“Aye.” Kaelen hefted his axe. The rune on its blade glowed faintly, a dying ember refusing to go dark. “But it is our execution. We choose the ground. We choose the moment. That is the return of reckoning, knight. Not waiting for a savior. Becoming one.”
The mist over Praag had not lifted in seven years. Some said it was the breath of the Dark Gods, lingering after the Storm of Chaos. Others, the wiser ones, called it shame—a land holding its breath, waiting for a dawn that might never come. return of reckoning
A sharp cry pulled him from the memory. Down in the courtyard, a Bretonnian Questing Knight was arguing with a Witch Hunter. The knight’s voice carried, thick with frustration. “Aye
Kaelen touched the rune-brand on his forearm—the mark of the Slayer’s Oath, though he had never taken it. Not formally. His shame was not failure, but survival. Three winters ago, in the tunnels beneath the Howling Heights, he had watched his entire Stonebeard throng fall to a Bloodthirster’s axe. He had been the last, trapped under a collapse, listening to the daemon’s laughter fade as it turned toward the surface. We choose the ground