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SACHA

“Submission is the first step toward peace. Peace is the first condition for loyalty.”

Authority Codex

We’ve beenat Stonehaven for seven days.

Seven days of training, planning, and gathering intelligence.

Seven days of pretending that nothing has changed when everything has.

For almost three decades, I’ve been nothing more than a name whispered in dark corners, a story meant to inspire those who refused to bow down. A shadow of my former self, reduced to legend while I rotted away.

Twenty-seven years in a tower, presumed dead by everyone who knew me, and in that time the world has moved on without me. Children born who now stand as adults before me, searching my face for the hero from whispered tales told around hidden fires.

While the ones who were there back then, during the worst of it …theylook at me like nothing has changed. Like I’m the same man I was before.

Shadowverin … The Shadowvein Lord. TheVareth’el.

So many titles. And each one of them holds expectation, duty, and debt.

TelvarethSacha Torran. Returned to lead them to victory.

I let them believe it.

My fingers curl at my side, shadows coiling between them. I should feel something about that. Maybe I do. But right now I don’t have the time to dissect the emptiness where satisfaction should be.

Instead, I’ve spent the days reassembling the fractured remnants of my army, relearning the faces that were once familiar—lined now with age and hardship, while mine remains the same—and the ones that never expected to stand before me.

The Authority is stronger now than when I left, its reach deeper, its grip more absolute. But the Veinwardens haven’t crumbled. They’ve splintered. Adapted. Survived. Shifted into something else.

Something that has forgotten who I was, but notwhat.

That’s the part I don’t know what to do with.

The weight of their stares follow me through Stonehaven’s passageways. Hope and suspicion in equal measure. They fall into step when I command, and listen when I give direction, as if nothing has changed. As if leadership is something that fits without effort.

It doesn’t. It never did. The mantle sits heavier now, like armor that no longer fits, pressing raw against my skin.

But I take it anyway, because someone must.

And because I don’t know how to be anything else.

The Authority might have taken twenty-seven years from me, but it didn’t take that.

And then there’s Ellie.

My familiar stirs at the mere thought of her name. I’ve pushed her, guided her, done everything within my ability to train her, but she still struggles.

The magic resists her, orsheresists it.

The silver light continues to answer to her emotions, but not her will. Her power flares in bursts when they run high, which is often, but recedes when she tries to summon it deliberately.

This morning, she managed to hold a sphere of light in her palm for nearly ten seconds before it dissipated. Progress, but not enough.

The training sessions drain her in ways I remember too well. Dark circles shadow her eyes, and her hands shake after each attempt, though she tries to hide it, curling her fingers into fists when she thinks I’m not looking. And I look far more than I should.

She pushes herself too hard, determined to master something in days that took others years to control. Determined to prove herself useful in a world that isn't hers.