The parley field was empty.
No Ariaxa.
No Triarchs.
Only trampled earth, scorch marks, and abandoned chains.
For three heartbeats, Kaedan stood still.
Too still.
Riven approached cautiously, voice tight. “Your Majesty… she’s not—”
Kaedan inhaled.
Once.
The scent hit him like a knife:
Ariaxa.
Fear.
Blood.
Shadow.
Something inside him broke.
Violently.
Irreparably.
A sound ripped from his throat —
a scream, a roar, a death-cry —
that shook the trees, the sky, the mountains.
Soldiers flinched.
Horses reared.
The earth trembled beneath their feet.
Riven’s face drained of color. “Kaedan—snap out of it—”
But Kaedan wasn’t listening.
His fangs elongated.
His skin cracked with dark veins.
His pupils contracted to feral slits.
Shadow magic crawled over his arms like living flame.
He whispered, voice hollow and inhuman:
“They took her.”
Riven stepped closer. “Yes, but we can—”
Kaedan’s hand shot out.
He slammed Riven into a tree so hard the bark split behind him.
“They took my life.”
The words were not metaphor.
Not rage.
They were truth.
Bond-deep.
Soul-deep.
Kaedan released Riven and stalked forward, breath heaving with animal fury.
A Triarch scout appeared on the ridge.
Bad timing.
Kaedan blurred — faster than any soldier could track — and slammed the man into the ground. Bones shattered.
The scout choked, “Emperor—please—”
Kaedan tore out his throat with a single twist.
Not clean.
Not merciful.
Savage.
Even his elite soldiers recoiled.
Another scout tried to flee.
Kaedan tore him in half.
Another tried to hide behind a boulder.
Kaedan ripped the rock apart with his bare hands and crushed the man beneath it.
Blood sprayed across the grass.
Across the trees.
Across Kaedan’s boots.
He didn’t blink.
He didn’t breathe.
He moved like a creature born of war and wrath.
Riven watched, horrified. “What have they done to him…?”
The soldiers whispered among themselves—
“The Emperor’s lost it.”
“He’s not the same.”
“He’s a monster.”
“No,” one said quietly.
“He’s in love.”
***
Kaedan did not return to Vharon.
He marched straight into the mountains, personally leading every battalion as if they were extensions of his fury.
He traveled without sleep.
Without restraint.
Without sanity.
He tracked Ariaxa’s scent like a rabid beast.
The path was easy to follow:
Blood.
Shadows.
Dead scouts.
Shattered stone where she had tried to fight back.
Kaedan’s soldiers ran to keep pace.
Riven ran beside him, lungs burning, trying to keep control of the army while watching their Emperor spiral.
“Kaedan, stop—listen to me—”
Kaedan’s voice was a snarl:
“I will not stop until I reach her.”
“You’re walking into a trap—”
“I know.”
Riven stumbled. “Then why—?!”
Kaedan’s head snapped toward him, eyes glowing hellfire.
“Because if she dies, I die.”
Riven’s breath left him.
Kaedan turned away, stalking onward.
“And if they touch her,” he growled, “I will rip their kingdom apart stone by stone.”
The soldiers around them shivered.
This was not an Emperor.
This was a war god.
A legend.
A nightmare.
His rage carved into the hearts of everyone who witnessed it.
And it drove them forward like wildfire.
***
Night fell.
Campfires flickered weakly as Vharon’s army set up temporary rest along the mountainside — though Kaedan didn’t stop.
He stood alone at the edge of the cliff, staring toward the Triarch fortress hidden beyond the peaks.
His breath was ragged.
His hands shook.
His heart bled through the bond like a wound that refused to close.
Without breaking his gaze, he unsheathed his dagger.
Riven shouted, “Kaedan, what are you—”
Kaedan carved the Triarch sigil into his own arm.
Slow.
Deep.
Blood spilling down his skin in hot rivulets.
He carved it again.
And again.
Until the sigil was burned into his flesh.
Riven grabbed him. “STOP—!”
Kaedan shoved him back with supernatural strength.
He raised his bleeding arm and whispered — voice breaking, raw, shaking with murderous devotion:
“I will kill every last one of you until she is back in mine.”
The mountains echoed the vow like a war-drum.