Princeling Daughn of the Westra Marshes, heir to the Princedom of Branthorn, watched the vault of the Bloodseals with practiced focus, her posture still and composed as the world beyond her office continued to turn.
Readings hovered in her vision at all tis, layered over reality until it beca difficult to tell where stone and steel ended and data began. She told herself she was hoping for her grandmother’s safe return, repeating the thought until it almost sounded convincing. The truth, however, sat heavier beneath that lie. She was waiting. Dreaming. Wanting the final seal to shatter and prove that patience could be sharper than any blade.
The foray into the Green Zone was likely to succeed. The town her grandmother had stepped into was small, insignificant, and poorly defended, a place that would have folded even without the weight of a Prince’s authority bearing down on it. Daughn remained seated in her office, surrounded by stacked reports, scrolling projections, live feeds from the vault, and the ever-present irritation of the unshattered Bloodseal that still denied her the throne of Branthorn. Its surface glowed faintly, stubbornly whole, a quiet reminder that power was never granted, only delayed.
She had tried to kill her grandmother many tis since childhood. So attempts had been clumsy, others carefully arranged, all of them failures. After her mother and father were removed from the board, succession had beco a matter of patience rather than doubt. Ti, secrecy, and opportunity would do the rest. As long as no unknown grandchild surfaced, no hidden bastard crawled out of the marsh with a claim equal to hers, Branthorn would be hers. The house did not forgive weakness, and it did not forget blood.
As far as Daughn knew, she was the only surviving mber of the House with a legitimate claim. Still, uncertainty lingered like fog over the wetlands. Her grandmother had never been discreet, and bastards had a habit of surviving where they should not. If the old woman had spent less ti chasing husbands and more ti securing her bloodline, Daughn would not have been in the position she now occupied. She thanked her grandmother, silently and without rcy, for that lack of foresight. That negligence had been a gift, one Daughn intended to unwrap fully.
Her grandmother had been a great military leader in theory. The skirmishing doctrine was sound, elegant even, but it had done nothing to truly expand Branthorn’s reach or secure its future. Daughn had no desire to follow that path. Expansion invited enemies, and enemies invited dependency. She would claim all that lay within the bog, the marshlands and the borders that fed them, and she would fortify it until it could not be taken.
She was no longer satisfied with being a princeling. Nor did she desire the hollow inheritance of a princess bound by treaties and expectations. Daughn intended to be a queen in her own right, sovereign and unbound, ruling her territory without the oversight that had shackled her grandmother. The other Princedoms had tied their power together out of weakness, each unable to defend its lands without leaning on the rest. Daughn saw no virtue in that arrangent.
She saw a different future. One where Branthorn stood alone, protected by preparation rather than promises. The Green Zone was a problem, but not an insurmountable one. As a sovereign power, Branthorn could trade with both the Green and the Princedoms, playing necessity against convenience. There would be tension, of course, but it would not be Branthorn they ca for first.
As long as she made herself useful to both sides, Branthorn would survive. There were few resources in the marshes worth bleeding over, and fewer still worth provoking a war. Daughn saw the future clearly, and she saw herself at its center. Her grandmother was a relic of the past, clinging to stories and alliances that no longer mattered.
There were many things Daughn wished her grandmother had been. Wise would have helped. Careful would have sufficed. rciful had never been an option. Chief among those wishes was simple and unchanging. Dead.
If there was one concession she would make, it was beauty. Her grandmother was surpassingly beautiful, long black hair kept immaculate even in war, flawless skin, eyes that drew attention whether they wished to or not. Her beauty was natural, not the engineered prettiness of the Green Zone, and it had carried her through decades of rule, smoothing over mistakes that should have ended lesser rulers. In Daughn’s opinion, only one woman surpassed her.
Daughn herself.
Freckles traced her pale skin and frad erald eyes that softened her face in ways her grandmother’s did not. Side by side, they might have been mistaken for twins by a careless observer. Where others saw flaws, Daughn saw leverage. Those marks made her appear approachable, even fragile, soone to underestimate and dismiss. People mistook that for weakness.
They were wrong, and many of them were already dead for it.
Venom still lived beneath her skin, as it should. The bogs and marshlands of Branthorn were poisonous, suffocating places where careless steps ended lives, and their rulers had always reflected that truth. Power there was quiet, patient, and lethal, seeping in slowly until resistance beca impossible. Though Daughn sotis used the word princess when thinking of the line, she ant only the single ruler who had held Branthorn since the fall of the Empire, the one who stood alone at the top once the blood settled.
She would turn this place into a legacy of her own, not a shrine to old wars or borrowed myths. Branthorn would next be rembered for her, not for the ghosts her grandmother clung to.
Her grandmother lived on stories, on tales of an Empire ruled by a man more legend than flesh. She idolized her father, spoke of him as if the world itself had bent to his will. Daughn had never believed it. No man could have been what the stories claid, not without the world breaking around him. Myth made people careless, and carelessness got people killed.
She had seen the ch Lords beneath the throne of Brambleheart, imnse statues carved with impossible precision, their forms frozen in silent vigilance. Artifacts like that did not rise from fantasy alone. Soone had seen sothing real to inspire them, and that truth unsettled her more than any bedti legend. Sothing powerful enough to leave such echoes should not have been allowed to exist without consequence.
Yet the statues remained, unmoving and eternal.
And as long as the Bloodseal did not shatter, so did her grandmother, alive sowhere beyond the vault, standing between Daughn and everything she deserved.
A knock sounded at her door, sharp and deliberate.
“Co in,” Daughn said, her voice weary but controlled. She did not look up at first. Her attention remained fixed on finance reports and shifting market values scrolling across her data pad, columns of numbers adjusting in real ti as new projections overwrote the old. Trade routes fluctuated. Resource values dipped and rose. None of it mattered as much as the constant presence of the Bloodseal vault lingering in her peripheral vision, impossible to ignore.
Gustavo entered and bowed deeply, precise and formal. The motion stopped at a perfect ninety degrees. One hand rested behind his back, the other placed neatly in front of him. White gloves. Black suit. An older man with graying hair, a straight spine, and the kind of posture earned through decades of disciplined service.
“Apologies for the interruption, my lady,” Gustavo said, his voice even and deferential, eyes still lowered.
“What is it, Gustavo?” Daughn asked, impatience slipping into her tone now that hope had been so easily dashed. Her gaze remained on the data pad for a mont longer before she finally lifted her eyes.
Gustavo inclined his head slightly, maintaining the bow. “There has been an incident involving your grandmother,” he said.
Daughn’s eyes flicked, briefly and instinctively, to the Bloodseal vault. Nothing had changed. The seals remained whole, unbroken, stubborn in their silence. For a heartbeat, hope stirred and died just as quickly. The view never left her awareness. It was always there, the promise that at any mont the seal might finally shatter and rewrite her future.
Daughn straightened slightly in her chair. “Go on,” she said.
Still in his bow, eyes lowered in deference, Gustavo said, “Your grandmother has gone missing.”
A small spark of hope reignited in Daughn’s chest. She smothered it instantly, forcing her expression to remain neutral. “What do you an, missing?” she asked, her voice perfectly composed, betraying none of the glee that threatened beneath the surface.
“Knight Commander Cavil has returned from the front,” Gustavo said. “They suffered significant losses. The forces they encountered were not what our projections indicated.”
Daughn’s fingers stilled against the data pad, the scrolling data freezing mid-update as her focus sharpened. “Explain,” she said.
“There was no capitulation to the demand for surrender,” Gustavo continued, his tone asured. “An initial assault eliminated most of the foot soldiers and several unprotected support units. When our forces attempted to withdraw, a massive storm front ford without warning. Another assault followed, one that crushed the retreat and scattered what remained of the formation.”
Gustavo hesitated, just long enough to be noticed. “Six ch knights were lost within monts,” Gustavo said.
Daughn looked up fully now, her attention no longer divided. “We lost six?” she asked.
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“Yes, my lady,” Gustavo said. “Cavil reports that one man destroyed four of them in rapid succession. One unit was lost prior to the retreat, before the withdrawal was even ordered.”
“And the sixth?” Daughn asked, her tone sharp despite her outward calm.
Gustavo paused again. “That… Cavil did not clarify the circumstances of the sixth loss,” he said carefully. “Only that it was destroyed. A full report is forthcoming. He is currently debriefing Knight-Commander Larimore. They are preparing a counter-assault.”
Daughn laughed, the sound soft and sharp, devoid of humor. “Of course they are,” she said. “Is it truly a counter-assault when we were the ones who initiated the attack?”
“That is not my place to question, my lady,” Gustavo said without hesitation. “I am here only to relay information.”
“It’s fine, Gustavo,” Daughn said, waving a dismissive hand as she rose from her seat. “Take to them. I want to know exactly what happened to my dear grandmother.”
“Follow , my lady,” Gustavo said.
He did not open the door himself. Two guards stepped forward in unison and pulled it wide. Daughn moved first, her steps asured and unhurried, and Gustavo waited until she passed before straightening. Though he led the way through the corridor, he positioned himself just behind her shoulder, the practiced stance of a bodyguard escorting soone of true importance, eyes forward and alert as they moved on.
Five Knight Commanders occupied the briefing room, spread around the long table in practiced formation. Cavil and Larimore had been speaking for nearly half an hour, voices low and controlled as they sketched plans for what might co next. The others listened in disciplined silence, intervening only when doctrine or logistics demanded it.
Artemis sat at the long table with the others, posture straight, hands resting loosely before her. She was Daughn’s Knight Commander in all but na, a reality that shaped when she chose to speak and when she remained silent. Officially, she served Princess Selai, as all of them did. In reality, her loyalty lay with Daughn, and everyone in the room knew it.
She watched Cavil closely as he spoke. Princess Selai’s favored commander. Respected, competent, and until today, unblemished. What he was describing bordered on impossibility. One man eliminating four ch knights in the space of a heartbeat. No counterasures. No effective response. No warning. It sounded like a ghost story, the kind told to justify a rout after the fact. Fabrication, at best.
The room did not challenge him aloud.
What unsettled Artemis was not the claim itself, but everything surrounding it. No clear account existed of how the Princess had been taken. The retreat had been cleanly executed, the palanquin pulled back beyond imdiate danger once the decision was made. The Princess had been answering comms until she wasn’t.
Cavil had attempted contact again and again. There had been no response.
Confirmation ca only after the palanquin was secured and entered.
What they found inside ended all uncertainty.
Bodies were everywhere. Guards had been driven into the walls themselves, their bodies crushed deep into stone and plating, leaving human shapes embedded where they had struck. Armor was compacted flat against surfaces, ribs and limbs forced inward until there was no distinction between man and structure. So were folded into corners as if thrown and pressed there with relentless force. One man had been driven through with a heavy timber, the log punched clean through his torso and embedded in the far panel, his body left hanging where it had stopped. There were no signs of resistance, no staggered lines of defense, no evidence that any of them had managed to touch whoever did this.
The seneschal lay broken against the far wall of an outer chamber; limbs twisted at angles that spoke of violent impact rather than execution. The lady in waiting was found nearby, crumpled amid torn silks, her fine garnts soaked through.
Only one body occupied the Princess’s main chamber, the room where her throne stood.
The Princess’s handmaiden, the one assigned closest to her person, had a stake driven through her skull, mounting her to the wall beside the throne, her body left upright as if on display. Her blood had trailed across the floor and pooled beneath her feet, and it was later confird that the sa blood filled the Princess’s goblet. Blood coated the chamber in thick, uneven patterns, sprayed across silk hangings and carved panels alike.
It was not a skirmish. It was a massacre.
The only verified data point they possessed was that the Princess’s Bloodseal had not shattered. That single fact was the only confirmation they had that the Princess still lived.
Her location remained unknown. Whether she was still in the town or already far beyond it could not be determined. The timing aligned too cleanly with the assault to suggest coincidence. The conclusion had been quietly agreed upon without being spoken aloud.
An assault had occurred.
Artemis had reviewed the remnants herself. She had watched the holo, fra by fractured fra, pulled directly from the internal caras of the ch knights themselves. That was the part that refused to settle in her mind.
The figure in the yellow jacket never appeared on external sensors. He existed only inside the cockpit recordings. One mont he was there, impossibly close, filling the fra as if the caras themselves had been invaded. The next, he was gone.
In the space between his disappearance and the collapse, three more knights were lost.
Cavil had been speaking to the man at the ti. The yellow jacket had requested an audience with the Princess. Before Cavil could route the channel, the connection failed. When contact with the Princess could not be reestablished, the yellow jacket disengaged first.
The cockpit collapsed the mont he vanished.
The fra showed no external breach and no crushing force from without. The entire ch folded inward on itself, armor plates buckling and compacting as though the machine had been hollowed out and told to close. Artemis could not identify the chanism. No weapon signature lingered long enough to classify. No force vector made sense. The systems simply failed, and then the structure followed.
That sequence troubled her more than the losses.
It troubled the rest of the Knight Commander Council as well. The yellow jacket had not pressed his advantage. Given what they had seen on the holo, he could have. The fact that he did not was as concerning as the devastation he left behind.
Larimore raised a hand, his voice cutting cleanly through the room. “Order,” he said.
Cavil did not bristle, but his jaw tightened as he continued. “By duty, we are obligated to attempt recovery,” he said. “If required, we will petition other Princedoms for assistance. A coordinated response would escalate matters beyond Branthorn’s control…”
“And mark Branthorn as weak,” Larimore said, his tone flat. “You know that.”
Cavil exhaled slowly. “I do. But abandoning the princess is not an option.”
“No one is suggesting abandonnt,” Larimore replied. “We are questioning feasibility.”
The room held its breath around that word.
None of them would ask for help unless there was no other choice. To do so would escalate their quiet war with Kess and invite scrutiny they could not afford. Six lost knights had already placed them on unstable ground.
The doors opened.
Conversation ceased instantly.
Gustavo entered first, posture immaculate, eyes forward. He stopped just inside the threshold and spoke with practiced clarity.
“Commanders, please rise for the entrance of Princeling Daughn of the Westra Marshes, heir to the Princedom of Branthorn.”
“Commanders, you may have your seats,” Daughn said as she stepped into the room.
She did not wait for acknowledgnt or ceremony. She crossed the length of the chamber with unhurried confidence and pulled the head chair back from the table, the scrape of tal against stone loud in the sudden quiet.
If the Princess had been present, the act would have warranted execution. Everyone in the room understood that without needing to look at one another. With the Princess absent, Daughn was technically the highest authority present. The move was permissible under the letter of succession law. It was also flagrantly improper by tradition.
No one challenged her.
Daughn sat.
She allowed herself a asured breath, then folded her hands atop the table, fingers interlaced with deliberate precision. Her expression was composed, somber, and entirely rehearsed, the practiced mask of a grieving heir stepping into responsibility. Internally, the image of her grandmother lying cold in so forgotten hole brought a quiet curl of satisfaction that she did not bother to deny herself. Outwardly, she wore duty and concern with equal ease. The dissonance was apparent to everyone present. It simply served no purpose to address it.
The play would proceed as it always did.
Daughn’s gaze moved slowly around the table, taking in each seated Knight Commander in turn. Five seats were filled, each occupied by an equal authority, each representing a different pillar of Branthorn’s remaining strength. Her eyes lingered briefly on Cavil before settling on Larimore.
“Larimore,” Daughn said evenly, her voice asured and clear. “Tell what has happened to my dear, sweet grandmother. I would prefer the full account from soone who was not… imrsed in the mont. What have the analysts concluded?”
“Yes, my lady,” Larimore replied.
Cavil remained seated as Larimore rose, the subtle choice not lost on anyone in the room. The older Knight Commander stepped forward, positioning himself where all five Commanders could see him clearly, his posture straight despite the weight of what he was about to say.
“As you are aware,” Larimore said, “the Princess has been captured. All available analysis indicates that her disappearance coincided directly with the actions of this individual.”
He gestured, and a holo display blood above the table. Light resolved into fractured internal feeds, stabilizing just enough to form the image of a figure clad in a yellow jacket. Other silhouettes hovered at the margins, indistinct and partially obscured.
“This individual and his associates assaulted the forces under Commander Cavil’s charge,” Larimore continued. “When Commander Cavil made the formal declaration of conquest, as required by treaty, the enemy requested ti to respond. Their answer was an imdiate assault.”
The holo shifted, showing collapsing formations, abrupt signal loss, and internal cara views that cut out mid-motion.
“Nearly ninety percent of the accompanying foot soldiers were killed in the opening monts,” Larimore said. “Following this, Commander Cavil ordered a withdrawal and established a periter around the Princess’s palanquin using the twenty-four ch knights under his command.”
Larimore paused, allowing the numbers to settle.
“At that point, an unrecorded storm front manifested without warning,” he continued. “We have no teorological data to support its formation. Analysts suspect the overlapping use of multiple soul skills, possibly combined with a device or capability previously unknown to us.”
“The rain itself beca hostile,” Larimore said. “It impeded our forces exclusively. Enemy movent appeared unaffected, suggesting either immunity or deliberate control.”
Daughn’s lips curved faintly. “The rain was on their side,” she observed.
Larimore inclined his head. “Yes, my lady.”
He continued, “During the storm, a large hostile entity erged. Based on observed resilience and fire absorption, we assess it as a high Imperator–level threat previously unrecorded. It drew concentrated fire from multiple ch units without observable degradation or behavioral shift.”
The holo shifted again, displaying distorted silhouettes and overlapping weapons fire.
“Once our fire was committed,” Larimore said, “additional hostile elents entered the field. Shifters, beast forms, and multiple Imperator–level combatants. A secondary high Imperator–class threat, identified as a wolf-pattern entity, was also observed. That individual remains unaccounted for.”
“And the larger one?” Daughn asked.
Larimore nodded once. “The bear-pattern entity was neutralized during the retreat, according to post-engagent confirmation. Confirmation remains partial.”
Larimore straightened, hands clasped behind his back. “During this period, Commander Cavil lost contact with the Princess. Shortly thereafter, the yellow-jacketed individual disengaged entirely. The hostile assault faltered. When our forces reentered the palanquin, the Princess was gone.”
A brief silence followed, heavy and unresolved.
Before Larimore could continue, the holo display flickered.
A new figure appeared, posture rigid, voice tight with strain. “Hail, Commanders. Princeling Daughn. There is an incoming broadcast.”
The figure swallowed before finishing, eyes flicking off-screen. “It is… from the Princess.”
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