The fortress was called Thornehold.
Built into a cliffside like a claw dug into the mountain's throat, it had stood for centuries — never taken, never burned.
Until now.
Snow whipped around them in ghostlike curls. Caelan stood beneath the jagged crags, staring up at the keep's outer wall. The gates were steelwood, warded. The guards wore red sashes, the mark of the Tyrant's loyalists.
He had twelve at his back.
Not an army. Not even a proper gang.
A broken archer.A mute girl who spoke to bones.A former priest with a scarred tongue and no faith left to give.And Kerrin — his second-in-command. Quick with a blade, quicker with ambition.
Caelan raised his hand.
"Once we move, there's no turning back."
"Thought we passed that line six bodies ago," Kerrin said.
Caelan smiled, cold and thin.
"Good. Then let's paint the walls red."
The Siege Begins
They didn't come in like soldiers.
They came in like shadows.
The water ducts were unguarded — forgotten relics of the fortress's old design. Caelan crawled through first, grime slicking his coat, breath shallow. The others followed, one by one, until they emerged inside the outer storehouses.
No alarms.
Not yet.
He gave the signal.
The fires began in the barracks.
The outer gates burst open — not from force, but from inside, where two stableboys paid in stolen coin had undone the bolts.
Within minutes, Thornehold screamed.
Steel met steel in the snow. Loyalist guards clashed with cloaked rebels, but something was wrong. Caelan's group moved too quickly. They seemed to know where the officers would be. Where to strike.
Kerrin led the charge up the eastern tower, cutting down three men before they could draw breath.
By midnight, the fortress had fallen.
But it hadn't been a siege.
It had been surgery.
Thornehold's Throne Room
The lord of Thornehold knelt before him now — bloodied, trembling, eyes wide as Caelan approached.
"You… you're no noble. What are you?"
Caelan knelt, face inches from his prey.
"I'm the correction," he said. "For everything your kind built on bones."
Then he drove his blade through the man's eye.
Later — In the Quiet
The fires had dimmed. Bodies were being burned in the yard.
Caelan stood alone atop the battlements, watching the valley.
And that's when it happened.
The Veil shimmered.
It bled into view — just for him. A ripple of dark silk, like a living night sky stretching out around his soul.
Eclipsed Veil Interface — UpdateThread Control: Unstable Surge DetectedBattleweave Compatibility Expanded: [Ashweave Resonance: 13% → 29%]New Trait Revealed — SunderpulseYou have unlocked a raw, uncontrolled ability linked to your grief and will: a shockwave of rupturing ash and Weave pressure. Use with caution.
Caelan staggered, breath ragged. He hadn't cast anything. But the air… it bent around him now. Magic bent. Reality noticed him.
He grinned through the exhaustion.
But then—
Betrayal
The blade came from behind.
Kerrin.
Steel bit into Caelan's shoulder — not deep, but intentional.
Caelan spun, drawing his blade too late. Kerrin backed off fast, already out of reach.
"You knew too much," Caelan said. "You led them."
Kerrin shrugged. "You lit the fire. I just fanned it for my own ends."
Guards rushed in behind him — not Caelan's. Old loyalists. Paid off. Subverted.
"You're just a spark," Kerrin said. "I'm the one who'll turn this into a kingdom."
Caelan didn't answer.
He moved.
The Sunderpulse erupted.
Ash-black light burst outward like a detonation of silence. Walls cracked. Eyes bled. The guards fell, one by one — skin turning to coal, then dust.
Only Kerrin survived — crawling, coughing, his skin blistered.
Caelan stood over him, ash bleeding from his pores, eyes lit from within.
"You forgot something," he said.
"What…?"
"I wasn't trying to build a kingdom."
He raised his blade.
"I'm building a crucible."
The blade fell.
Eclipsed Veil Interface — Update
Dominion Progression: Stage II — ClaimantVeil Status: Actively StirringSoul Fracture Stabilized: [Grief → Vengeance]Sunderpulse: Now Controlled (Lv. 1)Notoriety: Feared (⚠ National Recognition)
You are no longer a whisper. You are a reckoning. The other heirs are watching now.
As dawn rose over Thornehold, Caelan stood alone in its highest tower, wrapped in frost and blood.
Below, smoke drifted into the sky like a signal fire to the world.
A new war had begun.
Not for justice.
Not for crowns.
But for dominion.