YAN

  By the time Luc arrived, bringing with him the dust and thunder of ten thousand Nordlings, marching not behind him but with him—as their god, not just their general—the Black Moon standard was already hanging limp and victorious from the highest tower.

  Taken without God Ari himself setting foot on the battlefield, the fortress, nestled in the forked valley between the Ohr and the Ihr—Dorn and Yarn, as named in the holy book of the Faithful—was theirs now. Blackened, broken, still smoking from the last barrage. But theirs.

  Luc stopped his horse where the killing had happened hours ago. The mud was still wet. The bodies hadn’t even cooled. He just sat there in the saddle, not moving, staring at the black banner flapping above the blood-wet walls. Impressed, maybe. Maybe something more. Maybe something less.

  “It’s him,” Yanick said, pointing at the lone rider.

  “Him?” Azrael’s voice cracked, eyes wide like a boy spotting his first thunderbird.

  “Yes,” Yanick confirmed. “That’s your god.”

  The vast part of the wall and the land surrounding it was under their control. The path into the realm of the Faithful lay open now like a wound that hadn’t stopped bleeding.

  “He looks magnificent,” Azrael said. “Even from afar.”

  They watched from the tower.

  Yanick swayed a little. Might’ve been the pain. Might’ve been the vodka still chewing holes through the meat of his gut like acid on parchment. Might’ve been the exhaustion. Or maybe all three playing tug-of-war inside his ribs.

  They watched the Nordlings as they came. Thousands of them, ragged and tall, fierce and silent, dragging with them old carts, rusted weapons, and a hunger that had never quite left their eyes.

  “So many of them,” Azrael said, low and reverent.

  Yanick was also amazed by that sight. Had never imagined so many were left.

  Once crushed beneath foreign boots. Once shattered, splintered, buried behind that cursed wall. Fortresses grown like tumours from the stone, poisoning the land with every tower.

  They’d been condemned to live quiet. To trade the grain their frozen dirt begrudgingly birthed for southern salt and southern steel.

  To tighten their belts. To swallow their rage like bad soup.

  Their songs had turned to dirges. Their god turned to whispers. Their names twisted in foreign mouths.

  They were forced to bare the shame of what they’ve done under the rule of Nemeth, at his order.

  Fucking Nemeth.

  Who’d once raised them only to make them monsters. Who had soaked the soil in blood and taught them to lie to themselves about the taste.

  And still they carried the shame like a family heirloom.

  They should have stayed ashamed. They had every reason to.

  But they came anyway.

  To stand shoulder to shoulder, bone to bone, under the Black Moon again.

  They came with axes older than their fathers. With shields patched and painted over a dozen winters. With prayers muttered in dialects even the priests forgot how to curse.

  Yanick had never felt small before. Not on a battlefield. Not even under the weight of the atrocities committed by his kind. But standing there, watching his people return, not as ghosts, but as fire and flesh, he felt it.

  He wasn’t ready for this. Not really. None of them were.

  And yet… the banner flew. Black Moon, snapping in the wind like a blade drawn slow.

  “Do you think he arrived as well?” Azrael asked, voice breaking the spell.

  “Who?” Yanick asked, though he already knew.

  Azrael didn’t answer. Yanick didn’t need him to.

  I hope so, he thought.

  ***

  “Have they told you the truth?” Rayla asked, voice like rusted metal dragging through gravel.

  She stalked through the cabin like the swaying of the ship didn’t exist, didn’t matter. As if balance was something other people lost.

  Big Mike leaned against the far wall, arms folded, expression blank. Koleth sat on the narrow table beside the round window, gripping its frame with both hands to avoid being tossed by the waves. Silent. Watching.

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  Rayla’s boots thudded across the planks. Her coat flared behind her like a warning.

  “Have they?” she repeated, louder now. A growl under the words.

  “Yes,” Yanick said. His voice wasn’t firm. It was flat. Measured. Tired.

  “Oh, really?” She turned. One step brought her close enough to see the red lining her eyes. “Were they proud when they did it? Huh? Proud of that?”

  “No,” Yanick said.

  “What?” Her tone sharpened like a blade against stone. “Didn’t catch that.”

  “No,” he repeated, louder. “They were not.”

  Rayla laughed. Not with humour. Not even with bitterness. Just noise. Noise she couldn’t hold in.

  “Your noble teachers at the academy? The ones who taught you strategy? Honor? Philosophy?” She stepped closer, jabbing a finger toward his chest. “They were there, Yanick. They led the purges.

  The marches. The massacres. They drew the lines on maps that got millions buried.”

  Yanick didn’t flinch. Didn’t blink. His broken wrist throbbed in its steel cage, like it could feel the weight of the past pressing down.

  “They conquered half the world,” Rayla said. “Burned through it like it was dry grass. All because they thought their race was more pure, colour of their skin better. Because they believed their god was better.”

  “And the new one is?” Yanick asked.

  Rayla’s eyes narrowed.

  “People had to unite. Someone had to stop the bleeding. Someone had to end the machine.” Her voice dropped now, low and raw. “They were killing everyone. Everyone. New god or not, they were the opposite of terror back then.”

  The silence after was heavy enough to bend wood. Rayla turned away. Her shoulders dropped a fraction.

  “I was on the front,” she said. “When it happened. Away from home. Away from my kids. My husband.”

  A pause. One beat. Two.

  “They burnt my village to the ground. Not even strategic. Just… fire. Just spite. Just a lesson in obedience.”

  She looked at him again, and now her eyes weren’t burning. They were dead.

  “They were civilians. Farmers. Potters. My youngest had just started speaking. My eldest wanted to be a sailor.”

  Yanick didn’t say anything.

  “I came back to ash,” she said. “And bones.”

  Still, he said nothing.

  “After the war,” Rayla continued, “Big Mike came to me. Told me he had names. High officers. Commanders. Judges. The ones who didn’t kill with their hands, but with signatures. Orders. Laws.”

  “Nemeth’s circle,” Yanick said.

  Rayla nodded once.

  “They scattered like rats when the war ended. Hid in cellars. Changed names. Some ran. Most just… disappeared. The same ones who were ordering the hunts. Who put people into those camps, mines. Or simply just burned them inside the barns.”

  “And you started hunting them. I know.”

  “We are hunting them,” she said. “One by one. Quietly. Thoroughly. No headlines. No parades. Just… justice.”

  Yanick leaned back. The ship groaned beneath them. Somewhere far off, a gull screamed like it knew something.

  “And me?” he asked.

  “You get the worst of them,” Rayla said. “Nemeth himself.”

  She let that hang in the air.

  “He’s on a farm outside Valhafen. Alone. Sick, maybe. Maybe just pretending. Doesn’t matter.”

  Yanick stared at the ceiling like it might crack open and drop the sky on his head.

  “I thought he was dead,” he said, voice quieter now.

  “He should’ve been,” Rayla answered. “But monsters like him don’t die easy. They wait. They rot in silence. They hope the world forgets.”

  “How do I find him?”

  ***

  “My Divine Wolf,” Luc said, stepping down from his pale horse like a god descending a pulpit.

  He didn’t raise his voice. Didn’t need to. The words hung in the air like incense smoke, heavy with meaning, impossible to ignore.

  “God Ari.” Yanick gave a shallow bow. He didn’t kneel. His wrist wouldn’t let him, and his pride wouldn’t either.

  Azrael did, though. Dropped like a sack of grain, chin to chest, eyes wide with childish awe.

  Behind Luc, the officers of his holy legion lined up like chess pieces. Not one of them breathed without permission. Polished armour, straight spines, eyes dull with loyalty. Except one.

  Nemeth.

  The man looked old, thin. As if years of hiding had leached the grandeur from his bones. Still had the predator’s stillness, though. The weight in his shoulders. The way his fingers tapped against his thigh like they missed the feel of a dagger’s hilt.

  Luc gestured toward his generals.

  “These are my sons in conquest. My firebrands. My nails in the coffin of the Old World.”

  Each one bowed in sequence. Each one swallowed their reverence like stale bread. And then Nemeth.

  “Nemeth,” Luc said, barely disguising the disdain. “Returned to the fold. Lowered to serve beneath my Divine Wolf.”

  Yanick looked straight at him.

  Nemeth didn’t bow. Just inclined his head. Just enough to avoid insult. His mouth was a perfect, bitter line.

  “A strange sight,” Luc mused aloud. “The ghost of a once Divine Leader standing beside the future of our people.”

  Yanick said nothing. He was watching Nemeth’s eyes. The angles of his face. Something under the surface, twitching. Not fear. Not yet.

  Amaia.

  Was she in the shape of his cheekbones? The brow? The cruel set of his mouth?

  “Will it be a problem?” Yanick asked.

  Luc raised a brow.

  “That depends on Nemeth.”

  “I follow the will of the god,” Nemeth said, voice like cut stone. “Even when it stings.”

  “Good,” Luc said, satisfied like a man choosing which meat to salt. “Let that be a reminder. Those who fail will be punished. But know my mercy. I’m not vengeful. Not towards my own people at least.”

  Azrael shifted beside Yanick. Nervous. Eager. Like a dog that had just spotted its leash.

  “We’re honoured to fight beside you,” Azrael said.

  Luc offered him a smile that never reached his eyes. “The honour is reciprocal, young flame.”

  Then—to Yanick again. “There are whispers you held the fortress three days before I arrived. That your men breached the wall with fire and blood.”

  “They did,” Yanick said.

  Luc grinned. “You’re rewriting the story before I even get a chance to write the gospel.”

  Yanick didn’t smile back.

  Nemeth stepped forward, arms folded.

  “Some of us remember what happens when men crown themselves messiahs before the final battle.”

  Luc didn’t look at him. Didn’t need to.

  “I allow ghosts to speak,” Luc said, soft and clean like a knife’s edge. “But not to interrupt.”

  Yanick caught the twitch then, right at the corner of Nemeth’s left eye. The smallest crack in stone.

  So he leaned forward, just enough to speak low. Directly to Nemeth.

  “I was there,” he said. “The night you ran away.”

  Nemeth’s eyes flared, only for a heartbeat. But that heartbeat was enough.

  “You’ll know who I am soon enough,” Nemeth said, quiet and low, but not quiet enough.

  Yanick smiled. No humour in it.

  “I already do.”

  Luc turned, clapping once.

  “Enough posturing. Let us feast and let the Faithful pray. Let their towers burn.”

  He walked away, white cloak trailing like smoke behind him. The officers followed, one by one, like rusted knives sliding back into their sheaths.

  Except Nemeth.

  He stayed. Just for a breath. Just long enough to look at Yanick the way one old wolf sizes up the young bastard that took over the den.

  “You were the one who bedded my daughter?” he asked, voice low and flint-sharp.

  Yanick didn’t flinch. Didn’t blink. Just nodded once. Slow. Deliberate. Never breaking eye contact.

  Nemeth’s jaw worked. Something behind his eyes. Not quite rage. Not quite grief.

  “Where is she?”

  Yanick’s voice came quiet. But solid.

  “I was hoping you’d tell me.”