THE KING WHO DIED TWICE Chapter 1: The Ashes of a Dead King
THE KING WHO DIED TWICE
Chapter 1: The Ashes of a Dead King
Snow fell across the village of Black Hollow.
The winter had arrived early that year.
Most of the villagers had already retreated indoors, sheltering from the bitter wind that swept down from the northern mountains.
Thomas remained outside.
The old farmer stood alone beside a wooden fence, staring at the distant peaks hidden beneath clouds.
He did not know why.
For weeks, something had been calling to him.
Not a voice.
Not exactly.
A feeling.
A pull.
As if a forgotten part of himself was waiting somewhere beyond those mountains.
Thomas rubbed his aching hands and returned to his cottage.
At sixty-two years old, life had become predictable.
Wake up.
Work.
Eat.
Sleep.
Repeat.
His wife had died seven winters ago.
His son had left for the capital three years earlier.
Now there was only silence.
Most nights, that silence felt comforting.
Lately, it felt wrong.
Because every night the dreams returned.
Always the same dream.
A battlefield stretching beyond the horizon.
Millions of dead soldiers.
Dragons burning in the sky.
Ash falling like snow.
And a black tower rising from the center of the world.
In every dream, a voice waited for him.
Deep beneath the tower.
Ancient.
Patient.
Hungry.
"You promised."
Every night those words echoed through the darkness.
And every morning Thomas woke terrified.
Without knowing why.
That night the dream returned.
Only this time it was different.
The battlefield was clearer.
The tower was closer.
And for the first time, Thomas saw the man standing before it.
A king.
Young.
Tall.
Wearing silver armor stained with blood.
His face was hidden.
Yet somehow Thomas knew him.
The king slowly turned.
And Thomas froze.
Because the face looking back at him was his own.
Younger.
Stronger.
But unmistakably his.
The king smiled sadly.
Then drove a sword through his own heart.
Thomas woke screaming.
The pain hit instantly.
A terrible pain.
As if something inside his skull had shattered.
He fell from bed.
Unable to breathe.
Unable to think.
Memories exploded through his mind.
Thousands of them.
A golden city.
White towers touching the clouds.
Armies marching beneath crimson banners.
Dragons circling above oceans of fire.
A silver throne.
A crown.
A war.
A woman.
A betrayal.
A gate.
The memories arrived so quickly that Thomas thought he was dying.
Then he heard a name.
A name every child in the kingdom knew.
King Aldric.
The First King.
The Savior.
The Hero of Humanity.
The man who defeated the Dark Lord three hundred years ago.
The man who had been dead for centuries.
Thomas collapsed against the floor.
His entire body trembling.
Because those memories were not stories.
They were memories.
His memories.
He remembered being Aldric.
Church bells suddenly rang outside.
Loud.
Urgent.
Panic echoed throughout the village.
Thomas stumbled toward the window.
Villagers flooded into the streets.
Pointing north.
Toward the mountains.
Toward something impossible.
A black tower stood on the horizon.
A tower that had not existed yesterday.
A tower destroyed three hundred years ago.
The Dark Lord's Tower.
Thomas felt his blood turn cold.
Because another memory had returned.
A memory history had forgotten.
A memory nobody else knew.
The Dark Lord had never been killed.
He had been imprisoned.
And King Aldric himself had secretly helped create that prison.
The old farmer fell to his knees.
For the first time in three hundred years, he remembered the truth.
And the truth was worse than any nightmare.
The Dark Lord was innocent.
The real monster had always been something else.
Something buried beneath the tower.
May you like
Something that was now awake.
To be continued in Chapter 2: The Black Tower
