The Peace of the North City
The North City was a place of legends.
Hidden beneath the shadows of giant, jagged mountains, it was famous for its history of great wars and its perfect winning record.
However, those days of battle were in the past.
Now, the city was a calm and quiet village.
This peace was a gift from the late Great General Arin, who had died in war to give the city a safe future.
His daughter, Aira, was now the General of the North.
She carried the weight of her father’s legacy and worked hard to keep the city safe.
To the rest of the kingdom, the North City was a legend—a place of iron-willed generals and a winning record that no other territory could match.
It was the shield of the realm.
But inside the city walls, life felt surprisingly small and calm.
The streets were quiet, the people few, and the sound of war had been replaced by the rhythmic clink of a blacksmith’s hammer and the distant call of mountain hawks.
Chapter 1: The General’s Circle
The training grounds of the North City were packed.
Despite the morning chill rolling off the mountains, the air around the arena was hot with the breath of hundreds of spectators.
They hadn’t come for a war; they had come to see their General.
In the centre of the dirt circle, Aira moved like a flash of steel.
Her opponent was a seasoned soldier, twice her size, but he was sweating while she remained perfectly calm.
Every time his heavy blade swung, Aira parried it with a sharp clack, her boots kicking up dust as she danced around his reach.
To the crowd, she was the living memory of her father—fast, fearless, and undefeated.
Just as Aira lunged forward to end the match with a training sword to her opponent’s throat, the crowd parted at the edge of the grounds.
Kael, the Second General of the North and General Arin’s adopted son, came sprinting through the gates…
came sprinting through the gates, his face pale and his breath coming in ragged gasps.
He didn’t wait for the match to officially end.
“General!
Aira!” Kael shouted, his voice cracking with urgency.
“Stop!
You need to hear this!”
The crowd went silent.
Aira lowered her sword, her eyes narrowing as she looked at kael.
In a city this peaceful, Kael only ran like that if something was very wrong—or if the world was about to change.