KNIGHTS OF PAIN

  Prologue & Chapter 1

  PROLOGUE

  Blessed or Cursed

  In this world, power does not ask permission.

  It doesn't care if you are ready. It doesn't care if you are good. It finds you in the dark, or it is forced on you by something you never chose, or it lifts off a dying enemy and drifts toward you like smoke looking for somewhere to settle. And once it is inside you, it is yours. Whether you want it or not.

  There are two kinds of power in this world.

  The holy kind — clean, controlled, given. Most people who receive it never question it. They probably should.

  And the cursed kind. Dangerous. Consuming. The power that does not arrive gently, that demands to be mastered or will master you instead.

  Kael Voren absorbs the power of the dead. Every enemy that falls near him leaves something behind, drifting toward him whether he reaches for it or not. He has never asked for any of it.

  Elira Frostveil's magic never sleeps. It runs through her fingers at all hours — building, threading, never draining, never quiet. She did not choose this.

  Cassian Drave cannot lose. He has never been defeated and never will be — and there is no rest in that. Only the next fight. A man who cannot stop because stopping would mean there was nothing left to win.

  Garrick Stonehart cannot be broken. Everything hits him. Nothing drops him. He keeps standing because the curse will not permit otherwise.

  And then there is Ryn — a tail, claws, red eyes, half human and half something older and darker, unapologetically himself. He never made it anyone's problem. No order. No framework. Just Ryn, fully himself. That is its own kind of power.

  You are either blessed or cursed with power.

  This is what that cost looks like.

  KNIGHTS OF PAIN

  Chapter 1: Thalorim

  I walk this path alone.

  That is the way of the Knights of Pain. No kingdom. No throne. No flag. Just the order and the blade and the silence of the night. We were feared everywhere, once regarded as the strongest knights of all. That was fine by us. The four kingdoms didn't think so. Join them or get hunted down — that was the choice they gave us.

  So we split.

  I thought leaving the only people who understood me would be the hardest thing. I was wrong.

  I ended up in Thalorim. Didn't like it at first — too quiet, too settled, too far from everything the Knights of Pain were built for. But I learned to love the peace. I had spent enough years carrying things the curse dropped into me. A quiet kingdom meant fewer things dying near me. Fewer things finding their way in.

  The morning air hit me the moment I stepped outside. Cool. Clean. The kind of air that reminds you you're alive.

  But I felt a little off today. Not wrong enough to name, just wrong enough to notice — like the city itself was holding its breath. I had learned to pay attention to that feeling. The curse had taught me that much.

  Thalorim was already awake.

  A knight was waiting for me the moment I stepped out.

  "Sir Kael." He straightened. "King Dorian requests your presence. His grand speech is this morning — he wants his strongest knight in that hall."

  I nodded slowly. "I'll be there."

  The knight moved on.

  "Kael!" Bram was already behind his counter, flour on his hands and a loaf extended before I even reached him. "Free bread. Just for you."

  I slowed. Looked at it. Still warm.

  "I can't. I'll be back to get it — I have to go to the king's speech."

  He laughed like I'd said something ridiculous. "You protect this whole kingdom and you won't take a loaf of bread."

  "I'll be back." I smiled and kept moving.

  "KAEL—" Harken's voice boomed from across the yard, blade raised in the morning light. Once a knight. One of the best. Now he spent his days at the forge and his evenings with his baby daughter, and from the look on his face every single morning he wouldn't trade it for anything. "I have a new blade for you."

  I stopped. Looked at it properly.

  "That's a good blade. Save it for me — I'll come back, I promise."

  He grinned. Went back to his work.

  I continued through the streets toward the hall. Every face turned toward me — nods, waves, smiles — not from fear but belief, like the sight of me walking these streets was proof that everything was going to be alright.

  That weight never left my shoulders. But I carried it gladly. It was the only weight in my life I had ever chosen.

  I pushed through the doors into the hall.

  "Hey, Kael!"

  I didn't turn around. I already knew he was there — could feel the air shift with his presence, the way it always did, like the room had decided to become slightly more chaotic in preparation.

  Ryn Thalor fell into step beside me, grinning like the world was a joke he alone understood and the rest of us were merely punchlines waiting to happen. His tail swayed behind him with the easy rhythm of someone who had never once considered tucking it away. His red eyes caught the torchlight and held it a beat too long.

  Annoying as the first light of dawn after a night of guard duty. But strong enough to back it up. I'll give the bastard that much.

  "You're doing that thing again," he said, voice pitched low enough to tease but loud enough that anyone nearby would hear.

  "What thing?" I kept my eyes forward, scanning the crowd.

  "The brooding. The staring off into nowhere like you're counting all the kingdom's sins." He waved a hand, claws splayed. "The whole this."

  "I'm working." My jaw tightened.

  Today just feels wrong. Like a sword balanced on its point.

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  "Brooding," he repeated, completely unbothered.

  "Same difference."

  He laughed — loud and careless as summer thunder, his canines catching the light when his grin widened. The weight I carried came from the curse finding me and never letting go. His came from the same dark place and he had turned it into something else entirely. That was the thing about Ryn I had never figured out how to hold.

  But I couldn't afford to fail this kingdom. Not when failure meant blood.

  The hall filled rapidly. Nobles with their perfumed collars, soldiers with hands never far from weapons, servants who saw everything but were seen by no one — all gathered for King Dorian's grand speech. His voice, proud and carrying like his father's before him, filled every corner, settling the noise in my head the way it always did. Like an answer to a question I hadn't finished asking.

  Maybe today would be fine.

  "Kael." Ryn's voice dropped an octave.

  "What?"

  "You still thinking about the princess?" That grin returned — smug, knowing, dangerous. "Your eyes follow her like a compass finding north."

  "Shut up, Ryn."

  "I'm just saying." He nudged me, shoulder against mine. "You've got a real shot with her. You're the strongest knight here. Nobody touches you, Kael. Nobody." There was something underneath the easy warmth that was almost serious.

  I glanced toward the front of the hall where Amara stood behind her father. Straight-backed. Composed. Beautiful as always, but distant as the stars.

  "Did you feel that?" Ryn's voice cut through my thoughts, suddenly all business.

  I stopped breathing.

  A faint tremor ran through the floor — not an earthquake, something more deliberate. Like something massive shifting its weight beneath us.

  We exchanged a glance, years of fighting together communicating what words couldn't, then looked around. Nobles muttered behind jeweled hands. Soldiers held their posts, knuckles white. The king was still mid-speech, unaware. Everything seemed normal.

  But something was wrong. I felt it the way I always felt the curse — a pull toward something I didn't want to find.

  A knight appeared at the entrance, face carefully blank in the way that meant trouble.

  "Your Majesty. Someone is at the front gate requesting entry."

  King Dorian didn't look up from his parchment. "Go handle it. I'll be there in a moment."

  "Yes, my king." The knight bowed and hesitated a fraction too long before he left.

  No one questioned it.

  But I should have.

  ———

  The Gate — Thalorim's Outer Wall

  The young knight at the gate looked down from the wall at the man standing below and felt something he couldn't name.

  The man wore armor unlike anything he had ever seen. Golden. Gleaming. Like something divine lived inside it.

  "State your name and your business."

  "I'm here to meet with the king." Calm. Pleasant. Like he'd said it a hundred times before and expected to say it a hundred more.

  "We are not expecting any visitors."

  "We are not visiting."

  He smiled. Just that.

  "I cannot let you through without—"

  "My name is Kaelric Veythar." He said it quietly, like a door closing. Then he looked to his left. "This is Selara Nyx." A woman in dark robes smiled up from below — wide and completely wrong. He looked to his right — at empty air the knight couldn't make sense of. "Vael Umbra." Then toward the horizon, where something enormous had begun moving through the treeline, each step sending a tremor through the earth long before it came into view. "And Tharok. My colossus. Veylan Swift lives inside him — the fastest being alive."

  The knight looked out beyond the walls and felt the ground shake beneath his feet.

  "Well," a voice said from the empty air beside him. "I did try to be courteous."

  The knight opened his mouth.

  The gate ceased to exist.

  ———

  The Great Hall — Thalorim

  Then the doors burst open.

  The same knight. Eyes wide. Voice cracking at the edges.

  "They destroyed the wall."

  The hall erupted — knights drawing blades, nobles scrambling, soldiers moving to formation, the king rising from his throne. Ryn was already beside me, daggers out, the grin completely gone. In the red of his eyes something older had come forward.

  I reached for my blade.

  Then the boulder hit.

  Not the wall. Not the gate. The hall itself. A rock the size of a house came through the ceiling like it was made of parchment and took half the room with it, the impact shaking the ground hard enough to feel in your chest.

  I don't remember hitting the floor.

  ———

  I opened my eyes to smoke and fire.

  The ceiling had cracked open, flames pouring through the gaps, orange light flooding what remained of the hall. The air tasted of ash and hot stone. Around me the knights I had trained were scattered across the rubble, motionless against the broken floor.

  This was Thalorim. Nothing shook Thalorim.

  I tried to get up. Couldn't. Tried again and managed it, one hand braced against a chunk of fallen ceiling while the smoke thickened around me.

  They were already pouring through — thousands of them, filing through the breach with the calm efficiency of an army that had done this before and expected to do it again.

  "We are the Celestine Vanguard," a voice thundered across the burning hall. "We're here to kill you all."

  The screaming started. The fires spread. The roof groaned overhead like it was deciding whether to hold.

  Outside, Tharok Colossus moved through the outer walls like they were made of paper, each step sending a tremor through the ground that shook loose more of the ceiling above us. And from inside that temple that was his head — a blur. Moving so fast our soldiers were falling before they knew what had passed through them.

  I watched it all burn.

  Ryn pulled himself up from the rubble beside me, a gash across his temple still fresh, daggers already in hand. His tail was low. His red eyes had gone very still. He looked at the chaos and the fire and the thousands pouring through the breach and the grin was so completely gone it was like it had never existed.

  "Oh." Quiet. Flat. "This is very, very bad."

  "Yeah." I drew my blade, rose flame igniting along its edge. "Move."

  We cut through the first wave together — flame tearing through armor, Ryn's beast claws opening gaps my blade finished. I shadow-dashed left, carved through a line of them, flashed forward again. We moved fast and cut clean but the numbers never dropped. For every body that hit the floor two more stepped over it.

  This was never a battle. It was a statement.

  Chunks of ceiling rained down as flames licked the walls, smoke thickening with every collapse. And still they poured through — a tide of steel and screaming that never slowed, filling every gap, shoving fire and rubble aside as though the destruction was simply part of the plan.

  Then the chaos shifted.

  The Vanguard began stepping aside. Not retreating — parting. A corridor through the center of the hall, deliberate and unhurried.

  Through the smoke and falling ash, he walked forward.

  Golden armor untouched by flame, untouched by blood, untouched by ruin. Fire reflected off him like he belonged inside it, each step calm and measured and somehow louder than the collapsing kingdom around him. The air shifted as he moved — not wind, not heat, but a pressure that had no source.

  Then something hit me from the side.

  A force I couldn't see, crushing, dropping me into the rubble before I could react. I rolled up swinging at empty air and connected with nothing. Then a hand I couldn't see grabbed my throat and lifted me off the ground. I clawed at nothing. Then I was thrown.

  I hit the rubble hard, tried to get up, got hit again before I made it to my knees. Beaten by something I couldn't touch or stop or find.

  I ended up on one knee. One hand in the rubble. Blood in my mouth and fire overhead, the ceiling gone red and orange above me.

  The golden figure walked through the chaos toward me and stopped. Just stood there looking down.

  Over his shoulder — the king. Still on his throne, unmoved, untouchable. Soldiers closing in from every direction. His eyes found mine across the burning hall — past Kaelric standing between us like a wall I already knew I couldn't break.

  He didn't look afraid.

  I can't fail this kingdom.

  They all need me.

  They all look at me.

  I looked up at him.

  "Who the fuck are you," I said. Not a question. Just the only words left.

  He looked at me for a moment. Then smiled — not cruelly, almost kindly, the smile of someone explaining something to a person they don't dislike.

  "You really want to know?" He crouched down in front of me, patient as a man with nowhere else to be. "My name is Kaelric Veythar — the tactician. To my left, Vael Umbra — unseen, unstoppable. He got you good." He glanced up at Selara on the broken wall above, still laughing at something only she could see. "Selara Nyx — the shadow mage. And Tharok—" he nodded toward the sound of the walls coming down outside "—my colossus. Veylan Swift lives inside him. Faster than the eye can follow." He stood. "This armor was blessed by God himself. You cannot hurt me. Stand down. Or die."

  I looked at Ryn.

  He looked back at me. The grin was gone and the red of his eyes had deepened to something that lived further back than his face — something old and patient and waiting for a direction.

  "Your call," he said.

  I got to my feet.

  We went at him together.

  I shadow-dashed my blade forward. It connected. Then snapped. Steel shattered in my hands, shock running up my arms, fragments skidding across the floor. I leapt back and unleashed blue flames straight at his chest. Ryn came from the other side with everything he had.

  The armor glowed brighter, like it had absorbed us and found us insufficient. Like two men trying to scratch the face of a mountain.

  I could see the king over Kaelric's shoulder. Right there. Unreachable.

  Then the blade rose above the throne.

  "Kael!"

  It fell.

  I heard the sound of it before I understood what it was. Then the silence after — the particular silence of a voice that had filled every corner of that hall for years, suddenly gone from the world. King Dorian. Dorian Valemont the Just. The man who had stood at that throne since before I came to Thalorim — and should have stood there long after I was gone.

  Wouldn't.

  His one job was making everyone feel safe.

  My one job was keeping them that way.

  We had both failed.

  Then through the smoke I saw them.

  Queen Selira and Princess Amara. Surrounded. Being dragged toward the breach, the queen fighting every step of it. And Amara — reaching back through the soldiers around her, looking directly at me through the fire and the falling ceiling and the distance growing between us with every second.

  I took one step toward her.

  One step was all I got before I understood. The distance. The armor between us. The thousands still pouring through every gap. One step and my legs already knew what my mind hadn't caught up to yet — that I was already too late.

  "Kael — help us — Kael, please—"

  I went at the armor one last time. All of it — shadow flame, rose blade, a thousand cuts, blue flames, shadow dash — every last thing the Knights of Pain ever made me, poured into one desperate final attempt.

  He stood there completely untouched. When I finally stopped he looked at me and I understood it completely. He had already won before he walked through the gate. This was never a fight. It was an introduction.

  One punch.

  Darkness.

  Then nothing for a long time. Just smoke and silence and the distant sound of something that used to be a kingdom.

  ———

  I woke up to the smell of woodsmoke and Ryn cooking something over a small fire.

  I shot upright. "Ryn!"

  He didn't turn. "What, Kael?"

  "The kingdom. Everything. Please tell me it was a dream."

  "It wasn't a dream." He was quiet for a moment. "Can't you hear it?"

  I listened. Through the trees, through the dark, beneath the sound of the fire — Thalorim. Still burning.

  "What happened?"

  "You got knocked out cold." He finally looked at me, firelight catching the red of his eyes. "I had to drag you out. They left you to burn."

  I sat with that.

  The king was gone. Amara was gone. The kingdom was burning behind me and I was sitting by a fire in the dark because Ryn — no order, no oath, no reason to be there at all — had decided I wasn't going to burn and done something about it.

  No curse carried him through that. Just him.

  It doesn't end like this.