The air was still, almost too still. In the aftermath of the Northern Kingdoms' defeat and our newfound alliance with the Desert Lords, I should have felt at ease. But a ruler's instincts are never silent. Something was wrong.
The court was filled with new voices, new faces. Ambassadors from the East and spies from the West moved among us like shadows. Politics was just another battlefield, and I was standing in the center of it.
"My lord," Cassius said, stepping forward, his expression tense. "We've received reports from the eastern front. There's movement along the borders—troop movements that do not belong to the Eastern Dynasties nor the remnants of the Northern Kingdoms."
I turned away from the grand table, staring at the map spread before me. The Eastern Dynasties were vast and fractured, but none had the strength to challenge our expansion—not yet. So who was moving against us?
"It's something else," Eryndis murmured. She had been watching the skies lately, speaking of omens and unseen forces. She was a warrior, but she also had a mind for the unseen. "This is not just another kingdom preparing for war. This is something hidden, something ancient."
I clenched my jaw. War in the open could be won, but war in the shadows? That was another matter entirely.
The Web of Shadows
Days passed, and the whispers grew louder. Merchants vanished on trade routes. Small border villages went silent. Entire battalions of scouts sent eastward never returned.
One night, a lone survivor stumbled into our camp. His armor was torn, his face pale. His eyes carried the weight of something beyond fear.
"They are not men," he gasped, falling to his knees. "They are something else. They come from the dark places, from the ruins of old. They do not march like soldiers—they hunt like beasts."
A cold dread settled over the chamber. The Eastern Dynasties had been built upon the ruins of an empire long forgotten. A nation that had fallen not to war, but to something worse—something unnatural.
"Tell me everything," I ordered.
The soldier struggled to breathe. And then, with the last of his strength, he whispered a name.
"The Forgotten Ones."
A hush fell over the room.
The Ghosts of the Past
The Forgotten Ones. A name I had only heard in myths and half-whispered stories, spoken in fear by the old sages. A race of warriors long believed to be extinct, erased from history by the gods themselves.
If they had returned, then we were facing a war unlike any before. Not one of kingdoms, but of survival.
"Eryndis," I said, turning to her. "You spoke of omens. What did you see?"
She hesitated before answering. "Darkness rising from the east. A storm without thunder, death without war. The gods are watching, Aurelian. And they are silent."
The gods were silent.
That was more terrifying than any army.
The Gathering Storm
I rose from my seat. If the Forgotten Ones had returned, then our time was short.
"Cassius, prepare the legions. We march at first light."
"Eryndis, summon the sages. I need to know everything they've hidden from us."
"Septimus, double the spies in the East. If something moves in the dark, I want to see it before it sees us."
This was not a war of conquest. This was a war against something unknown, something that lurked in the ruins of time itself.
As I walked to the balcony, looking over my empire, I felt the weight of the unseen enemy pressing upon me.
We had won wars. We had crushed kingdoms. We had bent gods to our will.
But what do you do when the enemy is something forgotten by history itself?
The storm was coming. And I would be ready.