They killed him on a moonless night.
Not in battle, not with honor—but bound to stone, throat slit by the very king he once protected. Kael Morvain, First Knight of the Silver Guard, bled beneath the stars while priests whispered praises to a god that no longer listened.
He remembered the sword pressed to his back.
He remembered the queen's silence.
He remembered the words carved into his bones as the curse took hold.
"Your blood for peace," the high priest had said. "Your death for their future."
And then—darkness.
Until now.
---
The earth above the crypt split like a wound. A hand, pale and clawed, dragged itself from the soil. Then another. The ground trembled as Kael emerged—reborn, cursed, cold.
His once-golden eyes now burned red. His armor, rusted with age, clung to his body like a corpse's memory. He was no longer man.
He was vengeance.
The forest whispered around him. Animals fled. The wind carried the scent of life—sweet, warm, pulsing. It twisted his hunger into something feral.
But he did not feed.
Not yet.
The world had forgotten him, buried him in lies and ash. But he would remind them. Starting with the bloodline that had damned him.
The royal house of Solrath would pay.
He turned toward the distant towers of the kingdom that had once called him hero.
And he smiled.