed for this realm and its peace. You have given of your flesh and bone for this city and its people. For this, I thank you.”

  The Honour Guard struck their shields three times with their spears and shouted in unison: “Valekyr Endures!”

  The Emperor turned to Alric, gaze unreadable.

  “Lord Commander Alric Vaelgard,” he said.

  “Come forth.”

  Alric dismounted, his foot now touching stone.

  He stepped forward from the Honour Guard, each pace measured.

  When he reached the center beneath the balcony, he knelt, head bowed, the shadows of the twelve spires falling over him like a crown of spears.

  The Emperor neared the balcony’s edge, his shadow now covering Alric like a dark shroud.

  “You knelt before me as commander when you departed,” his voice carried the austerity of an approaching warrior drawn to battle. “But now, you return as something more. Something far greater.”

  “You return as shield and protector, not merely soldier. You return as Son.”

  Alric’s chest tightened, the old venom threatening to quiet for the first time in three long years.

  Across the square, the gathered Seneschals stiffened.

  Their faces, once politely impassive, now hardened like painted masks drawn too tight. Every word the Emperor spoke carved lines of displeasure deeper into their features.

  Though they hid it well, Veracles did not miss it.

  Every shift of posture, every measured whisper, every turn of the head.

  Their displeasure was a living thing, something that moved like poison through water.

  He marked each face, each reaction, each weakness.

  Vargo beside him stood silent, jaw set, eyes scanning the masses with old soldier’s instinct.

  Beside them, Regulus remained motionless, spine rigid, hands folded behind his back. His silence spoke of pride, perhaps approval.

  Klethiar saw none of it. His eyes were fixed on the Lord Commander kneeling beneath the Emperor’s veil.