Blood and Empire

Rain fell like bullets. Great storm clawed the outer walls of the Rane' estate, wind shrieking across the fortified compound as if warning of what was to come. From the highest balcony of the manor, seventeen year old Eron Rane watched the flashes of lightning dance over the city of Andrel below. In the dark, beyond the layers of iron gates, barricades, and federal soldiers, war brewed. Not the kind carried on news feeds or whispered in briefings, but real war ~ the kind that tore empires apart. Eron adjusted the military-grade binoculars his father had given him on his previous birthday, scanning the perimeter. Everything looked normal. Calm. Really calm. Behind him, the glass doors slid open with a hiss. "Still watching the gates?" came a voice, firm, commanding, but laced with fatigue. Commander Aelius Rane approached him, his long coat snapping in the wind. Silver lined his beard, but his eyes were cold, sharp, like the eyes of a man who would never stopped fighting. "They’re late for their shift rotation," Eron replied, not turning. Aelius placed a hand on his son’s shoulder. "Trust is a deadly currency nowadays. Even loyalty is counterfeit when the nation bleeds from every artery." "It is not them I trust," Eron said quietly. "I trust patterns. And something is wrong." Aelius nodded. "Good. You're learning." Minutes later, the alarms wailed. Red emergency lights flickering along the perimeter and from the eastern watchtower came the first explosion ~ white-hot, violent, a flare of death in the pouring rain. The ground vibrated. Screams followed. Aelius was already moving, comms unit in hand, barking commands. "Seal the west corridor! Evacuate all non-combatants. Code Black, I repeat, Code Black!" Eron hesitated. He is not yet a soldier, but his blood carried the weight of warriors. Without permission, he sprinted into the manor. Inside already chaotic as federal soldiers drew weapons — some Rane loyalists. They drafted by a crumbling central command, rushing through marble halls. The deep bass of gunfire echoed in from the outer grounds. Eron ducked into a side hallway and reached the panic room entrance. "Mom!" he shouted. Lady Corra Rane, tall, with steely composure and ash-gray hair, stepped out, clutching a data pad. "Eron, you must leave. Now! The insurgents breached the wall. Your father is trying to hold them off at the north yard." Eron, "I can fight." Corra pulled him close, "Your father needs you alive more than anything." Kissed his forehead once, then shoved him toward the crawlspace built behind the old servant corridor. "Stay silent," she said. "Whatever happens, don’t come out until the alarms stop." He obeyed — because obedience to his mother was older than instinct. Eron crawled into the narrow vent, heart pounding. Through slits in the wall, he watched as shadows filled the manor. Muffled screams. A burst of automatic fire introducing silence. Moments later, boots, dozens of them, marched across the hallway outside. They weren’t federal. They wore scavenged gear, marked with the crimson sigil of a broken crown: an emblem of the insurgency. Kael Drog’s men. The last time Eron had seen Drog was on a screen — once a decorated officer, now a myth wrapped in brutality. Drog had been a cautionary story told in mess halls and during intel briefings. A once ghost commander turned warlord. And now he is here. Eron's fingers curled into fists as the march stopped outside the study: in his father's command room. Shouting followed. He recognized his father’s voice, unyielding even in the face of death. Then came the gunshot after a minute talk. Clean. Loud and Final. Eron didn't cry. Not yet. He just closed his eyes and vowed he never would — not until every man in Drog’s chain of command bled for it. Hours passed before the manor fell silent. Smoke lingered like a ghost in the vents, the sting of burning and scorching made Eron crawl through the narrow shaft until he reached the old cellar access. His eyes darting; the estate was unrecognizable — walls carbonised, marble cracked, and the pristine banners of the Rane' family trampled under muddy insurgent footprints. He crept through the wreckage, careful not to draw attention. But his escape didn’t go unnoticed for long. A hand gripped his collar and slammed him against a pillar. A man in insurgent gear loomed over him, face smeared in ash, eyes cold. “Found a rat,” the soldier snarled. Another man stepped into view. Taller. Armor reinforced with scavenged tech and plated steel. His face was lined with scars, his eyes the color of burnt silver. Kael Drog. “Well now,” Drog said, studying him. “The boy prince.” Eron spat at his feet. Drog only chuckled. “Fire,” he said. “I like that. Let’s see how long it lasts.” With a brief nod, Drog signaled his men. A sack went over Eron’s head. Darkness swallowed him. ~ Five Years Later The man who sprinting through the war camp was not a prisoner any longer. Gone was the soft-spoken heir of the city of Andrel. In his place strode a hardened insurgent, clad in tactical gear and smeared with dust. His name was no longer Eron. Now, he was Shade. But in the depths of his soul, behind the layers of indoctrination, training, and years of surviving Kael Drog’s merciless world — Eron Rane still lived. And tonight, as flames lit the wall of the insurgent compound and Federal sirens echoed in the distance, something stirred inside him. It wasn’t fear. It wasn’t loyalty. It was remembrance. And vengeance would follow. As Shade knelt beside a fallen insurgent comrade, his bloodied hands trembling, he noticed something buried beneath the body, it was a worn locket, half-crushed. And Inside, a photo — His mother. The same locket she wore the last night he saw her alive. She had survived. Or maybe, she had — long enough for that locket to find its way here. Desiring to kill the dead man again, Shade rose slowly, the world spinning around him. He wasn’t done. Not even close.