The wind howled like a blade over the deck.
A full moon drowned the sea in silver, but neither Kael nor Aurus were looking at the water.
They stood over a carved table inside the command cabin of the Vigilant Star, their flagship — bent over a map drawn by Lysha’s hand, inked by sea veterans, and corrected by informants from Barbarossa.
It was more than parchment.
It was a gamble.
Kael tapped a narrow passage along the southern coast.
“If we hit here, we can sever Valthenor’s sea supplies. Their trade ships pass this strait at predictable intervals. Destroy the docks, sink a few hulls, and we’ll buy chaos.”
“They’ll reroute within a week,” Aurus replied. “Unless we hit the grain convoys on land as well.”
He pointed to a series of ridgelines that cut through Valthenor’s inland valleys.
“They move food, weapons, and coin along those paths. Always guarded, but lightly. If we burn three of these roads, the capital panics. The merchants will start hoarding, the docks will stall, and the city’s militia will scramble.”
Kael leaned in.
“And in that chaos… we land.”
Aurus nodded, but his expression stayed grim.
“We don’t have the numbers for a siege.”
“This is not a conquest. It’s a decapitation.”
He exhaled slowly.
“We strike fast. We split the fleet. I’ll take the sea choke point — force their navy into disarray. You take the shore with the XIV and secure a landing zone.”
“We have maybe four days to break them before they reinforce.”
“If we fail… if we stall…”
Kael finished it for him.
“We’ll be isolated.”
“No reinforcements. No retreat.”
“And they’ll crush us between the cliffs and the sea.”
There was silence between them for a long breath.
Kael rested both hands on the table. Not in fear — in acceptance.
“This is why we bring so few.”
Aurus looked up.
“They think we won’t come.”
“They think we can’t.”
Kael met his eyes.
“Let’s prove them wrong.”
Aurus smiled — not with joy, but with resolve.
“I’ll break the sea.”
“You break the gates.”
They clasped arms — warriors, equals — and returned to the deck.
Below, the waves whispered of blood and glory.
The sea boiled with shadows.
Fog curled like tendrils of smoke over the dark waters, hiding stars and curses alike. The wind shifted eastward with sudden violence, snapping sails and shivering masts. Kael stood on the deck of the Vigilant Star, cloak pulled tight, eyes locked on the void ahead.
And then—
“Sails! Sails to the north!”
The cry came from the mast.
“Dozens of them.”
“Fast. Heavy. Closing.”
It was an ambush.
The Valthenor fleet — merchant-funded, pirate-guided — had anticipated their approach. They had waited in the fog, silent as knives, letting the Empire’s ships enter the channel of Ardenthar: a narrow throat of jagged rock and sandbanks, with nowhere to turn, nowhere to run.
A classic trap.
Kael’s heart did not race.
He simply turned to Aurus.
“We’ve sailed into a coffin.”
“Then we carve the lid from the inside,” Aurus answered.
Arrows hissed from the fog.
Flaming pitch cracked against the aft deck. The first Imperial ship was struck — its hull splitting, mast toppling, men screaming as they fell into flame and salt.
Kael gave the order:
“Shields up! Maintain formation!”
But the channel was too tight.
The ships jostled. One veered. Another stalled. The Valthenor vessels, sleeker and more numerous, descended from all angles.
They had wind, position, numbers.
A lesser commander would have ordered retreat.
But Aurus gritted his teeth, hands tight on the railing, watching the sea.
“I need… five more seconds…”
Kael turned to him.
“For what?”
“For them to believe we’re running.”
He gave the signal.
Three long bell tolls.
To the fleet, it meant evasive retreat.
The Imperial ships suddenly broke formation, peeling east as if in panic. Sails turned. Oarsmen rowed hard. The enemy surged forward to press the rout.
“They’re chasing,” one officer said in horror.
Aurus gave a cold nod.
“Good.”
Then came the maneuver.
“Hard turn to port!” Aurus roared. “Release anchors! Ballast shift!”
The Vigilant Star and four accompanying ships veered sharply, too sharply — their sails buckled, keels groaning as they cut into the wind at an angle impossible for anything not pre-planned to survive.
They weren’t fleeing.
They were slingshotting.
The anchors dropped, dragging the hulls sideways.
The water churned like a monster beneath them.
And then— release.
The ships whipped around, their momentum redirected like a hammer swung in reverse.
The Vigilant Star tore through the fog and into the heart of the enemy’s vanguard.
“Ram speed!” Aurus bellowed. “Now!”
The hull collided with the lead Valthenor ship — splinters and men and sails exploding into the air. Grappling lines fired. The marines roared.
The Empire had stopped retreating.
And started devouring.
Kael jumped the moment the ships locked.
He landed among startled Valthenor sailors and cut through them like fire. The XIV poured behind him — disciplined, unshaken, burning for a target.
One ship caught fire.
Another capsized in the recoil of the maneuver.
The Valthenor rear tried to respond — but now the fog betrayed them. In the chaos, they struck each other. Their formation broke.
The channel of Ardenthar, once their trap, had become a killing ground.
Hours passed in blood and iron.
When it was done, half the Valthenor fleet burned. The rest scattered.
Aurus stood at the helm of the Vigilant Star, blood staining his sleeve, voice hoarse from screaming orders.
Kael joined him, armor cracked, face streaked with soot.
“You broke the sea,” he said.
Aurus didn’t smile.
“I broke their expectation.”
He looked over the debris.
“We win wars not by strength. But by being where they don’t want us, when they think we can’t be there.”
Kael nodded.
“Then they’ll never be ready for what comes next.”
Dawn broke in bruised silence.
The fog had cleared, revealing the full wreckage of the Valthenor fleet — torn masts, scorched hulls, and blood-soaked wood drifting like bones.
But on the eastern horizon, where the land clawed into the sea like a half-buried beast, the shore awaited.
Jagged.
Fortified.
Still untouched.
Kael stood on the prow of the second wave ship, helm in hand, armor dented and stained. Around him, the XIV prepared in silence — warriors who had bled through forests, mountains, and snow… now staring down the walls of Valthenor.
“Three hours,” said Aurus behind him. “Before they regroup inland.”
Kael nodded.
“Then we strike first.”
“The city’s garrison is built for raiders, not war,” Aurus added. “They won’t expect a full breach from the coast.”
“Then let’s teach them to expect the impossible.”
The first landing craft touched sand with a heavy groan of wood on stone.
Kael was the first to leap.
Boots slammed into Valthenor soil.
A moment of stillness.
Then the warhorn sounded — and the XIV poured forward like a wave of iron.
The foothold was a cluster of abandoned coastal outposts — half-built towers, fishing shacks repurposed as lookouts, shallow trenches, and overgrown palisades. It was no fortress.
But it was ground.
And Kael would hold it.
Resistance came fast — militia in piecemeal armor, archers on ridgelines, cavalry attempting to harass from the south. Kael’s lieutenants responded with ruthless efficiency.
One tower fell.
Then another.
Supply wagons seized.
Enemy scouts driven into the cliffs.
By nightfall, the first Imperial banner had been nailed into the stone of the old watchtower.
Burned red.
Trimmed with ash.
The mark of the XIV.
In the command tent, Kael met Aurus for the last time before the split.
Maps strewn with pins. Sentries reporting movement inland. Captains exhausted. But the foothold stood.
“You’ll take the coast,” Kael said. “Disrupt their trade lanes. Cut the harbors.”
“And you?” Aurus asked.
Kael’s eyes settled on the inland roads.
“I go for the heart. Break their supply chains. Push toward the outer districts.”
Aurus hesitated.
Then stepped forward and clasped Kael’s forearm.
“This isn’t just a campaign anymore. If we succeed—”
“We reshape the Empire,” Kael finished.
“If we fail…”
“Then they’ll bury us in songs.”
They didn’t need to say more.
At dawn, their paths split.
Aurus turned south, fleet trailing like a school of blades across the water.
Kael turned inland, the XIV marching behind him in silence, flags snapping in the bitter wind.
And from the cliffs above, Lysha watched it all — red scarf fluttering, blind eyes turned toward something none of them could see yet.
But they all felt it.
The campaign had begun.
Not just to take a city.
But to change a world.
Chronicles of Astravara 
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