Chapter 1
Balthazar
“Please, Balthazar,” Zara whispered, her voice breaking as she reached for my arm. “We can’t stay here. Not with their ashes still warm in the wind. We have to leave… or we’ll drown in this sorrow.”
Her eyes were red and swollen, her face streaked with soot and tears.
Around us, the world we once knew lay in ruins.
Blood splattered the snow like ink. Smoke curled upward from the pyres where our daughters’ bodies had burned.
The longhouse—our home, the heart of our lives—was nothing but broken timber and shadow.
“I know you’re hurting,” she said softly. “So am I. But we can’t survive this if we stay. Mathias… he says he can help. I want to believe him.”
My thoughts churned, a storm of rage, loss, and disbelief. I had no answers—only pain.
“Yes, yes,” Mathias said, stepping forward, his dark hair catching the light of the dying fires. “I’m building a sanctuary. A school for others like you. Those born of darkness lost and wandering without answers. We’ll guide them. Peace. Purpose.”
He met my eyes.
“Wouldn’t you have given anything for that when you awoke?”
The memory struck me like a hammer to the chest—adrift in a cold, endless sea, stripped of memory, consumed by fear. I hadn’t known who I was or what I needed—only that the hunger was unbearable, and I was wrong.
“Of course, I wanted a mentor,” I said hoarsely. “Of course I did.”
Mathias stepped closer. “Then let me be that for you. For both of you. Come with me. There’s still time to reclaim something from all this ruin.”
Zara placed her hand over mine, her fingers ice-cold. “Please, Balthazar. For me. For them. For whatever future we might still have.”
I looked around once more—at the snow-drenched grave of my family, the smoldering fragments of what we’d built together. My heart clenched. My soul mangled.
But the fire of vengeance had dulled into something heavier—grief, unbearable and endless.
And maybe… a fragile shard of hope.
I let them convince me.
And without a backward glance, I stepped through time—into 1130 A.D. London.
Leaving behind everything I was.
And everything I had lost.
Part of me welcomed the distraction, the structure of something new—a veil to mask the agony of losing my children.
But another part of me, buried beneath the surface, screamed in quiet betrayal.
I couldn’t silence the plaguing feeling that Mathias had something to do with their deaths.
His arrival had been too convenient—on the eve of their slaughter, cloaked in promises and wisdom.
If he knew so much, why had he come too late?
Still, I had no choice.
I needed answers.
And Mathias claimed to have them.
Years passed beneath his tutelage—slow, colorless years that bled together. Each day dragged into the next like a curse. Zara and I trained his soldiers—dark, broken beings like ourselves, taught to obey, to destroy, to survive. Side by side, we fought, taught, and endured.
But inside me, nothing had healed.
My heart was still splintered, shattered into a thousand jagged fragments that pierced deeper with every memory. A part of me longed for the rhythm and warmth of my old life with Zara. Another part burned—hungry and feral—for vengeance.
The rage festered.
I turned it on them—Mathias and Zara—and accused them of betrayal. I saw how he watched her and how she softened in his presence. I let that vision rot me from the inside until all I could see was their deception.
He was with her. Behind my back. Said nothing. Lied to my face.
And then one day… I found them.
But not tangled in a bed of lies.
Worse.
Zara stood before him—unarmed, confused. She asked him what he wanted. He said her.
I watched, frozen, unable to move, as he pulled her into an embrace—and drove a dagger into her throat.
She choked. Her body seized. She clutched at him, but he held her tight. Whispered something into her ear. Something I will never forget.
Then he let her fall to the ground like she meant nothing.
He wiped the blade on his sleeve. Stared at the blood on his fingers.
Then he looked up.
And licked it clean.
While staring me straight in the eye.
It wasn’t about jealousy.
It wasn’t about love.
It was about control.
He couldn’t possess her, so he destroyed her.
And in that moment, he destroyed me, too.
From that moment forward, my hatred for him was absolute.
It seethed in my blood and carved itself into my bones. He made my skin crawl. Every time I looked at him, unease gripped my spine like a noose tightening.
And the worst part?
I knew him.
Not from these years.
But from before.
The memory was elusive, buried in shadow—like broken glass glinting beneath murky water—but it was there—familiarity, recognition, and dread.
He paraded around with his perfect little life—his beautiful wife, his bright-eyed baby girl—as if he hadn’t destroyed mine. As if he hadn’t stolen everything from me.
And I hated him for it.
Jealousy curdled in my gut, sharp and bitter. That used to be my life: warmth, love, family. Now reduced to ash and memory, he lived like a king behind walls of lies.
The arguments grew. Endless, circling, venomous.
I wanted freedom.
He wanted obedience.
I wanted the truth.
He offered chains disguised as guidance.
And I began to realize—Mathias wasn’t here to help me.
He was here to control me.
And maybe… he always had been.
The argument reached its boiling point one cold afternoon as we stood beneath the shadowed eaves of the school, where whispers of darkness clung like frost.
“Why must we wear this mask of virtue,” I snarled, “while secretly reveling in what we are? It’s like playing nursemaid to sick prey, pretending to be something we’re not. I’m tired of this farce. I want to embrace my nature—to unleash it.”
Mathias shook his head, his tone clipped. “We must correct the darkness within us. Just because we were born with it doesn’t mean we must become it.”
“It’s like forcing a lion to eat vegetables,” I snapped, fists clenched at my sides. “It goes against everything in our blood.”
He stepped closer and patted my shoulder, calm, composed, patronizing. “These feelings are part of the correction process. They’ll fade in time.”
But I didn’t want them to fade.
I wanted them to grow.
To devour everything inside me until nothing remained but vengeance. Until I could finally strike down those who had taken everything from me, including him.
Mathias excused himself, thinking I would cool off. Instead, I stormed to the training hall, seized a sword from the rack, and unleashed my fury on a straw dummy. Each strike echoed through the chamber—purposeful, violent.
Then I heard footsteps.
I stilled, breath heaving. I slid the sword back into its holder on the wall, the steel singing softly as it settled into place. Quietly, I moved across the polished floor and peered through the doorway.
Mathias was in the corridor, walking toward the front entrance with his arm wrapped protectively around his wife, Cora. She cradled their infant close to her chest, expression soft and adoring.
“When will you return?” she asked gently.
“As soon as my business is complete,” he replied, flashing her a practiced smile.
“You always say the same thing,” Cora pouted, her voice tinged with playful complaint.
“And I always return, don’t I?” Mathias said with a carefully composed smile, pulling a gold coin from his pocket and pressing it into Cora’s palm. “Take this into town. Buy something beautiful to wear.”
Cora clung to him desperately, her fingers gripping his coat, lips hungrily seeking his in a final, lingering kiss that felt more like a plea than a farewell. When she finally let go, it was with visible reluctance.
He turned and left without a backward glance, his figure swallowed by the looming shadows beyond the estate’s towering entrance.
Cora hesitated, then closed the massive door behind him with a hollow thud.
The silence that followed was deafening.
It echoed through the marble halls like a curse—every inch of this too-perfect like a slap to my face.
My fists clenched.
My vision blurred with red.
A scream tore from my throat, echoing through the empty corridors like a war cry.
The sickening sweetness of their exchange twisted inside me, poisoned by grief and betrayal.
He had murdered Zara. He had looked me in the eye and lied through his teeth—and now he played the loving husband, the devoted father.
It was more than I could bear.
It was time to end things.
I couldn’t pretend any longer. I couldn’t keep marching to his commands, playing a student in his twisted academy, where he trained “soldiers of darkness” to turn around and kill them if they didn’t conform to his ideals.
No more.
If the world called me a monster, then I’d show them what a monster truly looked like.
My first act of retribution would begin in his sanctum—his prized office, the pulsing heart of his false empire.
Mathias was gone again, off on one of his cryptic errands. Perfect.
What would it matter if I destroyed his sacred relics? His hand-carved furniture, annotated tomes, and precious notes detailing the lives and deaths of those he pretended to save?
As soon as I made the decision, something awakened inside me. My heart roared to life, fueled by centuries of buried rage.
I stormed into his office, seized the war hammer from its mount on the wall, and swung.
BOOM.
The hammer slammed into the paneling, echoing like a cannon blast through the school.
Shelves cracked.
Wood splintered and groaned beneath the force of my fury.
Books crashed to the floor.
Debris flew in every direction, some pieces smashing into the stained-glass windows, which exploded in a cascade of glinting shards that rained like crystal tears.
This was only the beginning.
I would reduce his legacy to rubble.
And then I’d bury him beneath it.