The sky bled crimson over Black Hollow Keep. Twilight stretched long shadows across the execution square, where the scent of damp earth and burning incense mixed in the cold air. Sir Aldric Ravayne knelt before the scaffold, his wrists bound in iron, his armor stripped from him, leaving only a torn tunic and bloodstained breeches.
The crowd that had once cheered his victories now stood in silence, their gazes empty, their loyalty shifting with the winds of power. His name had been a legend in the kingdom of Valtoria. The Unyielding Knight. The King's Blade. And now, the Betrayer.
Atop the wooden platform, Grand Inquisitor Rellan of the Holy Tribunal read from a parchment. His voice was like steel grating against stone.
"Sir Aldric Ravayne, former knight of the Silver Flame, you stand condemned for high treason against the Crown. You conspired with sorcerers. You slaughtered your own men. You sought to overthrow His Majesty. By decree of King Alric V, your sentence is death by the sword. May your soul find no rest in this life or the next."
Lies. Every word of it. But truth held no weight in the presence of power. Aldric had fought for his king, bled for his kingdom, and yet here he knelt, forsaken, abandoned by the very Order he had sworn to serve.
The executioner stepped forward, his greatsword gleaming in the dying light. Aldric inhaled sharply, gripping the dirt beneath his fingers. He refused to beg. He would not give them that satisfaction.
As the blade rose, time slowed. The world blurred at its edges. A whisper, cold and ancient, curled through his thoughts.
"Will you kneel and perish… or rise and claim vengeance?"
Aldric's heart thundered. The air around him darkened, tendrils of shadow slithering through the cracks of the scaffold. And then—pain. A sharp, blinding agony as steel met flesh, severing his head from his shoulders.
The last thing he saw was the sky, darkening as if the heavens themselves mourned.
And then—nothing.
Darkness. Cold, endless, suffocating.
Aldric's soul drifted through the abyss, weightless, yet bound by unseen chains. He should have been gone. Forgotten.
But something held him. Something old. Something waiting.
Then, a spark. A flicker of pale fire in the void.
"Awaken, Knight of Ash."
Aldric gasped as air filled his lungs once more. His eyes snapped open to a world reborn in shades of silver and blue. He lay upon a stone altar, his body whole, yet different. His veins burned with unfamiliar power, his skin ashen, his breath misting like winter frost.
Standing before him, cloaked in twilight, was a woman. She was draped in flowing robes of midnight, her silver hair cascading like moonlight over her shoulders. Her eyes, cold and knowing, bore into him like twin stars in the void.
"I have given you a second life," she said, her voice a whisper of distant storms. "And in return, you are mine."
Aldric tried to rise, but his limbs did not obey. A bond, unseen yet unbreakable, shackled his very being to the sorceress before him.
"Who… are you?" he rasped.
The woman stepped closer, the air around her humming with arcane power.
"I am Isolde of Valtoria. And you, Sir Aldric Ravayne, are now bound by the Ashen Oath."
Thunder rolled in the distance. Somewhere beyond the veil of death, the world prepared for war.
And Aldric had just become its pawn.