Prologue
Prologue
It was the final command Kael Ardyn ever gave.
“Hold the line!” he roared, his voice raw, even as the storm of enemy arrows tore through the last of his men. The air was a cacophony of dying screams and the wet thud of steel on flesh. He was the Commander of the First Imperial Legion, a title he had earned with blood and brilliance. He had never lost a battle, not until this one, when the true enemy wasn’t the one he faced, but the one who had stood at his side.
A year ago, he had been offered the world: a knighthood, land, even the hand of the beautiful and kind Princess Elara. She had been his light in the shadows of war, the promise of a future beyond the battlefield. But the very nobles who hailed his victories had grown to fear his power. They whispered of his common birth, of the people's love for their “Lion Commander.” They turned on him in the most brutal way they knew—by framing his beloved Elara for treason and having her executed before his eyes. It was a cold, calculated move to break his spirit, to turn his army against him.
But it was the final betrayal that truly shattered him. It came not from a faceless noble, but from the man he called brother. Liam, his sworn brother-in-arms, his most trusted strategist. The one man who knew his every weakness and his every strength. He had sold Kael out, leading the legion into a trap that had cost them everything.
Kael fought through the despair, seeking only a worthy end. He had a duty to fulfill, a revenge to seek. He fought for the memory of Elara, for the men who had fallen for him, for the legion that had been betrayed. Now, as the last of his men fell, Kael felt the world crumble.
He had become a ghost in a war without end.
