The Fractured Crown


    Ash fell like snow over Valois Keep.


    Aldric stood atop the battlements, his breath ragged behind a cloth mask. Below, the Blight’s black veins gnawed at the castle’s foundations, while refugees huddled in the courtyard, their faces gaunt and eyes hollow. The cataract-eyed girl—Lysette, he’d learned her name—clung to a threadbare doll, her milky gaze fixed on the corpse of a Blightborn wyvern rotting in the moat.


    “They’re calling it the ‘Scourge of Valenor,’” Thaddeus said, tossing a crumpled broadsheet at Aldric’s feet. The parchment bore a woodcut of Aldric, horned and fanged, unleashing green fire upon cowering peasants. “Poetic, really. You’ve united the realm in hating you.”


    Aldric coughed, crimson blooming on the cloth. “Where’s Isolde?”


    “Bartering with the other monsters.” Thaddeus jerked his thumb toward the eastern gate, where Blackfang survivors camped beyond the walls. Their war drums had gone silent, replaced by the rasp of whetstones on steel.


    <hr>


    The Heir


    The Blackfang heir was younger than Aldric expected—barely twenty, with her father’s wyvern-scale armor hanging loose on her frame. She sat cross-legged on a looted Church tapestry, sharpening a curved dagger.


    “I am Anara, daughter of Varek,” she said, not looking up. “You killed my father. Why should I not peel the flesh from your bones?”


    Isolde leaned against a tent pole, arms folded. “Because the Blight will peel all our bones if we don’t stop it. Even yours.”


    Aldric knelt, ignoring the ache in his lungs. “Your people are trapped here, same as mine. The Church’s remnants will hunt us both. Help us cure the Blight, and I’ll grant your Horde safe passage north.”


    Anara’s blade paused. “Safe passage? Your duchy is rot.”Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.


    “But my mind isn’t.” Aldric unfolded a map, its edges singed. “The Holy See’s archives mention a ‘Purging Stone’ in the Azure Peaks. It could cleanse the land.”


    “A fairy tale,” Anara scoffed.


    “So was my cannon.”


    The tent flaps rustled. Lysette stood in the entrance, her doll clutched tight. Anara’s glare softened—just for a heartbeat.


    “Your child?” the Khan’s heir asked.


    “Orphan,” Aldric said. “The Blight took her mother.”


    Anara sheathed her dagger. “We march at dawn.”


    <hr>


    The Duke’s Judgment


    Duke Reynaud’s fist struck Aldric before he could speak.


    “You’d ally with savages?” the duke roared, his breath reeking of wine and decay. The throne room’s tapestries sagged, their threads blackened by mold. “You’ve turned my kingdom into a cesspit, boy. Guillaume!”


    Guillaume stepped forward, his sword drawn. “Time to die, brother.”


    Aldric didn’t flinch. “Kill me, and Valenor dies with me. The Blight’s already in the wells. In the wine.”


    The duke froze, his goblet trembling.


    “Check your hands,” Aldric said quietly.


    Reynaud unclenched his fist. Black veins crept beneath his skin.


    “The Stone can save you,” Aldric lied. “But I need your knights to reach the Peaks.”


    Guillaume laughed, jagged and wild. “You’re mad. I’ll take the throne and burn the Horde myself—”


    A crossbow bolt punched through his eye.


    Thaddeus lowered the weapon, grinning. “Apologies. Slipped.”


    <hr>


    The March


    They rode at dawn—a ragged column of Blackfang warriors, peasant militias, and Penitent Knights whose vows had crumbled with Ignatius’s death. Lysette rode with Aldric, her small hands clutching his coat.


    Isolde trotted alongside, her alchemy cart rattling with Blight vials. “The Stone’s a myth,” she muttered. “You know that, right?”


    Aldric stared at the horizon, where the Azure Peaks pierced the sky like broken teeth. “We need hope more than truth.”


    A scream shattered the march. A knight toppled from his horse, black tendrils erupting from his mouth. The Blight had learned new tricks.


    <hr>


    The Peak


    The Purging Stone was real.


    It loomed in the mountain’s heart, a crystalline monolith humming with pale light. Anara’s warriors recoiled; Isolde wept.


    Aldric pressed his palm to the Stone. Warmth flooded his veins, purging the cough, the fatigue—the guilt. For a moment, he felt invincible.


    Then the Stone cracked.


    Black ooze seeped from its core, dissolving the chamber floor. Lysette screamed as the ground gave way—


    —and Aldric fell into darkness.