When humanity was at its darkest hour, an adventurer appeared to save the day. Back then, they called him the warrior of light. Men's greatest champion who achieved the pinnacle of perfection. Today, he is known as the God of Light.

  No one has seen him in thousands of years. Yet, no one doubts he exists. For there was the man closest to him, Grand General Louis Lafite Rothschild of the San Dioral Empire, the most beloved Chosen of the God of Light.

  They say he is the second coming of the light itself. How else would you explain a mortal who'd never tasted defeat? At seventeen, he'd broken the Siege of Karanthel with three hundred men against ten thousand. At twenty-two, he'd outmaneuvered the Jade Fleet in the Straits of Sorrow without losing a single ship. Now at thirty-eight, he commanded the entire army of San Dioral, breaking House’s Romanee-Conti’s stranglehold on that position.

  At the war room of Crystal tower Grand General Louis sat in his command chair, reading documents while steam curled from his untouched tea. In front of him was an intelligence officer droning on about various reports.

  "General Louis. An old god has been spotted in the north."

  Louis marked his page with a ribbon. The Treatise on Divine Manifestations, third edition. He'd been comparing the author's theories on godly dormancy against field reports from the last decade. "Which one?"

  "The Earthfather."

  Louis set the book aside, his interest piqued. "The result?"

  "The blockade on the Twilight Zone has been destroyed. Both our fortifications and Vandiel's."

  From the shadow beside the bookshelf, Crown Prince Sion stepped forward. He'd been examining Louis's collection of campaign maps. "The most opportune moment, don't you think?" The prince lifted Louis's spare teacup from the side table, helped himself to tea from the pot.

  "Indeed." Louis watched the prince settle into the adjacent chair. The boy had good instincts for opportunity. "The stalemate has lasted seventeen months."

  "Stagnation is a sin." Sion quoted the Church's Third Doctrine. "Time to expand the glorious empire of San Dioral."

  Louis stood, moving to the tactical map covering the eastern wall. White pins marked San Dioral positions, black for Vandiel, gray for the contested zones. The Twilight Zone stretched between them, neither country able to hold it for more than a season. But without fortifications anchoring either side...

  "Mobilize the Third and Fifth Legions," Louis said. "Have them ready to march at dawn."

  "One more thing, sir." The guard hadn't moved from his position by the door.

  Louis turned. The man's expression suggested worse news. "Speak."

  "The Saintess of Marblehaven has fallen."

  Sion's teacup rattled against its saucer. "Diana? When?"

  "Three days ago, Your Highness. The news just reached us through our informants."

  Louis returned to his chair, picked up his own tea. Still warm. "Unfortunate. But she's replaceable in the grand scheme of things." He took a sip, found it properly bitter. "It simply means she wasn't beloved by the Lord enough."

  Sion frowned. "That's harsh, even for you."

  "It's doctrinal truth. Divine favor manifests as survival. She died, therefore—"

  "Who was it?" Sion interrupted, leaning forward. "The Thunder God? The Winged Lady? The Moonmother has been spotted near Marblehaven's borders as well."

  The guard shifted his weight. "The reports say she died defeating the Devil."

  Louis's teacup stopped halfway to his lips. Sion laughed—sharp and disbelieving.

  "The Devil?" The prince stood, paced to the window. "Is this some kind of joke? There's no way she could have beaten the Devil."

  "That is what our scouts reported, sir." The guard pulled a scroll from his belt, offered it to Louis. "There are different accounts, but they all seem to trace back to the word of an artist who travelled with the Saintess. According to him, the Saintess engaged the Devil in single combat. Both perished. The city's stone curse has lifted."

  Louis unrolled the parchment, scanned the cramped writing. He set the report on his desk, next to the book on divine manifestations. "Have our theologians confirmed the Devil's death?"

  "They're attempting divination now, sir."

  Louis stood again, walking to the map. Marblehaven stood at the frontier of their war with Vandiel. With their Saintess dead and their defining curse lifted, the city would be in chaos. Refugees returning, power structures reshuffling, the Church scrambling to establish new authority.

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  "Sir?" The guard waited.

  "Double our intelligence assets in Marblehaven. I want to know who's claiming power and what forces they can muster." Louis traced a line from the capital to Marblehaven. A month of marching if they pushed hard. "And send word to Bishop Armand. Tell him to prepare a diplomatic envoy. One with teeth."

  The guard saluted, then departed.

  Sion remained at the window, staring north toward the Twilight Zone. "You're already planning how to exploit her death."

  "I'm planning how to ensure the empire survives the power vacuum she's left behind." Louis returned to his chair, picked up his book again. "The Saintess led Marblehaven through divine authority. Without her, they'll need more earthly protection."

  "And we'll provide it."

  "If they're wise." Louis found his place in the text. A passage about gods awakening when the cosmic balance shifted too far. "The Earthfather stirs, the Devil falls, a Saintess dies, achieving the impossible. These aren't isolated events."

  "You think something's coming."

  "Something's already here, Your Highness. We're simply late in noticing."

  Sion turned from the window. "Should I inform my father?"

  "After we have confirmation from the theologians. The Emperor prefers certainty to speculation."

  "And you?"

  Louis smiled. "I prefer preparation to prayer. Ready your household guard, Your Highness. If we march north, I want you commanding the reserve."

  "You're taking me to war?"

  "I'm taking you to opportunity. Whether it becomes war depends entirely on how quickly Vandiel reacts to the Earthfather's gift."

  The prince straightened with excitement. "I'll be ready."

  After Sion left, Louis sat alone in the gathering dark. He didn't call for candles. The tactical map was a collection of shadows now, borders indistinct, territories bleeding into one another.

  Diana had been powerful, but not significant enough that she could defeat the Devil, even with her sacrifice. Either the reports were wrong, or something fundamental had changed in the balance between the divine and infernal.

  Louis stood, walked to his desk. He began to write the mobilization orders, each stroke of the pen precise and certain. Whatever came next, San Dioral would be ready.

  When humanity was at its darkest hour, a healer appeared to save the day. He walked among the plague-ridden and the dying, touching each with bare hands that drew their suffering into his own flesh. His bones bent under the weight of a thousand deformities. His skin mottled with the marks of every pox and pestilence he'd absorbed. His eyes clouded with the cataracts of the elderly, while his hands gnarled with the arthritis of laborers.

  In three days, he'd cleansed an entire kingdom of its afflictions. In three more, that kingdom cast him out, unable to bear the sight of what their salvation had cost. They called him abomination, monster, demon. History, written by those he'd saved, would remember him as the Demon King—the twisted creature who'd crawled from the northern wastes to threaten civilization itself.

  The truth mattered little now. The Demon King had accepted his exile, leading those few who still recognized his sacrifice into the frozen north. There, they built Vandiel, the kingdom of the cursed and forgotten, where those marked by difference could find shelter. Over centuries, it grew from a refuge to an empire, its borders pressing south against nations that had forgotten why they feared the north.

  In the heart of Vandiel's capital, the current heir to that ancient legacy sat reading reports. Lord Commander Bathelobus had pale skin, translucent enough that dark veins showed beneath. The transformation wasn't complete, but it marked him as clearly as any crown.

  The scout before him kept his eyes on the floor. Even Vandiel's own soldiers struggled to meet their commander's gaze directly. "Sir, Al'Za Gul has fallen. Our scouts report that it was the work of an old god."

  Bathelobus set aside the logistics report he'd been reviewing. The shadowfen had stood for hundreds of years. "Which god?"

  "Titan, sir. The mountain itself turned against the grove. Swallowed it whole."

  "An irrelevant god. We need not worry about it. What is the status of the Twilight Zone?"

  "It is in ruins, sir. Our blockade has been destroyed. San Dioral's as well."

  From the shadows near the chamber's war table, General Al-Sayid stepped forward. Burn scars covered half his face, the tissue pulled tight and shining. "Then this is an opportunity." He ran his remaining hand along the tactical map spread across the table. "I've been waiting to settle accounts with Marblehaven. This scar still burns in the cold."

  "Patience, Al-Sayid." Bathelobus stood, moving to the window that overlooked the capital. "What else?"

  "The Saintess of Marblehaven has passed away, sir."

  Al-Sayid laughed, harsh and satisfied. "Diana's finally dead? How fitting. Did the stone curse finally claim her?"

  "How did the Saintess die?" Bathelobus's voice was devoid of emotion.

  The scout shifted his weight. "It is... unknown, sir. The Marblehavens believe she died defeating the Devil."

  The temperature in the room dropped twenty degrees. Frost spread across the walls. The scout stumbled backward as Bathelobus's aura expanded.

  "The Devil." Bathelobus's words came out measured. "They think their Saintess killed the Devil?"

  "Sir, I only report what—"

  "I know what you report." The frost crept across the floor, reaching the scout's boots. "Do they even know who the Devil is."

  Al-Sayid stepped back from the table. He'd seen Bathelobus angry before, but this was something else.

  "They create their pretty stories," Bathelobus continued, turning from the window. His pale features had sharpened, becoming less human. "Their Saintess, pure and holy, defeating the ancient evil. They probably rang bells. Held celebrations. Thanked their God of Light for delivering them from darkness."

  The scout pressed himself against the wall. "Lord Commander, I—"

  "Be silent." Bathelobus walked to the war table, studied the map. Marblehaven sat three months' march to the south, through mountain passes that would be snow-locked soon. "They want to believe they've killed the Devil? I will instill the true fear of the Devil into them."

  "You're mobilizing?" Al-Sayid's scarred face showed eager anticipation.

  "I'm educating." Bathelobus traced a line from Vandiel to Marblehaven. "Ready the Transformed Legion. Full strength."

  "All of them? That's ten thousand marked soldiers."

  "All of them." Bathelobus moved to his armor stand, began strapping on the black plate. "And Sayid. Call upon the four horsemen. It is time to show the San Diorans why they call you the Thunder God Sid."

  Al-Sayid smiled. "I thought you never asked."

  History is written by the survivors, not the victors. The victors merely choose which version of survival becomes truth.

  —Historian Vermount