The great hall of Luxington Castle shimmered with gold and candlelight, the soaring ceilings echoing with laughter and the clinking of goblets. Nobles in brocade and silk stood beneath banners of crimson and sapphire, drinking deep as music swelled from a quartet of string players in the corner. It was the King's Midwinter Banquet, the opening toast just raised, and the air thick with honeyed wine and politics.
Then—the doors exploded inward.
A thunderclap of steel boots and splintering wood silenced the music. A dozen knights in blackened plate surged into the hall, their armor crusted with blood and soot. Between them, a monstrous figure fought and roared—a hulking orc, thick with muscle, armored in jagged bone, his tusked jaw smeared with gore. Shackles bound his limbs, glowing faintly with arcane runes, yet still he thrashed like a storm barely contained.
Gasps and screams erupted from the nobles, some stumbling back, others frozen in place as the creature was forced forward, each step hammering into the marble floor. The banquet was forgotten. The music had died. Only the clatter of chains and the low, reverberating growl of the orc filled the silence.
And then—her.
Commander Arasha Dawnbringer
She entered without fanfare, her black cloak parting to reveal armor forged in dragon-fire, the crest of the Scion Order emblazoned over her breastplate, dragon struck by three lightning spears, stained with the shadows of war. Her obsidian hair was bound back in a braid like a drawn blade, and her shimmering amber eyes—cold, calculating, and distant—held no warmth, no mercy. She walked through the gasping crowd like a ghost among children.
She approached the dais where the king—her uncle—sat wide-eyed, still holding his goblet mid-toast. His face drained of color as he beheld the beast brought before him. The King Orc of the Grash'Kul tribes, the one who razed border towns and devoured their defenders. The one no army could find, let alone capture. The very beast he had boasted that the royal knights will have no problem slaying to the foreign dignitaries.
"You—what is the meaning of this?" the king stammered.
Arasha did not reply.
She turned, looked the orc in the eye—he snarled, laughed in his own tongue, perhaps cursing her ancestors.
She drew her sword.
No ceremony. No declaration.
With a single motion, she drove the blade through the orc's throat, severing spine and artery in one ruthless motion. A gurgling roar erupted—cut short. Blood sprayed in an arc across the dais, splashing the king's robes. The orc collapsed in a steaming heap at Arasha's feet, still twitching, the glow of the shackles fading.
Gasps turned to wails. The nobles recoiled in horror. The stench of death, raw and real, filled the air. No battlefield honor here. No stage-managed duel. Only the brutal finality of execution.
Arasha flicked her wrist, a swift, practiced movement. The blood trembled and then danced off the blade in a thin spray, droplets splattering against the ground like fleeting memories. She then sheathed her blade.
"I lost eighteen knights bringing him in," she said, voice sharp as ice. "Four were torn in half. Two burned alive. One begged me to kill her before the poison took hold."
Please commander kill me!...Commander please don't let our sacrifice be for naught!
The memory of her knights dying in agony lingered in her mind yet none of her grief and sorrow showed on the surface.
She turned, slow and deliberately, scanning the faces of the court—pale, trembling, their silk and perfume useless against the truth now staining the marble floor.
"And you would cut our funding," she said. "Because I do not curtsy."
Her gaze landed on a duke who had once sneered at her in council. He flinched.
"You would threaten me to wear gowns and smile for your own amusement," she said. "While we fight monsters born from the world's nightmares, with blades dulled and rations spoiled, because your coffers prefer dances over survival."
Finally, she looked at the king.
"Uncle."
His mouth opened, but no words came.
Seeing the pathetic reaction of the King, Arasha was right not to expect anything from the king.
Ashara's icy gaze once again swept the crowd. She then stepped over the orc's corpse and walked out the way she came—without waiting for permission. The black-clad knights followed, vanishing into the night like the shadow of war itself.
As the heavy doors groaned shut behind Arasha and her knights, silence lingered in the shattered remnants of the banquet like smoke after a fire. Nobles stood frozen, breathless, as if a dragon's shadow had just passed over them and they were waiting to see if they still lived.
Blood pooled around the orc's body, steaming in the cold droughts of the hall. A servant began to sob quietly. Somewhere, a noblewoman retched into a jeweled goblet. The king remained seated, goblet still raised but forgotten, his trembling hand stained red to the cuff. His eyes—once haughty and dismissive—were now wide and hollow with the reality he'd just witnessed.
A moment later, as if choreographed by fate, the doors creaked open again.
Not Arasha—no. A young steward entered, visibly shaken, clutching a scroll bound in dark ribbon. He made his way up the blood-slick marble steps to the dais, knelt, and offered the parchment to the king with both hands.
"Commander Arasha bids this be delivered immediately," he said, eyes on the floor.
The king, as if in a trance, accepted the scroll. Unraveling it with trembling fingers, he scanned the first lines—then the next—and his face twisted not with horror this time, but with deep spite.
How Dare She!!!
The king cursed Arasha in his mind but after personally witnessing her brutality the King kept his thoughts to himself. He then looked at the scroll once again with a scowl.
It was a requisition order. Meticulously prepared. Legally sound. Stamped with the sigil of the Scion Order.
To His Majesty King Alric IV, by the grace of crown and holy light, ruler of the Kingdom Luxurite,
Pursuant to Article VII, Section IX of the Royal Wartime Provisions Charter, and in accordance with the Emergency Clause invoked by Field Commander Arasha Dawnbringer of the Scion Order, the following funds are to be released within seven days:
An increase of 40,000 gold pieces annually to cover armament reforging, monster-hunter provisions, and necessary other medical and logistic supplies.
Hazard pay and posthumous pensions for all fallen knights under her command.
Authority to conscript condemned criminals and mercenaries under a revised pardon clause for suicide missions into the raptures and other high risk anomaly related areas.
Autonomy to deny royal summons when engaged in active suppression of class-X threats.
Noncompliance will result in public disclosure and disclosure to allied forces of mission records from the past two years, including classified incursions, mass casualty reports, and your council's repeated denials for aid.
At the bottom: a perfect wax seal bearing three lightning spear plunged into a dragon's skull.
The king stared at it for a long moment, his knuckles whitening.
"She came prepared," muttered one of the nobles.
"She's always prepared," whispered another.
The steward stood silently, waiting. Not pressuring. Just waiting. As though he knew the king would sign. As though Arasha knew the king would sign.
How can he not? When she clearly demonstrated what will happen if he didn't.
King Alric clenched his jaw.
"She flaunts it," he thought bitterly. She flaunts her strength, her power, as if it is some grand mercy she bestows upon the kingdom.
She should have been honored and grateful that her blessing enable her to serve the kingdom and protect them, the royals and the nobles!
And yet she used it to threaten them!
Truly a shameless wench!
Yet with all his arrogance and self importance, the king wordlessly, with a hand still stained by the blood of the orc and the price of his ignorance, the king scrawled his signature at the bottom, the ink trembling.
The steward bowed, took the scroll, and left without another word.
The king looked out over his court—his nobles, now pale and quiet and so very far from their power. The music would not resume. The feast would not be tasted.
She just had to ruin a perfect banquet for such nonsense! Just you wait Arasha!
The King with his hurt pride schemes shamelessly on how to bring down Arasha and humble her, for the sake of the kingdom.
While somewhere beyond the walls, Arasha rode into the night—her war unending, her patience exhausted, and her cause now funded by the horror she'd carved into their memory. But, it's only the beginning.