Chapter 21 – The Keeper's Fall
The moon bled pale silver over the high ramparts of Artherion's eastern stronghold, known to most as Caelgard Keep, but to those who guarded it, simply as the Heartpost. For it was there that the blood of Artherion's watchmen pulsed the strongest.
The Keeper of Caelgard, Lord Archel Talvayn, stood alone atop the battlements. His cloak of midnight blue billowed in the strange winds stirred by the Shadow Sky. His eyes, once bright with laughter, were now etched with strain, with lines drawn by sleepless nights and unsent letters to his wife in the quiet vineyards of Leorvalle.
Below him, thousands of soldiers paced in formation. Not unruly. Not afraid. But charged. The air itself trembled with a wariness no horn had yet confirmed.
But the Keeper knew.
He had known since dusk.
Something was coming.
Something born not just of steel and fire, but silence.
The kind of silence that swallowed men whole.
---
"Prepare the skyward sigils," Archel ordered his mages. "Focus fire on the northern ridgeline. If they come, they will come through the fog."
He was right.
---
Beyond the cliffs, deep in the Shrouded Vale, a war host amassed. Saevan stood cloaked on a high bluff, eyes narrowed to slits. Prince Alaric paced beside him, impatient.
"They won't suspect this angle," Alaric said, more to himself.
"They do," Saevan answered without turning. "But they're men. Men grow weary waiting for death. If we do not come in the hour they expect… they lower their shields."
Below them, the engines of war groaned. Siege serpents, oiled and rune-bound. Catapults built from the bones of slain mountain gods. Drums pounded, not in tempo, but in code.
And with each beat, another shadow peeled away from the cliffs.
Hundreds.
Thousands.
Marching without word, without flame, through fog and false night.
---
Inside Caelgard's chapel, a young priest named Toren prayed beneath the statue of King Elyrion. It was said the king's likeness had been carved by the wind itself, no mortal hand having shaped the stone. Toren believed this with all his heart.
Until the shadow passed over the stained glass.
Until the sun's memory died.
Then the bells rang.
Not by rope.
But by will.
The Keeper had ordered the city awakened.
"Defenders of Caelgard," his voice boomed from enchanted channels. "Tonight we do not guard a wall. We guard an oath."
As one, the people of the Keep stood.
Merchants dropped ledgers and took up blades. Scribes folded scrolls into their robes and picked up staves. Even the children, as trained by tradition, ran not to panic—but to the tunnels beneath the granaries, ready to aid the infirm.
It had begun.
---
They came not with screams but with silence.
The enemy forces appeared as a dark ripple across the landscape, climbing walls not with ladders but claws. Some flew, twisted wyverns, cursed falcons. Others simply walked through the gates, compelled open by traitor runes.
But Caelgard did not break.
Not yet.
Archel Talvayn fought like the old kings. Sword alight with windfire, his blade moved like poetry dipped in vengeance. Every slash was a stanza. Every thrust, a curse reversed. Behind him, battlemages sang their war-psalms, their voices weaving walls of light, blasts of holy flame.
And still the dark came.
Through alleys.
Over rooftops.
Out of drains.
Then, as the Keep reached its fever pitch—a horn sounded.
From within.
A section of the inner guard turned.
Their eyes were wrong.
Too wide.
Too calm.
They drew their blades, not against the invaders, but their own.
The Keeper's shield had fractured.
"Betrayal!" cried one of the wardens.
Archel turned too late. A spear pierced his shoulder. He fell, clutching his wound.
Blood soaked his tabard.
But he rose.
Because no Keeper fell without a final word.
He cast aside his helm.
He looked toward the spires of Artherion.
And whispered one name:
"Elyrion."
And light answered.
A beam, no thicker than a thread, shot down from the clouds.
It touched his blade.
And it blazed.
With one strike, he carved a hole through the traitors before him. He turned and roared.
But it was not enough.
Not against the shadow that loomed now at the edge of the rampart.
Saevan.
He did not draw a blade.
He raised a hand.
And the wind died.
And so did the Keeper.
No blood.
No sound.
Just silence.
And a city crumbling in the wake of his fall.
---
Far away, Lucien stood at the eastern tower of the capital.
He felt it.
The tremor.
The unraveling of a soul that had stood for centuries.
He closed his eyes.
"Mirelleth," he called.
I arrived within minutes.
"Yes, my lord?"
"Send word. To every bastion, every banner."
He turned, eyes burning.
"The war has begun."
To be continued...