Stalemate | A Rise To Power

𝘗𝘳𝘰𝘭𝘰𝘨𝘶𝘦

MATURE: includes profanity and violence

⋘ ──── ∗ ⋅ ◈ ⋅ ∗ ──── ⋙

THREE YEARS EARLIER

Deep inside a war camp, a boy fought a battle with the cold.

He shivered in his tent, wrapping furs closer around his body as wind wailed outside, clawing at thin canvas as it strove to break in. The war camp had been hastily erected, and the tents were made of cheap material, easily battered by the unrelenting winter.

Come on, you're sixteen, Aldric Shadowhart told himself. You're not afraid of the wind.

The tent shook with a heavy gust, and he flinched, reaching for his sword.

Okay, maybe a little, he conceded.

The truth was, he was always afraid.

For most of his life, his father and uncle had been at war with the Silverlings, fighting to win back a usurped throne. A skirmish would ensue, Kael and Xavier would push them onward, and they would enlist soldiers among villagers still loyal to the Shadowharts.

But they had reached the Northern border, and the temperature had plummeted. The winter had swept mercilessly through the Mainland States, killing crops, and leaving people huddled around fires, praying for summer. At least the fighting had come to a standstill; neither side wanted to send their soldiers to freeze to death.

The stalemate was only a temporary respite, however. Kael wanted Aldric on the battlefield as soon as he turned seventeen, but he was not eager to fight. Instead, he felt... stagnant. He was tired of the fighting. Almost all his life had been war, and all he wanted was to settle down and sleep without fear of being assassinated.

This will be the one, Xavier always claimed. We will reclaim the South today with this push, this checkpoint, this town.

But they never did.

"Landon?" he called into the darkness of the tent, his voice punctured by the cold. He wanted the presence of his brother, but only silence called back. Landon had probably gone to stargaze again; at first, Aldric had assumed his nightly absences were to see someone, but after following him he had found Landon sitting in a tree, legs swinging, face lifted to the starry sky. Aldric had left him alone with the stars and not followed him again.

But that night was different. Landon was usually back by then, and it was too cold to be out.

What if he had been attacked? Landon wasn't a fighter... he was quick, but he had never honed his skills with a sword.

Struck with sudden fear, Aldric stood, pulling on a cloak before leaving the tent and slipping around shadows of guards, navigating by the silver light of the moon.

"Lan?" he whispered into the night as he entered the woods, one hand on the pommel of his longsword. "Landon, where are you?"

He pressed himself against a tree as a guard moved past, then ventured deeper even as fear gripped him, constricting his chest—were there wolves lurking in the darkness? Assassins from King Lachlan?

He was about to turn back when he saw a figure kneeling in the middle of a clearing, head bowed. It wasn't hard to recognise his brother; he would have known the fifteen-year-old anywhere.

Seeing Landon's claymore sword sitting unused in its sheath, Aldric felt breath come back to him in a stream, his lungs filling with relief. No one had harmed his brother. It would all be okay; they would go back to the tent and tell each other scary stories until dawn, their laughter echoing through the camp.