Chapter 129: The March Back.
The march home began in silence.
Not the silence of defeat, but the silence of men and women carrying the weight of triumph upon their shoulders.
Blood still clung to their weapons, soot still blackened their armor, and the smoke of the fallen capital still lingered in their lungs. Yet their steps struck the earth with the rhythm of destiny—slow, deliberate, undeniable.
Lan walked at the front.
His body no longer bore wounds, but his spirit dragged heavy chains. The air was cold, the kind of cold that sharpened every breath and burned the lungs, yet to him it was clearer, cleaner than any he had felt in years.
Behind him stretched the host: his sworn men, deserters who had bent the knee, and the surrendered Solaris soldiers who had now accepted the banner of the Northern Sect.
A kingdom was dead. Another had risen in its place.
The road north was long, winding through valleys blackened by war and villages abandoned to ruin.
Every few leagues, Lan looked back.
He did not need to speak to hear it—his people were watching him, following not merely his orders but his shadow. He bore the weight of their hunger, their thirst, their doubts. And yet, when he met their eyes, they lowered their heads and marched harder.
They passed the stone ridge where so many escaping Ranevians had been slaughtered over a year ago.
The column tightened. No one spoke afterward.
---
By the third day, the silence broke into song. It began with Garran’s sharp voice, chanting a half-forgotten tavern tune of Ranevia, harsh and bitter, meant more to mock their oppressors than to lift spirits.
Soon others joined—voices cracked, some broken by age, others hoarse from smoke and war. It was not beautiful, but it was real. It echoed off the mountain walls like the roar of wolves reclaiming the night.
Lan listened. His chest stirred at the sound. These were no longer prisoners of empire. These were no longer fugitives.
At dusk, Miller rode up beside him. The grey-haired guard’s face was as stone, but his words were deliberate. "They look to you, sire. More than ever."
Lan gave him a sidelong glance. "Do they look to me... or to victory?"
Miller did not blink. "What’s the difference?"
---
On the sixth day, they crested the last ridge, and Ranevia lay before them.
Lan halted. The column behind him froze. A silence deeper than any before washed over them.
Ranevia.
The province that had once been little more than charred timber and cracked stone now stood reborn.
Where ashes once choked the wind, new walls of blackened steel rose. Where streets had been littered with the bones of the starved, now banners of crimson and gold snapped in the wind.
The fortresses of the Mad Vipers, once crude dens of thieves, had become outposts, each bearing the mark of Lan’s sigil etched into the gates.
The people were there. Not scattered, not hiding, but waiting. As Lan and his army descended, the streets filled—civilians clad in patched clothes, children lifted onto shoulders, merchants, beggars, smiths, widows. All came.
Their voices swelled until it shook the mountains themselves.
"Northern Sect! Northern Sect! Northern Sect!"
The chant spread like fire. It rolled through the crowd, becoming a storm of sound. Tears cut paths through ash-streaked cheeks. Old men fell to their knees. Mothers wept as they clutched their children, as though afraid the sight of their homeland reborn might vanish if they blinked.
And at the front, Lan stood, still and unshaken, though inside him a storm raged.
He had dreamed of this moment, feared it, doubted it. But now it was here, and the city did not reject him. It embraced him.
Venom stepped forward, his scarred face unreadable until he dropped to one knee before Lan. Garran, Halmer followed. Then Miller, slow and steady, bowed his head.
One by one, the soldiers behind them fell to their knees. The roar of the crowd became deafening.
"Hail the northern god!"
"Hail the King!"
"Hail Lanard Solaris!"
---
Lan raised his hand, and silence rippled like a wave across the mob. He looked at them all—not as a ruler above them, but as one who had bled beside them.
"This land," his voice rang clear, "was bought with blood. Yours. Mine. Your fathers’. Your mothers’. They tried to burn us out. They thought Ranevia would fade into memory. But here we stand. The ashes have become stone. The stone has become iron."
He paused, letting the words hang like blade in the air.
"From this day, no man calls us slaves. No empire calls us pawns. We march not as shadows, but as wolves. And the world will remember the howl of the north."
The roar that answered shook the heavens.
---
Night fell. Torches blazed in every street, and Ranevia feasted like a starving man given his first meal in years. Fires crackled with spit-roasted boar, mugs of bitter mead were passed until even the children laughed.
But Lan did not feast. He stood at the highest terrace, overlooking the city. The lights shimmered below like stars stolen from the sky. His chest should have been full. Yet something gnawed at him.
He remembered Iris, her hand on his lips, her eyes stripped of humanity. A devil in angel’s skin.
Her whisper haunted him still: "Clean up your business... I’ll wait."
He exhaled, and the breath clouded in the night air.
Behind him, Miller’s boots scraped. The old guard bowed slightly. "The first prince has not been found."
Lan’s pale eyes narrowed. "He’s alive. I can feel it. And until he dies, Solaris is not yet buried."
"Shall I send the hunters?"
Lan did not turn. His voice was low, hard. "Send them all."
Miller’s jaw tightened. He gave a single nod.
Lan looked once more at the city below, the chants of his people rising through the cold night. He had given them Ranevia. But peace? No. Peace was not yet won.
The wolf had returned home—but already its fangs yearned for more blood.
But first, he would need to face the devil he’s created.
———
The governor’s manor of Ranevia was before him, its shadow stretching long across the snow-dusted courtyard.
The old stone carried scars from the war, but it stood rebuilt, windows lit, its high banners fluttering against the northern wind.
Once, this place had been a husk—a shell abandoned after Solaris claimed Ranevia. Now it was alive again, a seat of power restored to him.
Lan walked its halls slowly, boots tapping against polished marble that smelled faintly of fresh oil and incense.
The air inside was warmer, but it carried a weight—a reminder of memory. These halls had seen blood, betrayal, desperate strategy. They had also been the home where his remaining loyalties clung together through storms and sieges.
Now they welcomed him again as their ruler.
At the far end of the corridor, he found her.
Seraphine stood by the tall arched window, her hands clasped before her, her golden hair braided down her back.
A strip of white cloth bound her eyes, but her face tilted outward as if she were gazing into the horizon beyond the city walls.
The cold blue light of the snowy world outside bled across her cheeks, softening the sharp lines carved by grief and time.
"You return victorious," she said quietly, her voice warm but touched by something Lan could not place—relief, and sorrow intertwined.
He allowed a small smile. "Did you have any doubt?"
"No," she answered, her lips barely curving, "and yet you were close to dying. If she did not intervene..."
Her words lingered like smoke in the air. Lan’s smile faded. He stood in silence for a breath, shoulders tightening, before speaking.
"Where is she?"
Seraphine turned her head slightly, gesturing with the faintest tilt of her chin. "In the study."
Lan nodded, brushed past her, and opened the heavy oak door.
---
The study smelled of ink, and faint perfume. Shelves lined the walls, filled with tomes of magic, cultivation, and histories.
The fire burned low in the hearth, leaving its orange glow across the room.
And there she sat.
Iris Aregard, imperial princess.
She was seated in the high-backed chair, legs crossed with the poise of one who had never been taught to kneel.
A plain dress of deep grey wrapped her figure, simple yet elegant, its fabric pooling lightly across her thighs. Her hair, black streaked with ribbons of white, spilled down her shoulder in a cascade that caught the firelight like the contrast of night and snow.
Her lips, crimson as spilt blood, curved faintly as her storm-grey eyes—eyes that carried golden flecks, like lightning in distant thunderclouds—flicked from the pages of the book to him.
"Congratulations on your victory, Lanard," she said softly, voice smooth, unhurried.
Lan’s hand lingered on the doorframe before he stepped in. "And I am thankful for your assistance."
She nodded once. "Hmm."
The silence between them stretched—heavy, brittle, unbroken save for the faint crackle of firewood. Finally, Lan spoke.
"Are you still you?" His voice echoed faintly through the study.
Her eyes lifted from the book, settling fully on him. She tilted her head.
"After what you had to endure," he clarified, "are you still you?"
For a long moment, she said nothing. Only the flames moved. Then, slowly, she closed the book, laying it across her lap.
"No."
Her answer fell like a stone into water.
"It is to be expected," she continued, her tone softer now, almost detached. "I’ve seen countless lives after all. Been born countless times, only to die countless more. I have known love and hate, despair and ecstasy, over and over again—enough times that they all become irrelevant." She sighed, a slow exhale of weariness centuries deep. "So no, I don’t think I am the same Iris I was. But I do carry her will. Her will for vengeance. For power. That I promised would never be lost."
Lan studied her, searching her face for some fracture between what she was and what she claimed to remain. But there was no weakness, no hesitation. Only a clarity as sharp as steel.
"So you still want to rule the Aregard Empire," he said at last.
"Yes." She smiled faintly, a dangerous smile, one that twisted between charm and threat. Her eyes locked into his, unwavering. "And what do you want, Lan?"
Lan’s chest rose as he drew in a breath. His voice came steady, carved with iron resolve.
"To rule this world," he said, "and break the peak of cultivation the heavens set."
The firelight danced in her gaze, and for a heartbeat, the silence became something alive, humming between them.
"Then we must prepare," she said finally, her smile widening just enough to show the hunger behind it. "Our conquest has only just begun."
IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT IN AUTHORS NOTE.