King Thaelen

The Concordia, Eleven Hundred Years Before

The road was scarred with the annual pilgrimage fires, the trees and stones marked with the carvings left by those who travelled that way, recording their transit for those who would follow. Thaelen’s mark was amongst them. He had walked this path every year since Thorarin had decided that Thaelyn was approaching adulthood and old enough to perform the full sacrifice, and he had spent time in each fortress, growing to know the occupants, the lords and ladies, their children, their people, and their blood slaves.

It hadn’t been a surprise to arrive again to a fortress burnt to a cinder, the dead left lying for the crows and carrion birds to feast upon, but the harsh call of the birds echoed the cries of his heart: How? How? How? He had to know, he thought. He had to know how this had come to be, how a force large enough had made it through the pass, how they had attacked with enough speed and force to overcome the vampires.

His grief was raw a