The Great Hall
Foxreach Fortress
Kingdom of Hillbrought
Twenty Years After the Beginning
Rain fell without mercy.
It washed the blood from broken stones and carried it through the cracks of the Great Hall floor before spilling into the ruined courtyard beyond. The banners of Hillbrought no longer flew. Those that remained clung to shattered timbers and splintered walls, their colors drowned beneath mud, ash, and crimson.
Silence had claimed the battlefield.
Not the silence of peace.
The silence that comes only after men have shouted until their voices failed and steel had taken the place of words.
Bodies lay where they had fallen.
Knights.
Archers.
Footmen.
Some still gripped broken swords. Others rested with empty hands stretched toward a sky that offered neither comfort nor judgment. Shields bearing the fox of Hillbrought and the lion of Gartenfield lay scattered together, half-buried in churned earth, indistinguishable beneath the rain.
Kilgaren Cassian stood alone among them.
His mail hung in torn ribbons beneath a battered black cloak. Fresh blood trickled from a deep cut across his forehead, running into one eye before the rain carried it down his cheek. His sword remained planted in the soaked ground before him, its point buried deep in the earth that had claimed so many lives that day.
He did not wipe the blood away.
He scarcely noticed it.
Before him stood what remained of King George's monument.
Once, the statue had towered over the Great Hall courtyard, a symbol of justice and the strength of the Crown. Now its stone face lay shattered across the ground. One arm had broken away entirely. Cracks split the king's breastplate from shoulder to waist, and the sword carved into his granite hand pointed forever toward the mud.
The kingdom had fallen exactly as its king had.
Not in a single blow.
But from fractures no one had wished to mend.
Kilgaren stared at the broken monument for a long time.
Rain drummed against steel.
Wind tugged at his cloak.
Somewhere behind him a wounded horse gave one final cry before the field fell quiet again.
At last, he stepped forward.
He lowered himself onto one knee before the ruined statue.
His gauntleted hand rested upon the worn pommel of his sword.
When he finally spoke, his voice was little more than a whisper carried away by the rain.
"Momma..."
His throat tightened.
"I didn't let you down."
He closed his eyes.
"I kept my promise."
The rain continued to fall.
Twenty Years Earlier...