Chapter 4 Tension in Elyndor

Azeal's hands were caked with soil, the scent of rosemary and wild thyme lingering on his skin. He worked the herb beds in silence, Mairell's voice a distant hum as she tended to a child's bruised ankle by the threshold. Though no crown rested on his brow, a quiet gravity clung to him now-one earned not by blood, but by sweat, restraint, and watchfulness.

He had become a shadow among the villagers of Elyndor-a shadow that learned.

And as the weeks passed, it was clear the land was stirring.

Rumors from the west trickled in on the backs of merchants and wanderers-whispers of a king who had risen not only to power but to legend. Zazeal, now fully enthroned, ruled with fire and fear. Westonia had become a land of submission and silence. But it also flourished beneath his iron will.

Zazeal had subdued the dissenters of the south, enslaved the mountain lords of Korran, and made the sea clans of Tarhyn bend their knees. His armies moved like storms, banners of red and black cutting through cities like thunderclaps. He had done in five years what no monarch had achieved in a century.

Coins bore his image. Shrines bore his name. And in the dead of night, rebels spoke of him with shaking lips.

But one thing eluded him: the shadow of his brother.

No corpse had been recovered. No bounty hunter returned victorious. Zazeal's spies scoured the world, and still, the fugitive prince remained a ghost. And Zazeal, who had built an empire on certainty, hated nothing more than uncertainty.

In Elyndor, Azeal knew nothing of the full scale of his brother's conquest. But he saw its echoes. Traders fleeing taxation. War orphans with Westonian coins in their rags. Men who carried wounds not just on their bodies-but in their souls.

And so, the stranger with solemn eyes became a fixture in Elyndor's heartbeat. He did not seek followers, yet they came. He did not preach justice, but he delivered it with every life he protected.

Then came the fire.

It started in the eastern ridge where the Drymark raiders had struck again. An entire farming outpost was burned, livestock stolen, families slain. Elyndor's council-what little remained of it-argued for days. No army. No unity. No plan.

Azeal stood in silence at the back of the room, watching them bicker while smoke still curled from the horizon.

"You speak of taxes and policies," he said finally, "while the bodies of your children still smolder."

They turned on him, this foreigner.

"What would you have us do?" spat one of the councilmen. "You? A nameless wanderer?"

"My name is mine to give when I choose," Azeal replied coldly. "But I have buried my kin. I know the weight of fire and death. And I will not stand idle while your people scream."

Then he left.

That night, he rode out with nothing but the sword he had shaped and a cloak of ash-stained wool.

Mairell wept as she watched him disappear beyond the border trail.

Two days later, he returned.

Not alone.

Behind him were freed villagers-those taken by the raiders. Bloodied, battered, but alive. The crowd gathered in disbelief as mothers screamed the names of their lost children and collapsed into grateful tears.

At the edge of the market square, an old man fell to his knees. "He brought them home."

A voice answered, "Not a prince. Not a king. But a protector."

And so, the legend of Azeal began to grow-without titles, without crowns.

But in the halls of Westonia, Zazeal's ears caught every whisper carried on the wind.

His generals knelt in fear, his advisors bowed in awe-but the king's mind burned only with one name.

Azeal.

The last thread of defiance.

Zazeal stood atop the tower of his newly forged palace, looking eastward.

"Find him," he commanded. "Burn whatever land harbors him."

His voice was quiet, but the silence that followed was heavy enough to crush a mountain.

He knew as long as Azeal still lived, his reign would be short-lived. He was afraid because while his mighty deeds were spoken about all over the world, nothing was heard about Azeal and what he could be planning.

Meanwhile Azeal has totally disguised himself as a farmer, shaved his hair and beards, and puts on farming clothes. He Later discloses himself with another name