MICHAEL

  THE WALLS GROANED with the weight of bodies and fire. Below them, the world had become a storm of steel and screams. Of course it did.

  Big Mike kept close to Ademund, the younger man moving like a blade loosed from its scabbard. Clean, swift, sure. Smoke coiled from shattered buildings, arrows sliced the air in black arcs, and somewhere a siege tower creaked against the wall, groaning upward like a dying beast.

  And then Ademund stopped.

  Not because of an order. Not because of a wound. He simply froze, eyes narrowing to slits as he stared down into the chaos.

  “There,” he muttered. “He’s there.”

  Mike followed his gaze.

  Among the roiling press of bodies at the foot of the wall, one figure stood out. Not for height, not for brute force, but for stillness. Command. Like a fixed star while the sky turned.

  A helmet masked his face. Sleek, contoured, catching the sunlight like polished bone. On his right hand gleamed a gauntlet, dark steel worked with various symbols, etched silver curling along the knuckles and wrist like ivy choking stone.

  The Divine Wolf.

  He moved with the others, but not like them. The crowd seemed to flow around him, reverent without knowing why. Where he pointed, ladders rose. Where he strode, the charge surged.

  Ademund growled low in his throat.

  “He’s leading them.”

  A blast of horns shattered the moment. The attackers had reached the wall.

  Hooks clanged against the stone. Ladders slammed upward. Men began to climb, faces smeared in ash and war paint, blades in their teeth, murder in their eyes.

  Ademund didn’t wait for the first to reach the top. He turned, vaulted onto the parapet, and leapt down with a roar. Into the thick of it.

  Mike swore and followed.

  The world became a blur. Arrows slicing past his ear, screams echoing up from below, stone slick beneath his boots. He jumped after Ademund, landing hard on the lower walkway, nearly stumbling.

  The line was barely holding, and the enemy kept coming. Too many. Too fast.

  But Ademund didn’t seem to care neither for them nor for his own men, desperately needing him to be the leader he was supposed to be. Their general. For Ademund only one thing existed in that moment, of course it did.

  He was cutting a line straight toward the Divine Wolf, sword in hand, slashing through the crowd with vicious grace. Mike caught up to him just as the first of the enemy reached the top of a ladder. He shoved the man off, turned, and saw the Wolf climbing the final steps.

  Closer now.

  That helmet. That gauntlet. That impossible calm.

  Ademund didn’t hesitate. He charged the Divine Wolf with a shout that split the air like thunder.

  Mike followed.

  Because if this was Yanick—if this was really him—then the only way to know for sure… was to meet him steel to steel.

  Blades screamed on stone. Bodies slammed against the wall like waves breaking on rock. The whole world was noise and blood, the air thick with ash, sweat, and the sharp tang of iron.

  Big Mike shoved a man off the ledge with his shoulder, crushed another’s throat with the butt of a stolen spear. He kept his eyes on the fight ahead. Of course he did. On Ademund, a whirlwind of steel and fury, locked in deadly motion with the one who’d led the charge.

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  They fought in a small clearing carved by death. The bodies of the fallen formed a rough ring around them, friend and foe alike. Ademund moved like he had no weight, no fear, his sword dancing from low guard to high arc in seamless rhythm. But the Divine Wolf met him strike for strike.

  There was grace in the Wolf’s movements. Grace, and something else. Precision. As if he wasn’t fighting in the middle of chaos, but performing something rehearsed a thousand times before. His gauntlet flashed with each parry, silver veins along its length flaring faintly, catching firelight like it remembered lightning.

  And then he used it.

  Ademund came in low, blade aimed for the ribs. The Divine Wolf caught it with his bare hand. No, with the gauntlet. The sword met the metal and stopped, as if hitting a wall. Sparks flew. The symbols along the gauntlet flared white hot for an instant, and Ademund staggered back, eyes wide.

  The Wolf lunged, fist raised, gauntlet humming now, charging.

  But Ademund recovered fast. Too fast.

  He twisted, dropped low, swept the man’s legs from under him. The Wolf hit the stone hard, gauntlet arm smashing down, cracking the edge of the parapet. Ademund was on him in an instant, knee pinning his chest, blade at the gap where helm met gorget.

  Mike reached them then, panting, bloodied, just as Ademund yanked the helmet off.

  It wasn’t Yanick.

  The man beneath the helm was a stranger. Pale, bloodied, lips trembling. His eyes were wide, wild, filled with a fear that had no shape, only weight. He blinked up at them, panting through split lips.

  “Who are you?” Ademund asked, voice low, unreadable.

  The man swallowed, coughed blood, and tried to lift his chin. “I’m the Divine Wolf,” he croaked. “I am—”

  Ademund didn’t even blink.

  “Better for you if you were him.”

  The sword slid in without ceremony. A single, practised thrust. No fury. No victory. Just the inevitability of steel meeting flesh.

  The man spasmed once, then stilled, blood pouring from his throat in a dark, silken sheet, pooling on the stone like spilled ink.

  Big Mike stared, throat tight, heart hammering in his chest. That wasn’t how he’d expected it to end. Not like this. Not some poor fool wearing the mask.

  He barely noticed the footsteps behind them until the voice cut through the smoke and chaos.

  “His name was Azrael.”

  It froze Mike cold.

  That voice. Smooth, cool, and low. Familiar in the worst possible way. A voice like velvet over a blade. Like memory wrapped in poison.

  He turned.

  Luc.

  Standing tall in armour that looked like it had been forged in some divine forge, radiant and cruel all at once. He was immaculate, untouched by war, like he’d stepped out of a temple mural.

  “A life for a life,” Luc said. His eyes didn’t flicker. His voice didn’t waver.

  And before Mike could even move, Luc raised a gun.

  The shot cracked like thunder.

  Ademund jerked back, legs folding beneath him. The sword clattered to stone. Mike caught him before he fell, arms bracing the boy’s weight.

  Blood soaked his hands.

  Ademund looked up at him, breath shallow, eyes clouding fast.

  “Save my father,” he whispered.

  Then he went still. Of course he did.

  Luc raised the gun, and this time it pointed at Mike.

  “I’m sorry, my friend,” he said, voice steady, almost mournful. “But you’ve chosen the wrong side.”

  The barrel gleamed. There was no tremble in his hand. Mike tensed, ready to move, even though he knew he was too slow, too far, too bare.

  Then came the shot. But not from Luc’s gun.

  It cracked sharp behind Mike, close enough to singe his ears.

  Luc staggered, expression flickering in disbelief. Blood bloomed across his ribs, staining the gleaming armour.

  Before he could fall, he fired.

  Another blast. This time from Luc’s sidearm.

  Mike turned to see Gabe jerk backward, hit square in the side. He dropped the gun, staggered, but didn’t fall.

  Luc did.

  The two men collided like wolves, snarling into the dirt and blood. Armour clanged, fists cracked bone. They fought like during the training. No theatrics, just brutal precision. Elbows, knees, hands searching for throats. The kind of fighting taught to kill, meant to end quickly and without mercy.

  Mike stood frozen. His breath came ragged, his heart an anvil in his chest.

  He looked down.

  Ademund’s blood was still warm on his hands. The boy’s face already paling.

  “Save my father.”

  The words echoed in his skull, louder than the battle, louder than the groans of the dying.

  He didn’t look back.

  He reached down, took up one of the fallen guns. It felt heavier than it should have. More than steel. More than death.

  He ran.

  Past the bodies. Past the screaming. Toward the palace.

  ***

  To Nemeth, Lord to all Nordling tribes,

  Dear accomplice,

  I hope this letter finds you in good health, as what we are about to ask of you will require such.

  First, let me offer my gratitude. You have fulfilled every request without pause, without question. You have prepared the northern tribes as we asked, forged their fury into readiness, and aligned the banners beneath your command. For that, you have earned not only my thanks, but the silent approval of those you do not yet know by name.

  The time is near. The wheel has turned. Soon, the first blow must be struck, and struck hard. I trust the Jarls you have chosen to lead the charge are as loyal as you claim, for their loyalty will be tested in fire. Do not mourn what must be lost. They are to be sent to their doom, knowingly or not, and that is the price for what comes next.

  Within two months’ time, you must set sail for Lunareth, and bring your children with you. Delay not, and speak of this to no one outside your own blood. When you see the great light rise in the sky, and you will know it when it comes, then the final part will have been done. The path shall be cleared.

  And I shall come to Lunareth, as promised.

  There, among the chosen, we will be lifted beyond the ashes, and begin again. A new order. A world reborn. One shaped by our will and sealed by sacrifice.

  Until then, stand ready.

  Maria IX