Dantes jolted upright, breath ragged.
The dream clung to him like wet cloth-images of blood, betrayal, and a crown sinking into the mud. His chest heaved as though he'd been running for hours. He pressed a hand to the place beneath his tunic where the pain lingered.
The scar was still there.
Not raised-sunken, like something had burned its way inward. A black sigil curved like a crescent and a blade, pulsing cold beneath his skin. Not a wound. A mark. A brand.
He didn't remember earning it.
Didn't remember being a prince.
Only... a voice in the dark. A whisper that called to him from beneath the earth.
"Edmund."
No. That name was a grave.
He wasn't him anymore.
"DANTES!"
A sharp voice tore through the fog in his mind.
He blinked back into the world-canvas tents sagging under the wind, rusted weapons stacked like firewood, the scent of oil, sweat, leather, and ash. The mercenary camp.
"Get your ass up. Marquess Johannatus is calling for roll call."
Dantes rose slowly, like a man remembering how to breathe. The name Edmund slipped back into the shadows.
--------------
The camp straddled the edge of Solendawn like a wound refusing to close. Crates stolen from half-forgotten wars served as tables and walls, and blackened flags from mercenary factions fluttered like ghosts above crooked tents. The air was thick with heat and distrust.
Mercenaries from the lawless continent shared ground with noble conscripts-a cocktail of arrogance, desperation, and barely leashed violence. It was a place held together by pay and mutual disdain.
Dantes didn't blend in. He didn't try.
He was tall-lean but cut from tension, all wiry strength and sharp edges. His shoulders carried weight beyond armor. A fighter's body shaped by survival, not vanity. Scars peeked from his collar, and his dark hair fell to his jawline in uneven waves, as though he'd cut it himself with a dull knife. His eyes were worse-grey, haunted, and entirely unimpressed.
He didn't speak unless spoken to.
Didn't kneel.
Didn't smile.
And that made people nervous.
"Oi, border rat."
A voice spat behind him.
Dantes turned, slow and unreadable.
A noble-born soldier stood there-too clean, too polished, like war was something he expected to happen to others. His armor gleamed, but his grip on the sword was all ceremony and no grit.
"You think crawling out of whatever hellhole you came from makes you worthy to stand with us?"
Dantes tilted his head, expression unreadable.
"Sorry," he said, dry as sunburned earth. "Didn't realize this was a salon."
The soldier's mouth twisted.
"You mock your betters?"
"I haven't met one yet."
The slap of the insult echoed louder than any shout.
"Sword. Now. Duel me, mercenary."
-----------
The circle cleared in seconds.
The duel began with the pomp of nobles-stance, salute, the arrogant tilt of a chin. But Dantes didn't posture.
He just watched.
Like a wolf watching a spoiled deer try to remember how to charge.
And then-movement.
The soldier lunged, blade flashing in sunlight.
Dantes moved like smoke through steel.
One step, a pivot, then a slash-his blade angled, precise, practiced. A whisper of movement, nothing wasted. In less than a breath, his sword was at the noble's throat.
Silence followed.
Dantes stepped back, the blade barely touched.
He flicked his wrist with a surgeon's precision, then sheathed it before the man even realized he'd lost.
"Maybe next time," Dantes muttered, bored, "don't blink so much."
The camp roared with laughter. Rough. Cruel.
The noble didn't.
His pride cracked loudest of all.
With a growl, he lunged again-not with form, but fury, a cheap shot aimed at Dantes' exposed back.
The blade never landed.
------------------
"Enough."
The command stopped everything.
Marquess Johannatus Lacan stepped forward, his boots crunching through dust and disdain. His cloak billowed like a shadow unfurling-midnight black trimmed in storm-grey. He wasn't tall, but he made others feel small.
His voice-a serrated thing, low and edged with steel-cut through the tension like a blade through silk.
"You," he said to the soldier, with eyes that had seen real wars, not painted ones. "Pick up what's left of your pride and walk away. Or I'll strip your crest and let the mercenaries use you for sparring practice."
The man hesitated, then obeyed-humiliated, silent.
Johannatus turned to Dantes, eyeing him not with suspicion, but with the dispassionate curiosity of a man inspecting a weapon.
"Impressive work. Footwork-clean. Eyes, sharp. You've got too much sarcasm for your own good, but that's the least of your problems."
Dantes gave a quiet nod.
Johannatus reached into his coat and handed him a sealed document.
"You're being reassigned."
-
--------------
"Guria," Johannatus said. "Village out near the Jesmeurdam border. Old crystal post. You're taking command."
Dantes arched a brow. "Babysitting duty?"
Johannatus didn't smile.
"No. The crystal there is flickering. The Wane's been stirring at the edges. Locals are vanishing. I need someone who doesn't panic when the world begins to rot."
Dantes took the order.
"And if it does rot?"
The Marquess's eyes darkened.
"Then pray that sword of yours can cut more than flesh."
He left that afternoon.
The road ahead was old and splintered, carved between dying trees and forgotten ruins.
He didn't know what waited in Guria.
Didn't know the name of the girl he'd meet.
Didn't know the past was already reaching for his throat.
But the scar beneath his skin pulsed with quiet certainty.
The past doesn't stay buried.
Not when ruin calls it home.