Because, one day, their friendship would die screaming.
When that day came, I would remain patient, unblinking, the shadow that learned how to wait. For I would continue to be the last King of Shadows.
Chapter1
Salvatore
UGARIT 1273 BCE
When I crossed the dry hills back toward Ugarit, the sun was a molten disk sinking into the sea—bleeding red across the sky like a god struck down in battle. The city rose ahead of me—terraced walls of sunbaked limestone and basalt crowned with cedar towers and temple spires. Even from a distance, it looked older than memory—sealed, unyielding, eternal.
And I rode home in shame.
The Baelric bargain had shattered—because of me. Their grain, their bronze, their chariot teams… gone. For what? A scrap of pride? A refusal to bend? My father would call it betrayal.
Wind from the coast kicked fine yellow dust along the road, clinging to my cloak and stinging my lashes. Traders slid past without greeting, their ox-drawn carts groaning under amphorae of oil and wine, bundles of dyed linen and wires of bronze; jars of resin and strings of Tyrian purple glinted in the last light. Their eyes dropped as they passed—no merchant’s nod, no cursory bargain. None of them knew the truth of what I had done; still, I could feel the verdict in the way the crowd turned away.
Failure.
The gates of House Lorian opened wide—doors of hammered Tyrian bronze set with obsidian teeth, ceremonial and cruel. The lion crest loomed in low relief across them—a beast mid-leap, jaws split in a promise of conquest. Once, I had thought such carving spoke of honor. Now it looked only hungry.
Inside, the air cooled but offered no mercy. Shadows pooled along the wide corridors like smoke; silence wrapped the halls like a funerary shroud. My sandals struck the polished basalt with too much sound. No servants, no stewards, no scribes—met me. No guards in scale and bronze flanked the way. The house itself seemed to hold its breath, waiting for me to hand it new meat.
Sconces guttered with animal-fat flame, throwing ruddy light over the reliefs—ancestors and warlords carved in profile, chariots tipping into spear-storms, cedar ships riding engraved waves. I moved beneath those eyes like a penitent before a tribunal. Their silence said what stone could not—my failure would be answered in blood.
Cedar resin and hammered iron filled the air—the scent of my father, a lifetime of discipline and war. He would be waiting.
I passed the central hearth, where a sacred flame sputtered beneath the mounted sword of my brother Julian—the perfect son, the golden commander who never failed. The metal caught the firelight, holy enough for offerings. I rode back with nothing but dust on my hands and the breath in my lungs.
It would not be enough.
The bronze doors of the great hall yawned before me, chiseled with the battle-marked lions of our ancestors—emblems of dominion more than protection. Veins of obsidian inlaid the bronze, fracturing torchlight into hungry shards. They said the High Artisan Guild had forged them in an age when kings still worshipped war; the doors kept that memory like a festering wound.
I pushed them open. The hinges gave a long, complaining groan—like a war horn calling defeat.
His voice split the hall before he stepped down.
“You lost the Baelric lands?” Lord Lorian thundered.
The words hit the vaulted chamber like a storm hitting open water. Sconces shuddered; flames bowed. Murals of ancient battles—chariots and spears frozen mid-break—seemed to lean forward, watching me fail.
Then he descended the steps.
My father.
Lord Lorian. High Warlord of Ugarit. Commander of the King’s Northern Legion. Breaker of tribes. Maker of campaigns.
He stood beneath the lion banners, a silhouette thrown long across the floor. A mountain of a man wrapped in armor and shadow. His lamellar—bronze scales, burnished and blackened by campaigns, clinked softly as he moved; each plate bore sigils hammered by temple smiths, tiny prayers for victory fused in metal.
A heavy cloak of Tyrian-dyed wool hung from one shoulder, clasped with a bronze lion brooch—worn as a claim, not comfort. His face was etched by sun and spear—cheekbones like cliffs, a jaw hard enough to chip stone. A long scar ran from the left brow into the beard, which was braided at the chin in the old style—an homage to First Warlords older than the throne.
Silver threaded through his black hair like veins of cooled obsidian.
His jaw was set; his lips did not move. His eyes—ice-pale and pitiless—locked on me like a chariot that never faltered. They had watched cities burn and men melt; they had never softened for me. They measured me now as a mason measured a crack, knowing how and where to strike.
I felt the house draw a breath behind him, held as tight as a bowstring, waiting for the sound that would break it.
The firelight cast hard shadows across his face, exaggerating the lines hewn by years of campaign. The sides of his head were shaved; the remaining hair was pulled tight into the warrior’s braid of the king’s shield-bearers. Bronze rings threaded their length—each band scored with a name—revolt quelled, river crossed, city taken. They chimed as he moved, a chorus of conquests.
