Chronicles of Astravara
Where gods whisper and empires rot.
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Kael Drakar stood at the edge of Drak’s Hollow, a humble cluster of weathered wooden huts surrounded by fields of brittle, yellow wheat. The rising sun painted the sky in hues of blood-red, a foreboding mirror to the turmoil growing within his chest. Behind him, his mother clasped her calloused hands in silent prayer, while his father—drunk, broken, and barely conscious—mumbled unintelligible apologies.
“Kael,” his mother’s trembling voice reached him. “Don’t let the war steal your soul, my son. Remember who you are.”
He didn’t answer. His eyes lingered on their worn and sorrowful faces one last time. Then he adjusted the strap of his tattered pack, turned toward the road, and left without looking back—each step resounding like a heavy echo in the hollow chambers of his heart.
Kael had not chosen enlistment. He had been pushed toward it, herded by debt and the failure of a father who had traded their family’s livelihood for dice and drink. The Caltherian Empire offered partial forgiveness of debts in exchange for military service. A cruel bargain, but the only one his family could afford.
He walked for days before reaching the recruitment outpost. There, an officer clad in polished steel armor etched with minor runes registered his name with detached efficiency, consigning him to the long list of the XIV Legion—known across the empire as the Sons of Flame.
The XIV Legion’s encampment spread across the plains like a disciplined swarm—rows of red tents pitched with unnerving precision, banners of gold and crimson flaring in the dry wind. Kael Drakar had never seen anything like it. To him, it looked less like a military base and more like a forge waiting to melt and reshape him.
The first night was unlike any he had known.
The air was thick with the mingled stench of sweat, steel, and scorched leather. Fires crackled. Men sharpened blades or murmured prayers to gods both old and forbidden. Kael dropped his satchel at the entrance of his assigned tent and hesitated. Inside, recruits sat in silence—strangers bound only by dread and duty.
He sat on the cold earth, staring at his calloused hands, still hearing his mother’s voice: “Don’t let the war steal your soul.” But already, the war was laying its claim.
Then a voice pierced the silence.
“You look like you’re waiting for someone to tell you it’s all a mistake.”
Kael looked up. A boy, around his age, leaned casually on a spear, his grin annoyingly wide.
“Taren Valis,” the boy introduced himself, plopping down beside Kael without invitation. “Welcome to Camp Misery. I hope you enjoy blisters, screaming sergeants, and the distinct taste of failure.”
Kael raised an eyebrow. “That’s… encouraging.”
“Oh, it gets better.” Taren leaned in with mock seriousness. “They say the latrine pit is cursed. Swallowed a man whole last week. True story.”
Despite himself, Kael let out a short breath—half laugh, half disbelief.
Taren winked. “Don’t worry. Stick close to me and we might survive long enough to regret it.”
The morning after brought no time for humor.
The recruits were dragged from their tents before dawn by a voice that seemed to grind against the very marrow of their bones.
“Up, you spineless worms! If the sun beats you to your feet, you don’t deserve your own!”
That voice belonged to Sergeant Brak “Ironfist”, a towering slab of a man whose face bore a deep scar crossing from temple to chin. His presence silenced even the boldest. His armor bore the soot of old battles and his words hit harder than most weapons.
“You’re not soldiers,” Brak barked, pacing before the assembled recruits. “You’re fodder. Dust. Bones waiting to be broken. But if you live through this, if you bleed and burn the weakness out of you, maybe—just maybe—you’ll earn the right to call yourselves Legion.”
What followed was not training. It was ritualized suffering.
Endless runs in full armor beneath the sun. Drills until legs failed. Sparring sessions that left skin bruised and spirits shattered. Kael bled from his palms, ached in places he didn’t know could ache—but he endured. Because every time he faltered, Brak was there.
Not with kindness.
With eyes like steel and a voice like a hammer.
“Get up, Drakar,” Brak would say. “Pain is your instructor. Discipline is your salvation. I won’t carry you. You either learn to stand—or you’ll learn to crawl forever.”
And yet, it wasn’t cruelty that Kael saw in Brak. It was purpose—a hard man building harder soldiers.
Through it all, Taren never changed. He kept cracking jokes, even while coughing up dirt after a rough fall. He named his spear “Lance-a-Lot” and once tried to convince Kael that he was a noble bastard of an elven prince.
“You know,” he said one night, chewing on hard bread, “if we live through this, we should open a tavern. The Blistered Boot. Motto: ‘Our stew won’t kill you—probably.’”
Kael grunted. “You never shut up, do you?”
“That’s my charm,” Taren replied. “You’re just mad because you haven’t smiled in a week.”
Maybe it was true. Maybe that annoying optimism was the only thing keeping Kael from losing himself. In the pits of exhaustion, when his limbs screamed and his mind frayed, it was Taren’s stupid grin and Brak’s relentless presence that grounded him.
One taught him how to survive.
The other taught him why.
The days blurred into one another beneath the relentless sun.
For three months, Kael Drakar lived, bled, and endured within the iron routine of the XIV Legion. The training was a machine that did not care who you were, only who survived. Wake before the dawn. Run until your lungs burned. Drill until your bones screamed. Sleep only when the stars blurred from exhaustion.
In this world of discipline and dust, Taren Valis became his lifeline.
At night, when the campfires flickered low and the other recruits lay broken in their tents, Taren would appear—grinning, as always—offering Kael a piece of stolen bread or a story crafted from pure nonsense.
“Did I ever tell you about the time I poisoned a wyvern with my cooking?” he’d ask one night, lounging beside Kael.
“Last night, it was a troll you killed with a joke,” Kael muttered, staring at the fire.
“Same principle,” Taren shrugged. “Dead is dead.”
No matter how Kael tried, he never managed to get a straight answer about Taren’s past. Each time he asked, the story changed. One day, Taren was the son of a general. The next, he was a butcher’s apprentice who got conscripted after stealing a noble’s horse.
“What’s the real story, Taren?” Kael asked one night, his voice low.
Taren smiled but looked away. “Does it matter? I’m here. You’re here. The rest is just smoke.”
What never changed was Taren’s belief—unshaken, almost holy—that the Empire was a force for order.
“We keep the darkness at bay,” he said. “People sleep because we bleed. You think that wheat in your village grows on its own? It grows because the Empire defends the roads, the rivers, the peace.”
Kael wasn’t convinced. But he saw something admirable in Taren’s conviction, even if it sounded naïve. In a world of suffering, maybe belief itself was a kind of strength.
Then there was Brak.
If Taren was a brother, Brak “Ironfist” was a mountain.
He never yelled unless it was necessary—but his silence was often worse than any scream. He watched the recruits like a hawk, and his punishments were always brutal, but fair. He demanded perfection, then demanded it again when you thought you’d achieved it.
To Kael, Brak became a figure twisted in mirror of the father he never had: not nurturing, not affectionate—but unwavering. Dependable. Brutal in his honesty. Relentless in his standards.
“Discipline is what you do when no one is watching,” Brak told him once, during a rare one-on-one sparring session. “If you need applause to stand, you’ll fall the moment it’s quiet.”
Kael took those words like scripture.
The first evaluation was a disaster.
It was a timed endurance course through the ravines outside the camp—jagged rocks, pits, mock ambushes, all under the weight of full armor. Kael failed it. Not by much—but enough.
He slipped during the climb, fell behind, and crossed the finish line last, covered in cuts and mud, shame burning hotter than his wounds.
Brak didn’t say a word. He simply looked at him, then walked away.
Kael could have accepted it.
Others did. Many gave up after failing once. But Kael didn’t sleep that night. While the camp rested, he waited. And before dawn, he returned to the course—alone.
No one was watching.
No encouragement. No applause.
Only rocks. Heat. Pain. And his own stubborn fire.
He ran it again. And again. He tore open a wound in his leg during the climb. He broke a finger when his shield slipped. But he kept going, bleeding and breathless. When he stumbled across the finish line the second time, the sun was rising.
And Brak was waiting.
Kael collapsed.
As his vision dimmed, he heard the sergeant’s voice—calm, almost proud.
“You’re not ready yet, Drakar. But you’re worth the iron.”
Darkness took him.
After three months of unrelenting drills, bruised bones, and blistered pride, the XIV Legion marched.
Their destination: Rakkesh—a fractured borderland plagued by decaying feudal lords and lawless bands of raiders. The stories told of slaughtered caravans, scorched villages, and children sold into slavery. For Kael Drakar, this wasteland would become the proving ground for all the pain he’d endured.
He was no longer the uncertain boy who had arrived at camp. His body was leaner, scarred, and battle-hardened. His grip on his axe was sure. His eyes had grown still.
And yet, as he walked beneath the harsh sun in his fitted armor, there was a familiar tightness in his chest. Doubt. Not of his skill—but of what would be asked of him.
To his right, Taren Valis marched with his usual smirk, bouncing slightly with each step despite the weight of his pack.
“You think they’ll run when they see us?” he asked, sweat glistening on his brow.
Kael didn’t answer at first. His gaze remained fixed on the distant hills, dry and windswept. The enemy was out there—unseen, but near.
“Raiders like these don’t run,” Kael finally said. “They kill. Like we’re about to.”
Taren’s smile faded for a breath. Then he chuckled. “Then let’s make sure we’re better at it.”
The months that followed were a succession of forced marches, sleepless nights, and blood-soaked skirmishes. The XIV Legion advanced steadily through the desert regions of Rakkesh, carving their way through raiders and petty warlords. But every victory came at a cost. The land itself seemed to fight back.
Rakkesh devoured men.
Its sun burned the ground to ash, and the wind carried grains of sand sharp enough to slice skin. Villages lay in ruins—charred skeletons of homes, their inhabitants either slaughtered or vanished without trace. Rumors spoke of horrors that stalked the dunes at night, whispering madness into the ears of soldiers.
Kael Drakar had grown numb to the cycle of conquest and ruin.
He no longer flinched at the sight of mutilated bodies. His sword no longer trembled. His thoughts, once filled with doubts and memories of home, now rotated around tactics, formations, and survival.
Each step through the scorched lands pressed the weight of command deeper into his spine.
He wasn’t an officer—yet. But his presence was beginning to matter.
Brak saw it.
So did the men.
One night, while patrolling the ruins of a pillaged village, Kael stumbled upon a young girl hiding beneath a collapsed roof. Her face was gaunt with hunger, her clothes torn to rags. Her eyes—wide and hollow—spoke of loss beyond years.
“Please,” she whispered, clutching a dirty doll. “My family is dead. Don’t leave me here.”
Kael froze. He knew the orders: No civilians allowed in the caravan. No exceptions.
But he couldn’t walk away.
He knelt, wrapped her in his cloak, and hid her among the supply carts, promising her safety in hushed tones. It was the first time he directly disobeyed the chain of command.
He didn’t tell anyone.
Not even Taren.
But something inside him shifted that night. A spark, dim but alive, told him that even in war—he could still choose.
By the time whispers of Lord Harvan reached the Legion, the men were fraying. Supplies were low, morale was thinner than their rations, and Rakkesh showed no signs of yielding.
The nobles back in the capital spoke of strategy.
The soldiers spoke of ghosts.
Kael spoke little at all.
He had become a flame in the machine of war—burning not with pride, but with endurance. Each day scorched another part of his soul. Each victory felt smaller.
And yet he marched, shield in hand, eyes fixed ahead.
Because there was no other way forward.
Chronicles of Astravara 