“Well, that did not go as expected.” Viktor remembered Kastiel saying as the Val ‘Rhayne had walked through the doorway into the apartments in the Emphyeral Hold reserved for the Lord of Nightfall.
Even now, Viktor remained in the dark about the details of the confrontation between Kastiel and the Ascended, but its aftermath had been severe enough to result in Kastiel's permanent banishment from the ancient hold.
Viktor’s thoughts drifted back to that day, some five months prior, when he had sat at his father’s desk in the apartments allotted to the Lord of Nightfall within the Emphyeral Hold. He had been engrossed in the papers before him - the last papers his father must have read, when Kastiel had suddenly entered, accompanied by several the Emphyeral Guard.
In his exhaustion, and feeling more than a little overwhelmed at the moment, Viktor had not wanted to ask Kastiel further elaboration, but the half dozen house guards - all dressed in their blue enamelled plate with the razor-sharp points of their pike staves pointed at the Val ‘Rhayne’s back - had deemed it necessary.
“Excuse me, we have to do what?” Viktor had found himself asking for the second time, having barely heard Kastiel’s explanation the first time.
“Leave. Now. Or at least I do. He never said anything about you,” said Kastiel, as he shrugged his shoulders.
The dozen more guards that had awaited them outside Viktor’s apartments in the Emphyeral Hold had given credit to Kastiel’s story, and they were indeed escorted from the ancient hold. Or at least the Val ‘Rhayne was, Viktor had simply followed.
For the first time in his life, Viktor felt a strange gratitude toward one of his philandering ancestors. Nearly two hundred years ago, Cathal Helston had been a man keen to forge a separation between the woman he loved and the one he had wed, yet not so far as to inconvenience himself. The result of this duplicity had been the establishment of Helston Manor, perched in the upper tier of the capital city— now serving as Viktor's refuge beyond the looming walls of the Emphyeral Hold.
Helston House was a confection of light and glass, favoured at the time by his ancestor's mistress. Evidently, the former Lord of Nightfall had only one stipulation; that the study was his design. Out of the dozens of rooms available to him, it was the only one Viktor used with regularly. It was the only one to remind him of Nightfall.
In contrast to Helston House’s bright white halls and marble floors, the study was a sombre sanctuary. Here, the walls were cloaked in dark, polished wood that seemed to absorb the light rather than reflect it. Rich, dark wood beams crossed the ceiling above. Heavy drapes adorned the windows, usually drawn tight against the world outside, creating an air of secrecy and solitude.
A sturdy oak desk stood resolutely in the centre, flanked by a high-backed chair upholstered in rich, dark fabric chased in copper rivets. Above it all hung a single black and silver candelabrum, its candles casting ghostly shapes on the walls.
At the far end of the room, a grand hearth dominated the space, its mantle hewn from deep ebony stone. Flames flickered hungrily within the grate, casting a warm glow that flickered against the dark wood, illuminating the spines of ancient tomes that lined the shelves. The scent of burning wood mingled with the faintest hint of leather.
Before the hearth, two high-backed chairs mirrored the one behind the desk, their occupants gazing into the dancing flames, lost in the flickering light.
A soft clinking echoed through the chamber as Viktor swirled the amber liquid in his crystal tumbler, the light catching its surface like fleeting whispers of sun on water. Each swirl released a heady aroma of spiced oak and sweet honey, a promise of warmth in the chill of the night. Viktor’s gaze lingered on the swirling liquid, as if it held the answers to secrets he dared not speak aloud.
“Have there been any further whispers regarding our old friends change of heart?” Viktor inquired, his voice a low murmur amidst the flickering shadows.
Kastiel shrugged, his own drink remaining untouched, the ice clinking like distant bells. “There are always words—whispers riding on the wind. Yet nothing holds certainty. The Battleborn was never one to reveal his hand easily.”
Viktor sipped at his drink, “Why would he turn back to An’Shar? I cannot help but wonder if it has something to do with that woman. Astile.”
“The Duskrose of An’Shar. Hm perhaps,” Kastiel said, his eyes darkened.
“But would she be enough for Dominik to forsake his warpath? He is the Battleborn — one of the Daeude! The man is literally forged in the fires of battle. It is his born desire to see the Old Kingdoms reunited under the Toltaria of old. Could such love strike a man like that?” Viktor replied.
Stolen novel; please report.
“Knowing Dominik, it is not her beauty that he loves, it is her bloodline. The Duskrose of An’Shar is the last living connection to the God Kings of Toltaria. She can trace her lineage back to Arel Imarh, the youngest surviving daughter of the last of the God Kings.” said Kastiel, a wry smile curling at the corners of his lips.
The face of the daughter-heir to the God Kings of Toltaria flashed before Viktor’s eyes. The Lord of Nightfall could count the times he had met her on a single hand—each encounter burned into his memory with vividness. There was truth in the whispers that proclaimed her the most beautiful woman in the world, a beauty that seemed woven from the very fabric of dreams and desires. But beauty alone would never be enough for a man like the Battleborn.
Toltaria, once the grand empire of the God Kings, crumbled into dust some five hundred years before the War of Souls. Its fall was precipitated not by external foes, but by those who had once bestowed upon it such might: the Val ‘Rhaynes. It was not divine gifts that fueled the God Kings’ power; rather, it lay in the flesh and blood of five brothers, all born to the Lost Star. When the light of the Lost Star faded from the world, so too did the God Kings’ dominion over the brothers, leaving a fractured empire in its wake—a realm of shattered glory and unheeded prophecies, where ambition and betrayal danced in the ashes of a once-mighty legacy.
That Kastiel possessed intimate knowledge of the days that followed was beyond Viktor’s doubt. It was likely that the Val ‘Rhayne had known the ancestors of the Duskrose personally, their fates intertwined in the tapestry of history. Secrets whispered through the ages often carried the weight of blood, and in a realm where lineage held power, such connections were not easily dismissed. Viktor could only wonder how deeply those ties ran and what shadows they cast upon the present.
“Then if he truly turned back for her, something must have gone awry,” Viktor said, his brow furrowing in thought. “Dominik is not a man who abandons his ambitions lightly. His return to An’shar must have been spurred by something far more compelling than mere affection.”
“Of the Old Kingdom’s eight freeholds, only Estria and Vhandor remain. This close to completing his dream of Toltaria, it must have been something dire indeed,” agreed Kastiel. The weight of his words hung in the air, hinting at the tangled web of motives that could lie beneath the surface. In a world fraught with intrigue, nothing was ever as simple as it appeared.
A silence settled between them, broken only by the crackling of the fire in the hearth. Their companionship, forged over two decades, lent a comfortable ease to the moment. As with more things than he would like to admit, Viktor was not entirely sure why the Val ‘Rhayne had chosen to be his guardian. He was still perplexed as to why the Val ‘Rhayne had chosen to be his guardian. It was a rare honour—one not to be taken lightly—but he remained in the dark about what deeds, however small, had earned him such a privilege. A privilege that, without a doubt, had kept him alive thus far.
“Speaking of kingly ambitions, it seems our own desires are aimed at collaring the storm itself,” Viktor said with a weary sigh
“Well, if he wishes to draw the Battleborn from his lair, that’s certainly one way to do it.” Viktor could hear the frown woven into his words, a reflection of the weight of their predicament.
Viktor had grown up hearing tales of the Daeude—the Children of the Gods—in much the same way he had learned of the Val ‘Rhaynes: through whispered stories shared in the flickering glow of the hearth. Those legends had once filled his childhood with a mix of wonder and dread, painting a world where the divine mingled with the mortal. Yet now, those same tales loomed over him like a gathering storm, ominous and relentless.
The Children of the Gods were born of the primal deities, the Old Gods themselves. These immortal souls were ensnared in an unending cycle of death and rebirth, burdened—or perhaps blessed—with the mercy of never recalling the lives they had once lived. His grandmother often murmured that the very earth trembled at the birth of a Daeude, a harbinger of both hope and foreboding. Now, it seemed, they had three, each arrival echoing through the realms like a distant thunderclap, stirring ancient prophecies from their slumber. One of which - the Tempest - was under their domain.
“From what I understand, our king now seeks to assert his dominion over the Old Gods themselves—a desire no doubt fueled by the newfound Voice of the Risen God,”” said Viktor.
“To collar the Tempest will do naught but stir the ire of her kin. No man, let alone a king, in his right mind would invoke such wrath,” Kastiel replied, though Viktor understood all too well the perilous implications.
“The Ascended has Edryk convinced that the power of the Risen God is sufficient to confront the Daeude should they turn against us,” Viktor sighed, frustration creeping into his voice.
Two decades ago, when Viktor first sailed across the Sea of Fallen Stars, the power of the Risen God had been little more than a cultish belief, a faith more whispered than revered. How the Ascended had ensnared Edryk, he couldn’t quite fathom. But the hooks the Voice of the Risen God had sunk into their prince were deep and unyielding. So deep, in fact, that when Edryk’s father died and the crown passed to him, one of his first decrees was a brutal purge: the elimination of the Harbingers and Healers from the land. Any Relic of Old, should they be found within Voltaine’s borders, was punished by death - fodder for the flames.
Kastiel laughed bitterly, “There is an irony in that the Ascended and his Risen God might yet be the ruin of this kingdom” His words dripped with cynicism.
Viktor frowned, the weight of Kastiel’s words settling heavily upon him. He could not afford the luxury of flippancy; that was for those who had witnessed the rise and fall of countless kingdoms, who wandered through history like specters, unburdened by attachment. Kastiel might very well see many more empires crumble before his eyes, but Viktor’s life was mortal and it was bound to this place, to the stone and soil of his homeland.