Chapter 1: First Crack in the Blade

Before she was called commander, before the cold steel of orders became her truth, Josephine Amelia Basterbein had been the daughter of a soldier.

Her father, Captain Joseph Basterbein, fell on the northern frontlines during one of Dravareth’s earliest expansion campaigns. She was seven when they gave her his sword—still red with war—and told her he died a hero.

Commander Vaedric took her in after that. Not as a ward, but as a project. She entered the military academy before her eighth year and learned to silence grief through discipline. Through purpose. Through loyalty.

That loyalty had carved her into something precise. Cold. Sharp.

She had never questioned the shape of the blade they forged her into.

Until now.

......................

The wind was sharp atop the obsidian tower. Morning had yet to fully arrive, but the crimson banners of Dravareth already rippled violently in the dark wind. Josephine stood at the edge of the stone balcony, her gloved fingers, lined with frost-trimmed leather, rested against the black iron railing.

The silver piping on her long officer’s coat caught the dawn light, its hem dusted with a fine edge of frost. Her peaked commander’s cap cast a shadow across her eyes, turning her expression unreadable.

Her eyes never fully opened — not out of fatigue, but precision. Like a blade half-drawn, her gaze was meant to cut, not to comfort.

Beneath her, the capital stirred—a machine of discipline, all gears and steel. The echo of marching boots rose from below, rhythmic and absolute. It was the vanguard’s final drill before deployment. Twelve soldiers, personally chosen and trained by her. Loyal, deadly, silent. They called her the Hound of Dravareth. A blade with no voice, no hesitation.

Josephine drew a slow breath. Cold. Clean. Tainted with steel and smoke.

At her side, five ethereal swords shimmered to life, floating like spirits forged of starlight and war. They circled her slowly, humming as if alive. She did not touch them. She never had to.

Behind her, a door creaked open. She didn’t turn.

“The king awaits you in the war chamber,” said Vaedric’s voice. Gravel rough, laced with pride.

Josephine turned, her silver hair catching the faint red glow of sunrise. “Has he decided the target?”

Vaedric nodded. “A village in the lowlands. Off the map. Likely harbors remnants of Veilridge.”

That name stirred something. Not fear. Not guilt. But a tremor.

She paused before the grand door, where two guards saluted without a word. As they pushed the doors open, golden light spilled from the chamber, revealing a towering man in regalia, seated upon a dais of jagged black stone.

King Aureth Velliar.

“Josephine,” he said, his voice low and final, like a blade drawn across whetstone.

She stepped forward and knelt. “Your Majesty.”

The king rose, descending the stairs slowly, every movement laced with authority. “There are rumors,” he began, “of movements in the borderlands. Veilridge... A place that should not exist. Survivors, perhaps. Traitors to the crown. I want you to investigate.”

Josephine’s jaw clenched. “If there are survivors, what are your orders?”

His eyes gleamed—cold, and gold like molten judgment. “Purge them. Burn the roots before they tangle again.”

She stood, heart steady, spine straight. “Yes, Your Majesty.”

As she exited the war chamber, a weight pressed against her shoulders—not the command, but the silence that followed. There had been no cheers, no banners raised. Only the quiet certainty that this mission, like so many before it, would end in blood.

...----------------...

By midday, Josephine was riding through the frostbitten plains of Virelya, the wind combing through her silver-gray hair like a whisper from the dead. The mission was simple. The target, obscure. But something gnawed at her. A feeling.

When she reached the outskirts of the mist-draped forest, she dismounted. Her boots crunched against the frost-laced grass as she ventured in, the trees parting like wary spectators. The wind shifted.

A shape dropped from the trees, landing in a crouch with the silence of a predator. He stood slowly, tall and composed, the fading light catching the pale edges of his face — sharp, inhuman, and calm in a way that unnerved. His eyes, grey and cold, locked onto hers with quiet confidence, as if he had been waiting for her all along.

“I was beginning to wonder if the king would send someone interesting,” the man said, his voice like smoke and dusk.

She froze. Her hand went to her side — but there was no sheath, no steel. There never had to be.

With a surge of will, the air around her crystallized, and one by one, blades of glimmering ice took shape at her side — six in total, suspended in the air, their frosted edges gleaming with silent menace. They hovered, cold and obedient, awaiting only her command.

The man before her smirked, and in each of his hands, he revealed a curved dagger, their blades glowing red like molten crystal — fossilized remnants of a creature lost to legend. The surface of the weapons pulsed with energy, not of magic, but of something darker. Life.

“I was hoping the king would send one of his knights,” he said, stepping forward, boots silent on the stone. “But instead… he sends his favorite hound.”

Josephine’s eyes narrowed. “Step aside.”

“Ah, loyal to the end.” He circled her slowly, blades humming. “Tell me, does your king ever answer questions? Like why Veilridge burned under moonlight? Or why the innocent screamed louder than the guilty?”

Before she could respond, he moved.

Like a shadow uncoiling, he lunged. Josephine’s swords snapped into action, two striking toward his sides while another darted for his chest. He twisted, just narrowly avoiding the piercing blades.

The red daggers in his hands clashed with the ethereal ice — not a ring of metal, but a sharp, brittle crack. Frost splintered in the air with each collision, cold mist blooming as spirit clashed with fury. The hiss of heat meeting cold sent tendrils of vapor spiraling between them.

When she moved, the ground seemed to crackle beneath her boots, a whisper of ice trailing behind each motion.

“You hesitate,” he murmured, ducking low as his blade sliced toward her legs — but she was already airborne, spinning. Three ethereal swords circled her in a radiant storm, and her own blade struck forward like a flash of judgment

He parried, spinning to the side, his red daggers whistling through the air. She launched another strike, two ethereal blades now forming a dance around her, controlled by pure thought. He weaved between them, his own style brutal and fluid.

“You know nothing of loyalty,” she spat, sending a sword arcing overhead.

“And you know nothing of truth.” He caught her sword on the curve of his blade and twisted, forcing her to leap back.

Their battle surged across the field. Sparks of blue and red painted the crumbling stone. Josephine remained focused, her swords moving with disciplined rhythm, her expression calm — serene even — though each blow she delivered carried the weight of her training, her past, and her devotion.

He grinned through it all.

At last, they broke apart.

“He made you strong,” the stranger said, stepping back as her blades hovered in a circular formation around him. “But strength without question is just another form of chains.”

Josephine’s blade hovered inches from his throat. “And you’re a ghost clinging to a graveyard.”

A heartbeat passed.

Then he stepped back into the mist.

“When you ask the right questions,” he said, vanishing into the gloom, “I’ll be waiting.”

Josephine lowered her blade. Her heartbeat thundered in her ears. But her stance held firm.

“That wasn’t just a skirmish,” she thought.

“That was something else.”

She didn’t chase. She didn’t call out.

“His words, his eyes… they weren’t trying to win. They were trying to wake me up.”

“But from what?”

The thought unsettled her. She wasn’t ready to ask it out loud.

She stood still, her heart pounding beneath the armor of duty. The wind returned, rustling her cloak like a whisper of warning.