Shadows of Valtara

The wind carried the scent of burned wood and iron.

From the top of the southern ridge, Lady Mireille watched the faint smoke curling from the village of Brimholt. She tightened her gloves, dismounted, and gave a silent signal. The royal detachment behind her—eight riders in gold-laced armor—halted as one.

The officer beside her shifted. "Should we proceed, Lady Captain?"

"No banners," Mireille murmured, eyes fixed on the charred chapel roof. "No signals either. Something happened."

"You think it's bandits?"

"I think if it were bandits, there'd be screams still echoing."

Callan stood at the well, pouring water over his sword.

Ash had clung to the blade's edge since the night before. He could've let it be. But he needed something to do. Something to keep his hands busy while his thoughts spun.

He hadn't slept.

He hadn't even sat down.

The villagers had tried to thank him. Some stared in awe. Others looked at him like he was something to be feared—a weapon that had slipped its leash.

He couldn't blame them.

He'd killed five men in one night. With the same ease he used to cut bread.

And the caster…

He hadn't told anyone what she'd said. Not even Lyra.

He looked up as a trumpet sounded beyond the gate.

Then hooves.

Then gold.

The royal detachment swept through the broken gate like a parade too proud to notice its surroundings.

At their head rode a woman with raven-black hair pulled into a high braid, a saber at her hip, and a glare sharp enough to gut a dragon.

Lady Mireille dismounted in a single motion.

Callan watched her without moving.

She strode up and stopped a pace away.

"You are Lord Callan of Brimholt?"

Callan nodded. "I am."

"You're under investigation for violation of the king's silence decree," she said flatly. "You were meant to remain unknown. Unarmed. Quiet. And yet I arrive to find a gate smashed, a chapel scorched, and five corpses buried beneath the hill."

Callan met her stare. "If I'd done nothing, you'd have found fifty corpses."

Behind her, one of the guards scoffed. Mireille didn't react.

"What happened here?"

Callan gave the shortest version possible: five attackers, coordinated strike, no insignia, one escaped. He left out the sword. And the way the caster had vanished.

Mireille narrowed her eyes. "And you claim they made no demands?"

"No. Just blood."

"Why target you?"

He didn't answer.

She took a step closer. "I could drag you back to Valtara in chains for this."

Callan looked at her calmly. "You could try."

Her hand twitched toward her saber.

Then a voice cut through the air.

"Captain Mireille!"

Lyra approached, hair windblown, still wearing soot-stained robes. She carried a scroll, sealed with red wax.

Mireille turned. "Healer Lyra. Still pretending to be a simple villager?"

Lyra didn't flinch. "The Royal College sent a new writ yesterday. Brimholt is under temporary martial exemption. Callan is authorized to defend his lands in absence of a formal garrison."

She held out the scroll.

Mireille snapped the seal open and read. Her jaw tightened.

"Convenient."

"Legal," Lyra replied coolly.

Callan stepped forward. "Unless you'd like to explain to the Council why you arrested a man for defending his own people from a sanctioned attack on royal soil?"

Mireille glared at him. Then, with a soft huff, she turned to her men. "Search the perimeter. Look for sigils, tracks, or anything left behind."

Then she turned to Lyra. "I want to speak to the wounded. Privately."

They left.

Callan stood alone at the well.

That evening, Mireille sat at the long table inside the half-burnt town hall.

She read the second scroll Lyra had given her—detailing the physical evidence: poison-coated blades, ashes enchanted to resist wind, a pendant carved with infernal runes.

Everything pointed to one thing.

Not rebels.

Not bandits.

Cultists.

Her hand curled into a fist.

Valtara had thought the cults long dead—snuffed out in the Demon War when Callan himself led the charge against them.

She glanced across the room.

Callan leaned against the far wall, arms folded, watching the hearth.

"You haven't asked about the body," she said.

"What body?"

"Your attacker. The woman. We found nothing."

Callan looked at the flames. "I thought not."

"Explain."

"She didn't burn," he said. "She vanished. She used a technique I haven't seen in twelve years."

Mireille blinked.

He turned toward her. "They're not just back. They're organized. Funded. Trained."

"You're guessing."

"No. I know."

She stood. "Then why not report it?"

"Because the last time I did," Callan said quietly, "the council buried it. They sent a reply three weeks later. Telling me to lower my sword and stay in my manor."

His voice hardened.

"I buried three squadrons that day."

Mireille stared at him.

Then she sat down again.

Later that night, Callan walked alone to the edge of the western fields. He reached into his cloak and drew out a bundle wrapped in cloth.

He unwrapped it slowly.

The sword.

Not just any blade. It was long, slightly curved, forged of obsidian-veined steel with glyphs etched along the fuller. A name hummed beneath the metal, hidden from sight.

The sword remembered.

Memories clung to it like rust.

Blood spilled at Dorthak Ridge.

The charge at Arah's Gate.

The duel on the bridge of fallen stars.

Callan had tried to forget all of it. But the sword wouldn't let him.

He held it against the moonlight and whispered, "What do they want from me this time?"

Meanwhile, miles away, a different fire flickered.

A ruined monastery stood atop a jagged cliff, half-swallowed by time and moss. Once a place of light, now just stone and shadow.

Within its walls, a man moved among the rubble. Slim, robed in white and brown, with glasses perched on a crooked nose and an exorcist's sigil on his collar.

He hummed to himself.

"Two ley fractures, no active spirits, and—ah! Aetheric residue."

He knelt and touched the scorched earth.

His hand trembled.

Then he grinned.

"Well then. Looks like our favorite ghost has come out of hiding."