The rain came without warning.
One moment the forest paths were dry and quiet, the next they were slick with mud, the sky splitting open as if Aereth itself had decided to wash away the blood we had spilled.
Cairos rode at the front of the column, cloak plastered to his back, hair darkened and loose from its tie.
He didn't slow. Rain was nothing. Fatigue was nothing. Fear was the only thing worth measuring, and it was not his.
Behind him, the Bloodline moved in disciplined silence—nearly four hundred now. Too many to hide forever, too few to face a kingdom head-on. Exactly enough to matter.
Rethan spurred his horse forward until he rode beside Cairos.
"Scouts report movement to the south," he said over the rain. "Council banners.
Three companies, maybe more. They're not hunting blindly anymore."
Cairos' eyes stayed on the path ahead.
"Good. That means they've stopped thinking we're ghosts."
"And that's good because…?"
"Because armies don't fear ghosts," Cairos replied. "They fear men who bleed and still win."
They crested a low ridge. Beyond it lay the valley of Thalenford—once a trading artery, now choked with wagons, half-built barricades, and the uneasy tents of a Council garrison. Smoke rose from cookfires.
Horses stamped nervously.
Soldiers moved with the stiffness of men expecting an attack but praying it wouldn't come today.
Cairos raised a hand. The column halted instantly.
He studied the valley in silence, rain running down his face, dripping from his jaw.
Thalenford mattered. Control it, and the Council lost a supply route feeding three border provinces. Ignore it, and the enemy would grow bolder.
Joren slid down from his horse and crouched beside Cairos, unrolling a weather-stained map beneath his cloak.
"They're dug in shallow," he said.
"Temporary fortifications. Overconfident.
They think you'll avoid them."
Cairos nodded slowly. "They think right—usually."
Lysa rode up from the rear, eyes sharp, bow slung across her back. "Usually," she echoed.
"But not today?"
"Not today," Cairos said.
He turned to the men behind him. Wet armor creaked. Faces were hard, eyes bright.
These were no longer refugees or deserters.
These were soldiers who had survived ambushes, hunger, and the knowledge that the world wanted them dead.
"We take Thalenford before nightfall," Cairos said, voice calm but carrying.
"Quietly if possible. Violently if needed. No looting. No killing civilians. Anyone who drops their weapon lives. Anyone who raises it dies."
A murmur ran through the ranks—approval, tension, anticipation.
Rethan grinned grimly. "That'll scare the shit out of them."
"It should," Cairos said. "They chose the wrong side."
The first move wasn't steel. It was silence.
As the rain thickened, Cairos split the Bloodline into four units. Lysa took the western treeline with the archers.
Rethan led the eastern flank, swords and shields moving low through the brush. Joren coordinated runners and signals, while Cairos led the central strike.
They moved like a tightening fist.
The first Council soldier died without a sound—throat opened from behind, body eased gently into the mud. The second managed a gasp before an arrow took him through the eye. The third ran.
He didn't get far.
The alarm horn sounded—late and panicked.
Chaos erupted in Thalenford.
Cairos charged.
The valley exploded into motion—soldiers scrambling for weapons, officers shouting contradictory orders, horses rearing in terror.
Cairos crashed into the first line like a battering ram, sword flashing, rain and blood spraying with every strike.
A spear lunged for his chest. He knocked it aside and drove his blade up under the man's ribs.
A shield slammed into his shoulder. Cairos stepped into it, headbutted the shield-bearer, then cut him down in a brutal arc.
This wasn't elegant combat. This was survival.
Rethan's flank hit moments later, shields locking, pushing the enemy inward.
Lysa's arrows fell like judgment from the trees, each shot deliberate, merciless. Men screamed. Orders dissolved into panic.
A Council captain tried to rally his troops near the wagons—gold-trimmed armor, plume soaked red by rain. Cairos spotted him instantly.
The captain saw Cairos too.
They met in the mud, steel ringing. The captain was skilled—trained, disciplined—but he fought like a man protecting a title.
Cairos fought like a man with nothing left to lose.
The captain overextended. Cairos took his arm at the elbow, then drove his blade through the man's throat.
When the body fell, the resistance broke.
"Yield!" someone shouted. "Drop your weapons!"
Cairos stood amid the chaos, chest heaving, sword dripping. "Anyone who kneels lives," he called. "Anyone who runs will be hunted."
Weapons hit the mud.
Within an hour, Thalenford was theirs.
They gathered the prisoners in the center of the camp—nearly two hundred men, soaked, shaking, staring at Cairos like he was a nightmare made flesh.
A messenger was dragged forward—young, terrified, clutching sealed orders. Cairos took the parchment and read it in silence.
Rethan leaned close.
"Bad?"
Cairos' jaw tightened. "Worse."
He turned the parchment so the others could see the Council seal.
"They've named me 'Enemy of Aereth,'" he said. "They're offering land, titles, and gold for my head.
Dead preferred. Alive… optional."
A low growl rippled through the Bloodline.
"And," Cairos continued, "they've appointed a new commander to deal with us."
Lysa frowned. "Who?"
Cairos folded the parchment carefully. "General Maelor Venn."
Silence followed.
Joren cursed under his breath. "That's not good."
Rethan's grin faded. "That bastard crushed three rebellions in the south. He doesn't chase shadows."
"No," Cairos agreed. "He studies patterns. Learns habits. Adapts."
Lysa watched him closely. "And you?"
Cairos looked at the prisoners, then at the valley, then toward the distant east where the Council sat fat and safe behind walls.
"I adapt faster," he said.
They burned the Council banners before nightfall.
Not in celebration, but as a message.
Cairos stood watching the flames, rain finally easing into a cold drizzle. The fire reflected in his eyes—steady, controlled.
"This was a statement," Rethan said.
"They'll respond hard."
"They were always going to," Cairos replied. "Now they'll do it on our terms."
Joren approached with fresh reports.
"Scouts confirm it.
Messengers fled in three directions. By tomorrow, every major city will know what happened here."
Cairos nodded. "Good."
Lysa studied his face. "You're smiling."
Barely. "Because they'll make the same mistake everyone makes."
"And that is?"
"They'll think this war is about me."
He turned away from the flames, voice low but absolute. "It's not. It's about what happens when men realize they don't have to kneel."
Thunder rumbled in the distance.
Somewhere far away, in a chamber of stone and gold, councilors would be shouting.
Generals would be arguing. And Maelor Venn would be planning.
Cairos welcomed it.
Because this was no longer a rebellion.
This was a reckoning.