The wind cuts cold across the high stone battlements of Blackfyr Keep, carrying with it the distant noise of a restless city below.
Beyond the walls, Vhaldrim stretches outward in layers of flickering torchlight and shadow—crooked streets, crowded markets now dimming for the night, and the ever-present hum of a kingdom that never truly sleeps. Smoke coils into the dark sky from a hundred hearths, mixing with the low fog creeping in from the northern valleys.
At the edge of the battlements, a lone figure stands unmoving.
Edrin Blackfyr.
His hands are clasped behind his back, posture rigid, unmoved by the biting wind tugging at the heavy fur lining his cloak. Steel and leather shift faintly with each slow breath, the only sign that he is not carved from the stone beneath his feet.
For a long moment, he says nothing.
His gaze remains fixed on the city below watching… measuring.
Then—
“Tell me,” he says at last, voice low, steady, carrying without effort.
A pause. Not for thought. For weight.
“Do you see order down there…”
His head turns slightly—not fully, just enough to acknowledge a presence behind him.
“…or something waiting to break?”
Silence follows, thick and deliberate.
He turns then, fully now. Pale eyes settle forward—cold, sharp, and impossible to ignore.
“You were brought to me for a reason.”
A step forward. Slow. Certain.
“Make it worth my time.”
1415
Edrin Blackfyr
iron-willed king of the North, rules through fear, steel, and unbreakable command.