(Proofread and partially written by AI for coherence and completeness.)
The days in Hallow's End were slow, heavy with cold air and heavier still with silence. Life moved in cycles here—hunger, survival, sleep, repeat. And in between it all, Kieran trained.
By now, the villagers had begun to notice. Ferris, who was once treated like a useless relic of the past, was now seen every day walking with Kieran into the woods, returning with bruises and blades, and eyes sharper than ever. The pair had become a curiosity, even a whisper on the wind.
And in places like Hallow's End, whispers spread faster than disease.
"Ferris is training that boy," one woman muttered to her husband while pulling a half-frozen root from the dirt. "The same boy who came from the cliffs with nothing but rags on his back."
"He's a scavenger. All of us are," the man replied, not looking up. "But maybe he's just got more fight in him than most."
"Or maybe he's planning something."
Kieran heard these murmurs. He didn't respond, didn't acknowledge them—but he filed every word away. These people were afraid of change, afraid of anyone who disrupted their fragile rhythm of survival. He wasn't surprised. The poor protected the little they had by burying ambition in fear.
But Ferris had taught him something crucial in the last few weeks: fear was a weapon. One Kieran was beginning to wield just by walking through the village with purpose.
The morning was foggy, the sun reduced to a pale blur behind gray mist. Ferris stood by the fire outside his hut, his arms crossed.
"I hear they've started talking," he said without looking at Kieran.
"I know," Kieran replied. "They'll talk. Then they'll obey."
Ferris glanced at him. "That's a dangerous line of thinking. You want their fear to push them into silence—not rebellion."
"I don't care what they feel as long as they stay out of my way."
Ferris gave a slight nod, neither approving nor disapproving. "Just remember—control without respect is brittle. Like ice underfoot. One misstep and it shatters."
Kieran didn't answer. His mind was elsewhere.
Lately, he'd been hearing things. Travelers, rare as they were, sometimes passed through Hallow's End. One, a limping merchant with broken teeth and a sack of spoiled grain, had told stories of unrest in the eastern cities. Of nobles fighting among themselves. Of rebel factions rising in the shadows.
A crack in the system.
An opportunity.
That night, Kieran brought it up as they sat by the fire, the forest groaning softly around them.
"You ever heard of Whitebridge?" he asked, tossing a stick into the flames.
Ferris grunted. "A noble-run city. Southern edge of the Dagger Coast. Rich, fat, and rotting from the inside."
"Someone told me the lords there are fighting among themselves. Land disputes. Mercenaries switching sides. People starving."
"Sounds like every noble city."
"But that means they're distracted. Vulnerable."
Ferris raised an eyebrow. "You're not even ready to lead a group of villagers, and you're already scheming about taking down cities?"
Kieran didn't back down. "You taught me to see cracks in the wall. I'm just looking further than the stone in front of me."
There was a long pause. The fire snapped loudly in the stillness.
Then Ferris said, "Good. But don't confuse seeing the road with walking it. You've still got a long way to go."
Over the next week, Ferris pushed Kieran harder. It wasn't just combat anymore. He was teaching him about supply chains, trade, how nobles controlled regions through grain, iron, and whispers.
"You want to rule?" Ferris said one morning, as they practiced tracking in the wet underbrush. "Then understand this: blades win battles, but information wins wars."
So Kieran began to learn how to listen. How to ask the right questions. How to gather details from casual conversations without seeming too curious.
The merchant who'd spoken of Whitebridge? Kieran tracked him down before he left the village. He gave him a half-rusted dagger and some dried meat in exchange for everything he knew—every noble family name, every rumor, every weak spot.
And as Kieran stood by the cliff edge that night, overlooking the forest beyond the village, he felt it: the pull of something greater.
This village was only the beginning.
In the final days of that cold stretch of winter, Ferris said something strange.
"You remind me of someone I once knew."
Kieran looked up from where he was sharpening his blade. "Who?"
"A prince," Ferris said, voice low and distant. "Ambitious. Ruthless. Thought he could remake the world."
"What happened to him?"
Ferris didn't answer immediately. The fire crackled.
"He forgot to look behind him while charging ahead."
Kieran took the lesson silently. But deep inside, a quiet fire had already been lit. One that whispered of war, of rising from the mud, and of a crown made not of gold—but of ash and steel.