The morning carried a bitter chill, the kind that hugged your bones and refused to let go. Frost covered the grass in white, each blade stiff beneath the pale light of a sun struggling to pierce the heavy gray clouds. Rat pulled his patched coat tighter, the stiff leather creaking as he moved, boots crunching though the frozen ground. Damn, he loved his boots. He kept his head low, both to shield his face from the wind and to focus on his path, a faint trail that moved through the countryside like a forgotten whisper.

The woods ahead were still a distant smudge of dark against the horizon, but Rat already felt their pull. The Eastern Woods were infamous, a place whispered about in taverns and fireside tales, but no one spoke of it kindly. It was a place of bandits, beasts, and worse. Rat had no illusions about what might await him there, but he wasn’t one to let fear dictate his steps. Not anymore.

His journey so far had been slow, his every movement measured. He’d spent too much time rushing in the past, too many days fleeing danger without thought, and he had learned the hard way that haste was a luxury he couldn’t afford. The path before him was uneven, its surface frozen in hard ridges where carts had once passed and left their marks. Rat’s boots handled it with ease.

As he walked, Rat’s mind drifted, as it often did, to the recent history of the fracture land he called home. Only five winters had passed since the death of the last great king Jotiz, a man whose name still carried weight even in the smallest, darkest corners of the world. The memory of his reign was still visible in the scars of the earth-fields churned by war, castles left to crumble, and the endless cycle of blood and ambition that followed his fall.

Jotiz had been more than a king to the three kingdoms. He was a symbol of power and unity, a man whose will could crush rebellion as easily as it could inspire loyalty. In his time, he had brought peace—not the soft peace of mutual trust, but the hard, sharp-edged kind that came from fear and respect. He had been the iron chain that bound Virea, Galdrith, and Bovarre together, forcing them to stand as one against the chaos that always lurked at their borders.

But iron rusts, and even the strongest man cannot fight the passage of time. When Jotiz died, the chain broke. Without his hand to guide them, the kingdoms fell into disarray. Lords who had once sworn fealty to the crown turned against one another, their ambitions no longer tempered by the shadow of the king. Greed, pride, and old grudges did the rest, unraveling the fragile alliance in a matter of months.

Rat had been too young to understand the weight of it all when it happened, but the years since had taught him the cost. He had walked through fields littered with the broken remnants of armies, had seen the aftermath of sieges where the walls stood tall but the people within were reduced to ash. The stories of Jotiz’s reign always spoke of his victories, his strength, his vision. But they rarely mentioned what he had left behind.

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Rat’s fingers brushed against the necklace beneath his coat. He wondered, not for the first time, if Jotiz had known what would follow his death. The man had been a tactician, a planner; surely, he must have foreseen the chaos. Or perhaps he had believed, as all great men seemed to, that his legacy would outlive him.

The thought stirred something uncomfortable in Rat. He shook it off, focusing instead on the road ahead.

The air grew colder as the trees thickened, their bare branches weaving together. The path became less visible. Rat moved carefully, his steps quiet despite the crunch of frost beneath his boots.

As the forest deepened, his thoughts wandered again, this time to the stories he’d heard about Jotiz as a boy. They were the kinds of tales that painted the king as larger than life—a warrior with the strength of ten men, a ruler with the wisdom of a hundred, and a father to the kingdoms he united. Rat had always found them hard to believe, even then. How could anyone live up to such a legend?

And yet… there were moments, rare and fleeting, when Rat felt a strange connection to those stories. Not to the man they described, but to the idea of him. It was an odd, inexplicable thing, like a memory just out of reach, or a shadow that didn’t quite match the light. He’d never spoken of it to anyone, not even to himself in the privacy of his thoughts. It was easier not to.

The trees began to thin, revealing a small clearing up ahead. Rat’s breath fogged the air as he paused, his gaze scanning the area. He had always been good at reading spaces, at noticing the little details others missed. It was a skill that had kept him alive more times than he could count.

The clearing was unremarkable at first glance, just a patch of frozen ground surrounded by trees. But something about it felt… off. Rat couldn’t put his finger on it, but his instincts, honed by years of survival, told him to be wary.

He crouched low, his movements slow and deliberate as he surveyed the area. The snow here was disturbed, patches of it flattened or kicked aside, as though something—or someone—had been here recently. Rat’s hand went to the small knife at his belt, his fingers brushing the worn hilt.

A glint of light caught his eye, and he turned his head toward it. At the edge of the clearing, half-buried in the snow, was a broken blade. Its edges were worn, the metal dulled with age and rust, but it had once been a fine weapon. Rat approached it cautiously, his steps light and silent.

When he reached the blade, he knelt and brushed the snow away with his gloved hand. The weapon was older than he’d first thought, and its design looked weird, unfamiliar. The hilt had an insignia, faint and worn but still visible—a crown encircled by three stars. He’d seen the symbol before, but he couldn’t remember where.

The obsidian necklace felt heavier against his chest, and for a moment, he wondered if it was his imagination or something more. Shaking his head, he rose to his feet and scanned the clearing one last time before continuing on his way.

The Eastern Woods awaited. Rat didn’t know what he would find there, but he knew one thing for certain—he couldn’t turn back now.