Ordran stormed into his kit, feet stomping across the floor as he hurried away from the main room of The Hearth & Ember. The heavy aromas of roastis and spiced breads lingered in the air, but they barely registered to the cook as he barreled past the broad oak ters, thick fingers ched rather than reag up to brush the gleaming brass pans hangily from hooks as he usually did oering the kit. Ead everything in its pd, most importantly, .

  Without thinking, he bypassed the wash station near where he chopped the vegetables for the meals he made. A sacred ritual he had never oneglected since opening this tavern several years ago, the deep basin was always filled with fresh, clear water ready to be used with the block of soap nearby.

  Never again, he had vowed, the memory of grime and field soot burned deep into his soul. After fifty years cooking fionnaires on distant, war-torn battlefields, he had promised himself that his kit would always be spotless — a haven free from the chaos and filth of the greater world. hands, kit, work.

  Yet now, for the first time, he unthinkingly broke that sacred promise.

  He charged past the station without a ghe urgen his steps pushing toward the back office tucked behind shelves stacked with barrels of vegetables and crates of imported spices that could not be found in most of the kits in the Imperial Academy. His mind raced faster than his feet, driven by a sight that he nnized from old memories of years ago.

  Those eyes.

  Red-gold, searing with a cold fury that g to the air like frost.

  Ordran’s breath caught in his chest as he recalled the weight that had settled over the tavern in the moments before S Krion Bcksword ehe duel. It wasn’t just the tension of a fight nearing its brutal clusion. No, he had been on enough battlefields and in enough fights to know well that feeling. No, it was something darker. The almost aura that filled the room had been suffog, a in its wrath yet terrifyingly immediate.

  He had felt something like it before, years ago while in service with the Legions. But even among the Empire’s elite nobility, trained killers who could and battlefield chaos with a mere flick of their will, none had radiated that. Even weak as it was, what the Bcksword had given off was different. He focused on the sense of it.

  It wasn’t just power.

  It was certainty.

  The kind that came only wheh was no longer a decision but aability.

  And he knew as soon as he se that Ort was a deadman who hadn’t yet finished breathing.

  His office door creaked as he shoved it open, the wood groaning under his heavy push. The familiar st of part and ink greeted him, a disheveled stack of orders and ating where he had left them several ho. Ordran spared them only a single gnce before he was moving around the edge of his cluttered desk, his fingers reag for the wrain of the wooden drawer as he fought to steady himself.

  The image of the Bcksword’s eyes lingered, vivid and unyielding. They weren’t the eyes of a s still learning his p the world — they were the eyes of someone who had already decided what that pce would be, and woe to anyone who stood in his way.

  Ordran squeezed his eyes shut, but the memory refused to fade. Thold irises, glinting like embers caught in a winter gale, pulled forth a long-buried recolle.

  He had seen eyes like that before.

  A shiver crawled down his spine as he opened his eyes, the memory pushed aside for the moment. He straightened, his grip on the desk loosening.

  Krion Bcksword.

  The young s had stepped into The Hearth & Ember like any other patron, but he had left an impression on him. Ordran had seen more than a few ss e and go since he had opened his tavern, their arrogand entitlement a dime a dozen. But the Bcksword was different. Polite, kind even, he had quickly won an old dwarveeran of the Legions over. And the way he carried himself with a quiet fidehat spoke of battles fought and won — not just with fists and bdes, but with willpower and resolve.

  And now, with what he had felt ba the main room during the duel, Ordran had a deep suspi the Bcksword was a bit different from the others of his year.

  Ordran reached down, yanking opetom drawer with a strength born ency. The wood groaned as it slid free, revealing an assortment of dots ly stacked alongside a few spare odds and ends.

  He would have to restack them ter.

  With a grunt, he dumped the entire drawer onto the ground, scattering its tents across the wooden floorboards. Ordra down, his thick fingers reag into his desk until he grasped the hidden tch at the back of the cavity. A click came as he pressed it, and a small panel slid aside to reveal a cealed partment.

  Ihe first thing his eyes nded on was the medals — polished discs of gold, silver, and bronze, each etched with symbols and words of valor and service. They gleamed faintly in the dim light of his office, a testament to five decades of sacrifid dedication. Ordran’s fingers brushed over them briefly, his expression hardening as memories came alongside eae: desperate battles, hard-won victories, great beasts sughtered before the walls of Imperial cities, and, most of all, the faces of rades who hadn’t made it back. He gently set each aside.

  were the endations, part sheets bearing the signatures of high-ranking officers and nobles alike. The gaudiest among them was a thick scroll sealed with red wax, the insignia of an Imperial Archduke promi on its face. Ordran s it, the bitter taste of politid empty ptitudes rising in his throat. He had little love for nobility, especially the kind that decorated their legionnaires from a distahout ever dirtying their own hands. He set those aside as well, though with perhaps a bit less care.

  He reached in and pulled out a heavy bag made of thick leather, its weight unmistakable even before he lifted it free. The bag jingled faintly as he moved it, the sound of ptinum s king together filling the room. Inside was the bulk of his savings from fifty years of violence, earhrough sweat, blood, and toil. That too was set aside.

  Ordran’s hand trembled as he reached deeper into the partment, his fingers closing around the smooth, cool surface of a small stone. He pulled it free, holding it up to the light.

  The unication stone glimmered faintly, its surface etched with intricate ruhat shimmered in hues of blue and silver. It was a gift from the General, a man Ordran respected above all the others he had served with. The General had been a rare breed — noble by birth but soldier by heart. Where many of the nobility had focused their strength oer threats, or simply avoided the fighting altogether, he had fought alongside his men, bled with them, and earheir unwavering loyalty through deeds rather than ission.

  The General gave a unication stoo each of his legionnaires’ upon their departure, for emergencies only. Ordran had been in several difficult situations since he had left the Legions, but he had never once sidered reag out to the General. Until now.

  The Bight be a good one — a rare s with the potential for the strength of arms and character — but Ordrahat the potential he suspected he had would not go unnoticed for long. There were forces within the Empire that would seek to trol him, manipute him, or destroy him ht.

  Ordran exhaled slowly, his resolve hardening. He had seen too many good men and women fall to the maations of those who cared only for power. He pressed his thumb firmly against the divet in the unication stone, activating its ruhe stone pulsed in his hand, a faint hum filling the room as the e was established.

  “General,” Ordran rumbled. “It’s Ordran. I’ve got a situation, and I need yer sel.” He paused, then included a code for the seriousness of the situation. “Steel to the heart, sir.”

  The stone in his hand pulsed once more, and the faint humming faded away, signaling that the message had been successfully transmitted. It would find the General soon enough — his former ander was many things, but iive wasn’t one of them.

  Still, Ordran’s hand trembled faintly as he set the unication stone on his desk. Reag for the other drawer, he pulled out an expetle of dwarven spirits, one he saved for the kinds of memories he was about to relive. He poured half a gss’s worth into a mug left on the er of his desk. The burn of his first swallow hit just as the memory did.

  The Legion had just been diverted from beio fortify a Throneworld in the midst of a Beast Wave to protee city on a remote frontier world.

  A Baron’s city.

  Their Legion had answered the call relutly; the mission had seemed beh their expertise. But orders were orders, and the Baron’s pleas for aid had reached the of and for the Imperial Legions.

  Whehousands had marched through the Portal, it became clear the Baron and his city had been under siege for weeks. Smoke drifted over stone walls, and gaping holes marked key defeructures. The Baron’s soldiers had fought back hard, but their enemy was elusive aless — a singur figure who struck with brutal precision before vanishing into the wilds beyond the city’s walls.

  The Baron had met them there, before the Portal, practically begging them for the Legion’s help, g his assaint was some frontier rogue warlord from beyond his territory that was bent on taking his city from the trol of the Empire. He spoke of ambushes on supply lines, assassinations of trusted men, and the wholesale destru of outposts critical to maintaining trol over the local popution.

  After the pleading, the General passed over a copy of the orders he had received, and while the Baron examihem, a squad of Hunters, seded to the Legion for the missio out into the city proper to track dowacker with their usual ical precision.

  They ered him at a modest inn oy’s outskirts.

  Ordran had been part of the General’s personal squad when they had stormed the building, ons drawn and senses sharpened for a vicious fight. He took another deep drink of the dwarven spirits, as he remembered how his pulse had thundered in his ears, muscles taut with readiness as the door had been breached. Legionnaires flowed inside like a tide, bdes fshing in the light of the opeh. The General himself had been shrouded in his Essences, leaving nothing to ce.

  He remembered the smell the most. Rather than the coppery tang of blood in the air, which they had expected given what the Baron had said about the viciousness of the enemy, the air inside simply carried with it the savory st of spiced meat and fresh bread — a shogly domestitract to the grim anticipation of violence.

  And there he was.

  The ohe Hunters had tracked sat at a simple wooden table he hearth, steam curling from a pte of food before him. His midnight-bck hair was ly pulled back, and his posture was eerily rexed, as though he were a lord dining in his own hall rather than an enemy of the Empire surrounded by the best of aire Legion. His appearance would have fit any one of the ss Ordran had met throughout his service. But it was his eyes that the veteran dwarf would never fet.

  Red-gold, shimmering like embers.

  They held no fear — only a sm iy that spoke of ruin. They were the eyes of a man who had walked through an inferno and carried its rage within him, tempered but ever ready to roar to life.

  He took another long drink, and then refilled his mug.

  Fag those eyes, Ordran remembered tightening his grip on his sword, expeg the man to rise and fight. Instead, the man had wiped his mouth with a cloth, leaned ba his chair, and regarded all the bared steel before him, and the Essences of the General, as one might a minor invenience.

  I take it you’re the General?

  The entire room had frozen at the man’s words, but the General had stepped forward.

  I am. And you are?

  The man hadn’t wavered, only shifted to focus on the General alone.

  A father.

  What followed was a tale that etched itself into Ordran’s memory — a grim, bloody story of vengeance.

  The man, who had refused to give his name, had waged a personal war against the Baron and his allies, tearing through their operations with ruthless efficy. His reason was devastating: his daughter had been taken.

  She had been enjoying a rare day of freedom, free from her studies uaken while they traveled, browsing the markets while he, her father, had left her to restock supplies for the step of their journey.

  The Baron had spotted her in the market. He assumed that, as a veteran of the Legions and a noble of siderable influen the local region, he was untouchable.

  He had been wrong.

  Ordran remembered how the General had asked the man why he had resulted to such tactics to get his daughter back.

  I didn’t know where she was bei. If I had, the city wouldn’t still be standing.

  He hadn’t been the only legionnaire present to again reach for his sword. But the General had waved them off, instead asking another question.

  Would you really have destroyed the ey?

  Ordran finished his seug, and filled it up a third time.

  The man’s eyes had darkeheir molteensifying until they seemed to glow with a fury that bordered on madness. The itself had thied, heavy with an oppressive energy that had made it a struggle for Ordran to draw a single breath.

  Then it hit.

  A wave of raw, unbridled power exploded from the man, smming into the gathered legionnaires like a tempest made solid. The very walls of the inn groaned uhe force, timber creaking as if uhe weight of a mountain.

  Ordran remembered how his knees had buckled, and he had colpsed to the flasping for air. What was a struggle before turo a crushing pressure, every breath one of the hardest battles he had ever fought. Then the heat hit as that same air seemed to igables and chairs shuddered, their legs scraping against the floor as the foranating from the man threateo tear the room apart.

  He remembered his vision blurring, dark spots creeping at the edges as he struggled to stay scious. In those hazing moments, the only thing he remembered for sure was that the General himself was the only one who remaianding, though even he had braced himself against the onsught. The Essences he had cloaked himself with wavered uhe pressure.

  You ask if I would have destroyed the city? I would have rained hellfire down upon it and salted whatever ashes remained if it meant finding her.

  The power had surged again, redoubled, a primal force that felt like aioner’s bde was about to press down on him. He had lost sciousness just as the General’s knees had hit the floor.

  When he woke, the bored breathing of Ordran and the rest of the General’s squad was greeted by the sounds of quiet versation. The General was seated at the table with the man, deep iiation. Not knowing how long he had been out, he did not know all that they talked about, but he did know what they agreed.

  The weight of a different memory hit him then, pressing heavily on Ordran as he slumped into his office chair, empty mug in his hand. He did not see the simple office of The Hearth & Ember around him, but the burning wreckage of a once-grae.

  The agreement made between the General and the stranger was a simple one. A pragmati, the General was fiercely loyal to the Empire but drew the li senseless cruelty. The Baron’s request for aid had initially seemed justified — a noble under siege by a powerful but lone assaint who threatehe peace of a frontier world. But wheruth unraveled, the General had the ce to ge his mission.

  The General was no friend to svery, and the abdu of children disgusted him to his core. It was one of the things he liked most about the man. Nobility be damned — there were lihat even those with titles and nd had nht to cross. The father with red-gold eyes had made his iions crystal clear: either the city died or the Baron did. The General decided to help, and fided in his men why they o be involved through to the Baroe itself.

  If we let him tear through the estate on his own, he will leave nothing but ashes and corpses. And holy, I wouldn’t bme him.

  And so, uhe General’s orders, the Legion struck against the noble who had expended all his political capital to get the Legion dispatched to his world. As much as the nobility were the foundation on which the security of the Empire rested, sometimes there were those who just needed killing.

  The assault on the Baroe was a thing of brutal efficy. The gates had fallen swiftly uhe surprise of their attack, and what few defenders responded were quickly cut down. Ordran had been with the General as they swept through those ornate halls. The estate was a byrinth of luxury and excess — marble floors slick with spilled wine, grand tapestries depig battles the Baron likely hadn’t even fought in, and servants c in nearly every room, eyes wide with terror.

  But it was the hidden rooms that haunted Ordran’s dreams.

  They had found the first chamber behind a false wall in the Baron’s private quarters. A young legionnaire on his first term of service with the General had stumbled upon it, his armored hand brushing against some hidden meism. The wall had groaned as it slid aside, revealing a narrow passageway lit by flickering torches that the Legioo scout the way.

  What y beyond was a nightmare.

  s hung from the walls, and the stench of fear and filth was overwhelming. Cushioned benches lined one side, stained with dark things Ordran still didn’t care to identify. The sick realization of who they had almost helped to save dawned on them all at once.

  Ordran had moved as quickly as he could with his rades, freeing those they found shackled and broken. Some were tooo speak, their eyes hollow from the unspeakable torments they had suffered.

  Ordran’s fists ched at the memory, the mug crag in his grip. With a wince, he set it aside. He had fought monsters before, but never had he seen anything so vile. So evil.

  And that was only the first chamber.

  They had pressed deeper, unc more secret passageways and hidden staircases that led to more chambers — each more horrifying tha. The Baron had surrounded himself with ded cruelty, a festering rot hiddeh the polished surface of noble privilege.

  And there, in that final room, they had found her.

  The Baron had kept the girl caged like an animal, her wide eyes filled with terror. She couldn’t have been more than thirteen, her dress once pretty, now torn and dirty. Luck was with them, and they had arrived before the Baron could get her cage open.

  What happened , he didn’t remember, only that it had cost ptinum for a Mind Surgeon of the Legions to excise the memories. Shame the star elf had warned him away from giving up more than that. Something about the iy of his mind.

  Ordran ched his hands, trying to stop the shaking that had snuck up on him. After several long minutes, it finally stopped, and he was able to put those memories away. Hopefully, it would be months until he had to deal with them the ime.

  The unication stoill y dull and dead on his desk. He stared at it, mind going back to the duel that had just happened. Yes, the feeling of what the Bcksword had given off had been different — less refined, and far less overwhelming — but unmistakably cut from the same cloth.

  Ordran rubbed a hand over his face, the hair of his beard scratg against his palm. He had thought those few days were long behind him, that he would never again enter a presence like that, especially here at one of the Imperial Academies.

  But here it was, maing in the young Bcksword s.

  The unication stone on his desk pulsed faintly, signaling an ining response. Ordran’s heart steadied as he prepared to hear the General’s voice. Whatever was unfolding now, he needed guidance, and there was no oer to provide it than the General.

  The unication stone pulsed again, a humming filling the room again. Looks like a live unication then. Ordran took a steadying breath and reached for it, his fingers grasping it like a drowning man a lifelihe General’s voice crackled through, steady and andie the vast distaween them.

  “Steel holds, Ordran,” the General said the tercode, firming his identity. “This is General Gros. I received your message, Sergeant. What’s this abold eyes?”

  Ordran’s jaw tightened. “General,” he said, voice low, as if the walls might be straining to overhear them. “I think I’ve found another one.”

  There was a long pause oher end befeneral Gros spoke again, though a crackle of interference obscured his toell me everything.”

  There were a few hints in there about somethings that might happen down the road. I hope you enjoyed reading this chapter as much as I enjoyed writing it!

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