Great sounds thundered through the bowels of the earth, like ancient boulders hurled by titans slamming into the stone floor. The tremors coursed through the underground hallway, rattling the very walls and shaking dust from the crags in the ceiling. A dozen figures moved through the passage, their shadows swaying along the uneven stone as candlelight flickered dimly in sconces along the wall.
They were not ordinary men and women. Every one of them held influence—lords, commanders, advisors of the Ashbourne Territory. Yet in that moment, no crowns of confidence adorned their brows, only furrowed lines of tension and unease. They walked not like conquerors but like mourners, their footsteps hesitant, their thoughts tangled in webs of apprehension.
Two weeks had passed since the impossible had occurred—His Lordship, Asher of Ashbourne, had defied death. News of his return from the edge of the grave had spread like wildfire through the realm. And yet, no summons, no audience, no words had come from him since. Not even the Baroness of Ashkelon had been granted a moment with him. Whispers in high halls and council chambers spoke of the cause—his woman, the silence that surrounded her, and the shadow it had cast over him.
Sweat beaded Baron Claude’s brow, though the air was cold and still. It ran down his temples in uneasy rivulets as he marched beside Baroness Katarina, Lord Finn Waters, Count Alec, Lady Eritrea, and three high-ranking military leaders—Commander Lambert, Commanding General Adam, and Commander Aquila. Behind them trailed other key figures—Commander Paul, the apothecary head, James, and a few more, each bearing a sealed letter with the Duke’s unmistakable signature: a summons none dared ignore.
But one absence gnawed at them—the Regent had not been summoned. And that made their presence all the more unsettling. Whatever this was, it went beyond protocol. Beyond politics.
They reached the end of the hall. The flame of each candle danced more violently now, casting golden ripples across the stone like a field of fireflies caught in a storm. Their footsteps slowed, their breaths caught in their throats.
Then they saw him.
Chains made of pure ice—thick, heavy, glistening with frost—descended from iron hooks embedded in the ceiling, leading down to enormous crystal-blue boulders. Each one was easily thrice the size of a man and taller still. The chains clinked and groaned with every motion, a frigid dirge echoing through the cavern.
Clad only in tattered shorts, a lone figure toiled beneath their weight.
His body was bound in bandages—arms, torso, legs—each stained with the soft pink of healing wounds. Blood had soaked through in places. His snow-white hair clung to his back, damp with sweat. Ice fog curled around his bare skin, yet he moved with a grim resolve.
Downward he pulled, dragging the boulders up, forcing them to rise against gravity with sheer will. Then slowly—deliberately—he released, letting them crash to the stone floor with a deafening rumble that echoed into every corner of the underground vault.
Alec’s eyes trembled. He had trained with Asher before—had sparred with him, bled with him, laughed beside him. Asher’s strength had always been abnormal, doubling or tripling with every step of progress, placing him far beyond the reach of even most ancient-ranked knights in raw power. But this? This was madness. Even he wouldn’t attempt to lift such a burden—not with bandaged limbs, not with no strength, not when death had only just released its grip.
The chains alone could weigh a ton. The boulders? He dared not guess. But Asher moved them.
He commanded them.
The sound of Alec’s knees hitting stone rang sharp in the air as he knelt. Without hesitation, without thought—only reverence.
“My Lord…”
The others followed suit, driven not by custom but by instinct, by the overwhelming presence of the man before them. The Undying Lord. The man who had defied death again. The storm in human form.
And then, Asher turned his head.
His golden eyes locked on them—piercing, radiant, inhuman. No longer the eyes of a mere man. They glowed, subtly at first, but with a terrifying intensity—like stars buried in molten gold, like a pair of suns compressed and fused into pupils that saw far more than what was visible.
That was all it took.
Every noble and commander dropped to their knees, hearts drumming in a chaotic chorus of awe and dread. Even the seasoned warriors felt as though they knelt before something divine—or something wrathful.
Lady Eritrea gasped as she instinctively drew a breath, only to see it curl from her lips in a misty exhale. The air around them had grown cold. Her gaze flicked sideways, meeting Aquila’s eyes—her’s were wide with the same recognition.
“He’s changed,” she whispered, barely audible.
And yet, even that felt like an understatement.
He had returned from death.
But the man standing before them wasn’t the same.
Each time he defied death, he slowly became something else.
The weight of the chains became truly evident when, from the veil of darkness, a towering figure stepped forward—a man nearly eight feet tall, his presence as heavy as the steel he bore. Clad in gambeson, with a red hue to his skin that spoke tales linked to dragons, he unfastened the glacial links. The moment he did, they fell with a thunderous clatter, sinking halfway into the stone floor as though the earth itself was weary of their burden.
This giant was none other than Nero, the Lord’s BloodBlade.
A stillness swept through the hall as Asher moved. With each step, the flickering candlelight cast deeper shadows across the bandages wrapping his body, his snow-white hair matted to his neck with sweat. And then, his voice—sonorous and resounding, like the slow toll of a war bell—bounced across the stone walls and into their very bones.
“It’s been a while.”
His golden eyes blazed, as if some divine furnace burned behind them.
“I am grateful to I Am that you still live, My Lord!” Baron Claude bowed his head further, his throat tightening with emotion as he swallowed hard.
“Baron Claude…” Asher’s voice carried through the air, and all hearts stilled.
“My wife spoke of you,” he continued, each word deliberate, carved from stone and flame. “She told me of your loyalty… and of the dishonor I unknowingly allowed by leaving your talents to rot in obscurity.”
He paused, then stepped closer, his gaze unwavering.
“From this day forth, you rise as Viscount Claude Flameheart, vassal of House Ashbourne.”
Claude’s ears rang like war horns. Sapphira had said that to the Lord? His knees buckled slightly, the weight of those words more than any chain.
“You may now appoint barons of your own—men loyal to you, and in turn to Ashbourne. Your lands shall be expanded. Greatly.”
Asher turned toward the Baroness, his expression softening.
“And you, Baroness Katarina, shall rise as Viscountess Katarina Dremlen, Dame of Ashkelon. All that you can see from the peak of the Ashkelon mountains… shall be yours.”
Katarina’s lips parted, but her voice broke before a word could escape. Her eyes glistened, and all she could whisper was: “My Lord…”
Asher turned next to the grizzled veteran beside her. “She praised you as well, Lambert, for forging our cavalry into steel. For that, I name you Ser Lambert, Lance of Ashbourne. You shall be granted an estate on the edge of Ashkelon.”
Then, with a sharp turn and a nod, his gaze found Adam, tall and grim.
“As for you—your strength is known, your fire unbending. From this day, you are Lord Commander of the Frontline Legion. I grant you the knightly title of The Roaring Knight. You will command your own estate, and you may raise your own troop… not exceeding one hundred. Choose wisely.”
Shock rippled like thunder through the chamber. None had expected this.
No one.
And in the silence that followed, one truth hung in the air heavier than the chains on the floor:
This was not Asher’s ambition. It was Sapphira’s mercy.
She could have turned his return to her own advantage, wrapped his will around her finger.
But instead… She had raised others.
She had honored their names.
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