In a storybook, the days following an Undead King's fall were depicted as triumphant, a victory lap for the heroes who saved the day.

  In reality, they were lacking energy.

  We marched through mud that sucked at our boots like it had a personal vendetta against dry feet. Isolde’s resolve had swept through the camp after that crimson mantle situation, but resolve didn't fix blisters, dry out socks, or make hardtack taste like fruit.

  The despair had mostly vanished, now replaced by the steely determination of men who realized the only way home was through a fortified city wall.

  Still, the stench of necromancy remained on everything. It smelled like copper, wet dog, and old eggs left out in the sun.

  I tried to wash the smell off in a stream we passed on the second day, scrubbing until my skin was raw, but it didn't help.

  The scent wasn't on me, after all.

  Soon, we were before the fortified city of Solstara.

  Kaelan's forces let us approach without harassment. No skirmishers in the woods and no traps on the road, just silence from behind the formidable gray stone of Solstara's walls. It was unnerving.

  An army that didn't harry its enemy was either terrified or confident they didn't need to. Given Kaelan was dealing with cultists, I wasn't sure which option I preferred.

  Marius used the time well. While the infantry slogged through the muck, his scouts mapped the routes with skilled precision. It helped that he'd grown up in this place.

  All around us, siege engines were being reassembled with agonizing slowness, their skeletal frames rising like ugly wooden insects.

  Trebuchets, ballistae, battering rams. The industrial machinery of medieval murder, amplified by magic. Watching them come together was impressive in a morbid sort of way.

  Solstara didn't make the first move.

  The walls stretched for miles, unbroken gray granite that looked like it had grown out of the earth rather than been built upon it. Towers bristled with archers who didn't move, looking less like soldiers and more like statues waiting for an excuse to kill us. Behind the city, I could taste the salt of the ocean on the wind.

  Besides the greenery that the Heavenly Demon had blessed this land with a few hundred years ago, there was another reason behind Thalassaria’s wealth.

  The vast, indifferent sea that loomed behind the fortified walls of the city.

  But today, the same endless ocean that'd backed this country’s freedom, ignored its civil war with cosmic apathy.

  In the heavy silence, Isolde decided to send a herald.

  Borric handed the leather case to the rider. The merchant looked unhappy about letting the document out of his sight, dusting off the leather one last time. "Do not drop it," he told the herald. "And do not let them open it until the Prince is present. The System binding is keyed to royal blood."

  The herald nodded, looking pale, and took the white flag. He rode out.

  The flag looked pathetic flapping in the wind, a small smudge of hope against a lot of gray stone.

  I stood beside Isolde at the edge of the encampment, leaning against a crate of salted fish. We watched the nervous rider approach the walls. The man kept glancing back like he expected an arrow in his spine. I couldn't blame him. Trusting your enemy to honor a parley was optimistic, but trusting this enemy was suicidal.

  "He will refuse," I said.

  Isolde didn't look at me. Her hair was windblown, escaping the braid, and her posture was rigid. "I know."

  "Then why the theater? If we know the outcome, Princess, aren't we just giving them target practice?"

  "Marius needs twenty minutes to position the trebuchets without drawing fire," she said, her voice flat. "The scouts need to confirm the eastern gate's hinge integrity. And frankly, every minute Kaelan spends talking is a minute his soldiers spend wondering why he isn't shooting at his own sister."

  She adjusted her gauntlets, tightening the straps until the leather creaked.

  "Also," she added quietly. "I have to offer. If I don't, I'm just another warlord passing through."

  I wasn't convinced the distinction mattered to the dead, but symbols mattered to queens.

  The herald reached the gates. A long, tense silence followed where I half-expected the man to drop dead. Eventually, a basket was lowered on a rope. The herald placed Borric's case inside. It was drawn up.

  Minutes ticked by. Just enough time for someone to read the terms.

  Then, movement stirred on the battlements. A figure stepped forward, flanked not by soldiers, but by hooded figures in heavy robes. Prince Kaelan Thalasson looked like a man being eaten from the inside out.

  [5th Ascension]

  “He’s 5th Ascension,” I said to Isolde.

  “Strange,” she replied, not surprised. “He was 3rd Ascension before.”

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  We both knew what that meant. He was very involved with the cultists. His armor hung off him wrong, the breastplate too loose and he wore a cape that looked like dyed burlap instead of royal purple. He was trying too hard, wearing the Royal Crown with a fake jewel in it. Kaelan gripped the stone parapet with white knuckles, looking down at us. He didn't look like a King, not at all; he looked like a prisoner who had been told to act like one.

  "Sister!" His voice boomed, magically amplified, but it cracked on the first syllable. "You send me paper? You insult me with paper?"

  Isolde stepped forward, signaling a mage to her left. A shimmering distortion appeared in the air before her.

  "I offer you a lifeline, Kaelan," she projected, her voice steady. "Surrender. Be wise and disband your forces. The contract in your hands guarantees your safety until a trial can be held. It is bound by the System. No one can harm you if you sign it."

  Kaelan laughed. It was a brittle sound. He waved the scroll in the air. "Safety? There is no safety!" He pointed a shaking finger at her. "You come here with your barbarian and your armies and you talk of safety? You think a piece of paper stops them?"

  He glanced nervously at the hooded figures flanking him. They didn't move. They didn't have to, the message was clear.

  "Who is 'them', Kaelan?" Isolde asked. "The cultists? The ones who raised our father?"

  "Do not speak of him!" Kaelan shrieked. "I... I warned you! I told you to stay away!"

  "I am not staying away. I am taking back my city. Surrender, brother. It is over."

  "It isn't over. It's just beginning." Kaelan leaned over the wall, his eyes wide and feverish. He lowered his voice, though the amplification still carried it. "You don't understand. You think you're winning? You think this is a victory?"

  He looked at the hooded figures again. Then he looked at Isolde. Specifically, at the pouch at her waist.

  "The Jewel," he whispered. Then he shouted it. "You brought the Jewel!"

  "It is my birthright," Isolde said, hand going to the pouch. "It belongs on the Crown."

  "No!" Kaelan screamed. "You stupid girl! Don't you see? That's what they want! Why do you think the gates are still standing? Why do you think they let you march here?"

  The hooded figures moved closer to him. Kaelan flinched, but the words were spilling out of him now, a dam breaking under pressure.

  "It's a trap, Isolde! The moment you bring that rock inside the walls..." He was hyperventilating and it made me frown. Isolde and I exchanged glances.

  "Kaelan, stop," one of the hooded figures said. It wasn't a shout. It was a command.

  "They are going to eat us all!" Kaelan yelled, ignoring him, leaning dangerously far over the edge. "Throw it away! Destroy it! Do not bring–"

  Thwip.

  An arrow hit him in the shoulder.

  It didn't come from our lines, my [Dragon’s Eye] told me. It came from the tower behind him.

  The impact spun Kaelan around. He slammed into the stone battlements, clutching the shaft, blood spraying across the white stone.

  "Your Highness!" a guard shouted, rushing forward, but the hooded figures blocked him.

  "Treachery!" one of the robes shouted, pointing down at us. "The rebels broke the parley! They shot the King!"

  "We did no such thing!" Isolde shouted, horrified. "Hold your fire!"

  But the lie traveled faster than the truth. On the walls, tense archers saw their King fall. They didn't look for angles or trajectories. They just saw blood.

  "Kill them!"

  Arrows rained down.

  I grabbed Isolde's arm and hauled her back, spinning my axe to deflect a shaft aimed for her throat. "Get back! Now!"

  "Kaelan!" she screamed, staring at the wall.

  Her brother was gone, dragged away by the hooded figures, his warning cut short by steel. The herald galloped back toward us, bent low over his horse. He didn't make it. A volley caught him and the horse simultaneously. They went down in a tangle of limbs and dust.

  My jaws hurt from how hard I bit my teeth.

  Isolde stopped fighting me. She stood there, breathing hard, watching the empty space where her brother had been. The sister died in that moment, leaving only the queen.

  "So be it," she said.

  Marius appeared at her side, breathing hard. "Your Highness, the situation has gotten out of hand. What’s your command?"

  "Advance the engines," she said, cutting him off. Her voice was ice. "We take the city. Tonight."

  "Princess, the eastern approach isn't…"

  "Now, Lord Marius. Burn it down if you have to."

  The diplomat bowed with a grim face and hurried off. Borric stared at the fallen herald. His face was pale. "Well, this isn’t looking very good"

  "Kaelan might have signed the contract if he were alone," I said. "Those robed bastards were afraid of him surrendering, Borric."

  Or perhaps this was a trap by Kaelan? To make Isolde confused? Thorvyn didn’t really care. The goal remained the same, to take Solstara.

  "About the Jewel," Ragna said, walking up. She looked at the city walls with narrowed eyes. "He seemed pretty scared of that shiny rock you have, Princess."

  Isolde’s hand tightened on the pouch. "He was desperate."

  "Maybe," I said. "Or maybe he was finally telling the truth."

  Isolde turned to her forces. Fifteen thousand men who had just witnessed a royal assassination attempt. They looked shaken and a little uncertain.

  She climbed onto a supply crate. She didn't look tired anymore. She looked furious.

  "Soldiers of Thalassaria!" she called out.

  Silence rippled outward.

  "You saw!" she shouted. "You saw them shoot their own King to silence him! You saw them murder a herald under a flag of truce! There is no honor on those walls. There is only rot!"

  She drew her wooden staff. It caught the gray light, flashing like a beacon.

  "They want us to be afraid! They want us to run but we are done running! We are going in there, and we are dragging that rot out by the roots!"

  She pointed the blade at the city.

  "Take the walls!"

  The answer was a roar. Not a cheer, but a release of raw and furious noise. The sound of men who had stopped caring about politics and just wanted to kill the people shooting at them.

  Isolde looked at me. "Thorvyn. Stay close."

  "Come on, Princess, where else would I be?"

  Ragna grinned, testing the weight of her club. "Finally. Less talking, more hitting."

  I watched the siege engines roll forward with massive structures creaking into motion. Yes, the war had started. My blood was boiling…

  But as the first rocks flew toward the city, I couldn't stop thinking about Kaelan's eyes. The sheer, unadulterated terror in them when he looked at the Crown Jewel.

  It's a trap, he'd said.

  And looking at the way the gates seemed to loom, waiting for us... I had a nasty feeling he was right. However, that didn’t change the outcome.

  I was here to claim his head, as well as those dirty cultists.

  The Barbarian Awakening has finally ended with 65 Chapters, 210k words, in Patreon!! I'll be taking a week's break from writing, I apologize for that since I already didn't update most of last week. See you soon!

  And if you want to read the next 10 chapters immediately including the end of Book 1, you can visit my Patreon! Don’t forget to check out our Discord too, where you can hang out with us.

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