The North was silent.
Not the silence of peace, but the kind that settled over a kingdom when something had gone terribly wrong. The kind of silence that came before a storm.
The great hall of the Northern Keep was dimly lit by torches, their flames flickering weakly against the cold stone walls. At the center of the long feasting table, a wooden box sat unopened. Thick iron clasps sealed it shut, as if whatever lay inside was too monstrous to be exposed to the air.
No messenger had delivered it. The guards had found it at dawn, sitting at the castle gates, untouched, waiting.
The king had ordered it brought inside.
No one moved. No one spoke.
They all knew what was inside.
It was Lord Theobald Vale—the uncle of Leonhardt—who finally stepped forward. His aged hands, hardened by decades of war, hesitated as they reached for the lid. He could feel it, even without touching it—the weight of death.
He unlatched the clasps.
And there it was.
Leonhardt's severed head.
The once-great warrior's golden hair was caked in dried blood. His skin had gone pale, his lips slightly parted as if he had drawn one last breath before death claimed him. His eyes were open, but the fire that once burned in them was gone. They were empty.
But the worst part was the message carved into his forehead.
"TRY AGAIN."
A single, taunting challenge. A declaration that this was not the end.
Theobald did not gasp. He did not scream. He did not even flinch. He simply stood there, staring into the dead eyes of his nephew, the last heir of the Vale bloodline.
The silence in the hall grew heavier. It was suffocating.
Then the king spoke.
His voice was calm. Controlled. Devoid of emotion.
"Burn it."
Theobald turned his head sharply. "You would burn your own knight?"
"He is not my knight anymore," the king said, his gaze locked on Leonhardt's head. "He is a failure. His name will not be remembered in the books of glory."
Theobald felt something in his chest tighten. He had served this king for years, fought beside him in battle, carried out his orders without hesitation. But now, looking at the cold indifference in his eyes, he saw something he had never noticed before.
A coward.
The king was afraid.
Not of Salvatore. No, of what Leonhardt's death meant.
Leonhardt had been their champion, the sword of the North. If he had fallen, then what hope did the rest of them have?
Theobald slowly looked around the hall. The nobles, the warriors, the men who had once praised Leonhardt as their greatest hero—none of them spoke. None of them dared to defy the king's command.
They were all afraid.
Something inside Theobald snapped.
"You will regret this," he murmured.
The king's eyes narrowed. "You forget your place."
"No." Theobald looked down at Leonhardt's lifeless face. "I am the only one in this room who still remembers it."
Without another word, he grabbed the box, lifted it into his arms, and walked out of the hall.
No one stopped him.
No one dared to.
---
Salvatore sat alone in the ruins of the battlefield.
The fires had long since burned out. The corpses had already begun to rot. The crows had come to feast.
And yet, he had not moved.
He stared at his own hands, the dried blood flaking from his skin. He had washed them in the river, but no matter how much he scrubbed, the feeling remained.
Leonhardt had fought him. Wounded him. Killed him.
Salvatore exhaled slowly, tilting his head back to look at the sky.
"You were supposed to be different," he murmured. "You were supposed to be like all the others."
But Leonhardt wasn't like the others.
For the first time in centuries, Salvatore had not been the hunter—he had been the hunted.
For the first time in centuries, he had felt the cold grip of death.
For the first time in centuries... he had been afraid.
He clenched his fists, his jaw tightening. "This is how it begins, isn't it?"
It was a whisper. A thought not meant to be spoken aloud. But the words slipped past his lips anyway.
This was how it started.
Doubt.
And doubt was dangerous.
He closed his eyes, and in the darkness, he saw them.
The hands.
The rotting fingers that had torn into his flesh. The lips that had whispered his name as they devoured him.
His victims.
For centuries, he had never cared for the lives he had taken. He had never given them a second thought.
But now, they would not leave him.
He could feel them still. Their hunger. Their hatred.
And something else.
Something worse.
They were waiting.
The next time he died, they would be there. And they would not be merciful.
Salvatore slowly opened his eyes.
For the first time in 297 years, he felt something he did not recognize.
Weakness.
Not physical. No, he had already healed from his wounds. But something had changed inside him, something he could not name.
The battlefield felt colder than before. The silence heavier.
Leonhardt was dead.
But Salvatore was the one who had lost something.
And he did not know if he would ever get it back.