The forest east of Caelhold his homeland had grown wilder than Riven remembered.
Vines choked the old watchtower stones, and thick moss crawled over broken tree trunks. The path that once led to the southern garrison was buried beneath years of leaves and shit-thick mud. No map showed this trail anymore. No soldiers dared to patrol it.
But Riven wasn't looking for a clean road.
He was looking for ghosts.
And the bastard who once trained him.
The trees creaked like old bones as he moved through the underbrush , every step cracking twigs beneath his boots.
"Go ahead and croak," Riven muttered. "Let them know I'm coming."
He wasn't trying to be subtle. Not anymore.
The world needed to know that Alden blood was still fucking breathing.
By dusk, the ruined training fort came into view.
Hidden in the rocks beyond the river bend, it was once a place for noble sons to swing wooden swords and play soldier until they pissed themselves. Riven had hated it as a boy. Too many rules. Too many sons of liars pretending their houses weren't built on graves.
But not all of it was bullshit.
Some things were forged here.
Some men too.
And one of them still lived.
Riven stepped through the collapsed archway, sword slung across his back, cloak heavy with dried blood from yesterday's raid. The firelight flickered inside the keep's remains — someone was still here.
He wanted answers.
And maybe a little pain.
The man inside was sharpening a blade when Riven entered. Hooded. Broad shoulders. Sitting like he owned the world.
"You're late," the man said.
Riven didn't answer.
The blade sang once as the whetstone passed over it. Then silence.
"I heard you lit Bastien's outpost on fire," the man continued. "That true?"
Riven stepped forward, the wood creaking under his boots.
"Didn't think smoke traveled that far east," he said. "Guess even cowards get wind of fire."
The man stood, slow and heavy. He turned.
Scars lined the side of his face like a fucking roadmap of war. One eye dead white. The other sharp enough to cut glass.
"Still got a mouth on you," the man said, grinning. "Good. That means you ain't dead yet."
Riven stared at him. "Hello, General."
General Kael Varn once the last loyal blade to the Alden family. Once the man who had trained Riven to wield a sword, shoot a bow, and survive a battlefield at thirteen. Once the man who vanished when the kingdom burned.
"Where the fuck were you?" Riven asked.
Kael didn't flinch. "I was watching."
"Watching what? Us die?"
"I watched the world forget your name, boy. And I waited for you to grow up angry enough to come back."
Riven's jaw clenched.
"Bullshit," he said.
"You want comfort, find a goddamn priest," Kael said. "You want revenge, sit down. You're bleeding."
Riven hadn't even noticed. His side was soaked, crusted with blood from a cut he'd taken during the outpost fight.
He sat.
Not because Kael told him to. Because he was tired. And because fire only burned when you stopped walking.
Kael tossed him a flask.
"Drink it. It's stronger than that piss-wine nobles used to guzzle."
Riven drank.
It tasted like regret.
They sat for a long time without speaking. The fire cracked between them, filling the space with the kind of silence that only came from shared war.
Finally, Riven asked, "Why didn't you come for me?"
Kael looked up. "Because if I did, they would've known you survived."
Riven's hands balled into fists.
"You left me to rot."
"I left you to live."
"That's the same fucking thing."
"No," Kael said. "It's not."
He stood, walked to the broken wall, and pulled something from a hidden compartment — a folded map, marked with faded red lines and names.
"This is where they'll come next," he said. "Bastien will think it's a rebel cell. Albrecht will send spies. Virel might send a fucking priest."
Riven raised an eyebrow. "A priest?"
"Yeah," Kael said darkly. "The Queen's got her own way of dealing with ghosts."
Riven leaned forward, studying the map.
"This ridge," he pointed. "Small farms. No walls. Easy to torch."
Kael nodded. "Exactly. You want to make them bleed, you hit that road."
"I don't want to make them bleed," Riven said.
Kael turned.
"I want to make them fucking scream."
Later that night, as the fire died and Riven wrapped his wound, Kael asked the question that had been burning for years.
"Do you still remember their names?"
Riven stared at the stars.
"Every fucking night."
"Say them."
"Albrecht of Ovrane. Virel of Arvendale. Bastien the Falseblade."
Kael nodded once.
"They'll remember you too, soon."
"No," Riven said, eyes glinting. "They'll remember what it felt like to fear again."
Flashback: The Final Night
The halls had been on fire.
Riven remembered running through them, barefoot and screaming. His sister's hand in his. His mother yelling from behind.
The flames ate everything.
A knight someone trusted — grabbed him by the throat and slammed him into the marble. Riven still remembered the look on his face when he jammed a shard of glass into his eye.
He remembered blood.
He remembered silence.
And he remembered Kael's voice, far away:
"Run, boy. Run and don't stop."
He had hated that voice for years.
Now it was the only one left.
Present:
Kael handed him something wrapped in cloth.
"What's this?" Riven asked.
"Proof," Kael said. "That someone inside Arvendale still remembers."
Riven opened it slowly.
A pin. Gold. Royal seal of House Alden.
But cracked down the middle.
"A loyalist?"
Kael nodded. "Maybe."
Riven tucked the pin inside his shirt.
He had a place to go now.
A name to chase.
And maybe, someone to bury deeper in the ground.