The next morning came without ceremony.
No divine signs. No storm-split skies. Just the scent of sea brine and oil over polished shields — and the low grumble of Nafonian recruits squinting in the sunlight, adjusting their helms.
Markos stood at the edge of the training field just beyond Syrkon's northern barracks. His armor was lighter now — Eastern Roman lamellar over a deep blue tunic, reinforced boots strapped tight. No cape today. No sapphire gleam. Just dust, salt, and discipline.
His men — his men — had spent the past weeks drilling in the modified phalanx formation he'd taught them. Nafonians, born with salt in their blood and wind in their lungs, were unfamiliar with the rigid footwork of the East. But they learned fast.
Still… not fast enough.
Markos narrowed his eyes.
They were precise. But not resolute.
"Line up again," he called, voice cutting across the murmurs. "Standard spear wall. Shields interlocked."
The soldiers scrambled. A few muttered. Some obeyed out of sheer nervousness. Only one or two stood with the posture he wanted — that stubborn, unyielding spine that meant they would not break.
He exhaled through his nose.
Then walked to the stables.
Delia — no, Veltrana — watched from the shaded terrace above, brow furrowed.
When she saw Markos returning, mounted, her frown deepened.
"What is he doing?" she muttered.
Markos adjusted the reins. His horse, a dapple-gray destrier, pawed at the dirt.
The recruits were still setting their formation when he charged.
The thunder of hooves crashed down the slope like divine judgment. Dust flew. Men shouted. Spears wavered. One soldier dropped his shield entirely.
Markos did not slow.
"HOLD!" he roared mid-gallop.
The line fractured — but only slightly. Half of them braced. The other half began to scatter.
And then— he veered.
The horse cut wide at the last moment, passing just left of the formation. Markos hauled it around in a hard arc and trotted back in front of them, eyeing their reactions. Sweat. Pale faces. Three fallen spears.
"Whoever dropped their shield is cleaning the latrines," he growled. "Whoever held their ground — you're teaching the rest tonight."
Silence.
Only the steady panting of his horse and the pounding of a dozen racing hearts.
From the terrace, Delia let out a slow breath.
"He's going to kill himself," she muttered. "Or them."
But there was something in her voice. Not fear. Not annoyance.
Admiration.
And maybe… something else.
Markos looked at his men — really looked. For the first time, they were seeing him not just as a foreign tactician with strange drills and jokes about Constantinople.
They were seeing the fire in his eyes.
The fire of someone who had stood against things greater than armies.
"Again," he ordered. "Tighter this time. Because next time?"
He smirked.
"I don't veer."
And the training began anew — not just of tactics, but of trust.
Trust in him.
And in the quiet, awful strength of their strange, maybe ancient commander.
The second charge came at sunrise.
No warning. No horns. Just Markos again on horseback, riding down from the stables with a look in his eyes that said we do this now, or never again.
But this time — the line held.
Spear points were level. Shields locked tight. Not a single man flinched as the horse thundered toward them. Markos did not veer. He crashed straight into their phalanx — not with blade, but with the flat of his shield, testing them. Challenging them.
They bent — but did not break.
And when he pulled up his horse, eyes gleaming under the sweat-soaked plume of his helmet, Markos laughed — not mockingly, but with something like wonder.
"By the bones of Heraclius… you held."
He dismounted. Walked straight to the front rank — and raised the spear of the recruit who had dropped it days before.
"What's your name?" he asked, voice rough.
"T-Theron, sir," the man stammered, still shaking.
"Theron." Markos clapped a hand on his shoulder. "If I had fifty more like you, I'd retake Constantinople tomorrow."
Silence.
Then — a sharp inhale. Another soldier dropped his spear — not in fear this time, but because he was crying.
Markos turned to all of them, sweeping his gaze across the faces of hard men who had never been told they were enough.
"You lot aren't sea-rats anymore. You're soldiers.My soldiers. And when the Pazzonians come, they'll learn what it means to fight men who'd rather die than bend."
Somewhere behind the ranks, a sniffle turned into a full-on sob.
Another dropped to his knees.
Markos looked alarmed. "Gods, don't cry — I meant it in a heroic way—"
Too late. The emotion broke through like a cracked dam. Dozens of hardened Nafonian fighters wept openly, clinging to their spears like anchors, shaking with pride and disbelief. They had never been praised like this. Not by nobles. Not by commanders. Never by someone who charged them head-on just to test their soul.
Markos rubbed his face.
"I'm never giving a speech again," he muttered.
As night came, the men rested in their camps as Markos sat on his own tent, but still near his troops and the campfire crackled low.
Most of the men were either asleep or still wiping away tears. Markos sat apart from them, polishing his spatha with slow, thoughtful strokes. His armor was half-unbuckled, his expression quiet. Not troubled — just… processing.
Delia arrived without sound, stepping into the firelight in a deep midnight cloak that caught the light like oil. Her gaze was unreadable.
"You made my men cry," she said, arms crossed.
Markos raised an eyebrow. "They made me proud. Fair trade."
"You did more than that," she replied, voice low. "They worship you now."
He went still.
"Good. Then they'll fight like it."
She circled the fire, watching him. "You keep pretending you're just Markos of Constantinople. But today… that was not a mortal commander I saw. That was something else, I saw my beloved yet again."
Markos looked up. His face, even in firelight, was unreadable.
"And what if I don't want to be that something else?"
Delia knelt beside him, her eyes glowing faintly — not with power, but with memory.
"Then I'll burn Yaegrafane to the ground," she whispered.
Markos gave a short, dry laugh. "That's not healthy, you know."
"Neither is loving a memory," she replied.
They sat in silence for a moment.
Finally, Markos sighed and rested his sword across his lap.
"Fine. I'll be what you need me to be. The ghost who remembers. But you'll give me time."
Delia's smile was slow, almost sad.
"Time is the one thing I still have to give."
She stood, her cloak rustling like wings.
"Just don't take too long, beloved. The gods you've yet to remember… are already moving."
Then she vanished into the dark.
And Markos remained by the fire, silent, sword in hand, as the wind carried the smell of salt and war.
The black sails of the Veil Order appeared on the horizon like a wound splitting the sea.
Three thousand strong — infantry, cavalry, and foreign zealots in black and crimson — they made landfall across the low beaches of the Hollow Plains. It was a strategic blunder… but one they didn't realize. They thought the Nafonians weak. Untrained. Newly gathered.
They were wrong.
Waiting for them beyond the tall, whispering grass, Markos sat astride his horse atop a small rise. His 500 men stood in disciplined ranks, every line arranged in phalanx — ten men deep, twenty across — shields interlocked, spears out like a thicket of bronze teeth.
Slingers moved behind them, light-footed and silent.
The sky was pale with morning mist, the kind that stuck to skin and made shouts sound distant.
Markos raised his hand.
"Form wedge! Left and right flanks brace! Slingers, stay low — wait for my mark!"
The Nafonians moved with unshaking cohesion — not the ragged seafarers they once were, but hardened infantry drilled in the old ways. His ways.
A messenger galloped to him. "Commander, they're deploying cavalry on the flanks!"
Markos smiled.
"Let them."
From afar, the Veil Order fanned out with confidence. Their infantry surged up the slope in a broad charge, banners flying. Their horses thundered wide, attempting to encircle. Just as planned.
"Left flank, advance!" Markos roared, galloping across the line.
The leftmost phalanx surged forward — not far, just enough to bait. The Veil cavalry took it. Hooked like fools.
"Back step!"
The phalanx retreated precisely five paces — exposing a false gap.
The cavalry charged harder, unaware of the trap.
"Now— RIGHT FLANK, PIVOT!"
The rightmost group turned in perfect drill and speared into the side of the cavalry just as they collapsed toward the left. Horses screamed. Men toppled. The wedge snapped shut.
"SLINGERS—LOOSE!"
Hundreds of lead shot and clay bullets rained from behind the phalanx, striking the Veil infantry's frontlines. Helmets dented. Shields cracked. Screams rose.
Markos stood in his saddle, eyes scanning the enemy rear.
Still disorganized.
"REAR PHALANX—NOW."
Out from the tall grass behind the Veil's cavalry, 100 hidden Nafonian infantry surged — a secret force, crouched for hours, now rising like ghosts. They crashed into the Veil's rear with silence and fury, spears thrusting into backs, hamstrings, and necks.
Panic exploded.
The cavalry scattered. The encircled infantry flinched. The center broke as Markos charged down with his central wedge, screaming:
"FOR YOUR FAMILY, CHARGE!"
The phalanxes rolled forward like a wall of death. Spears stabbed in rhythm. Shields shoved with force. Even as they were pressed by sheer numbers, the Nafonians advanced inch by inch — precision winning over passion.
The Veil Order tried to reform. Their officers shouted. One banner bearer tried to rally the flank.
Markos spotted him.
"THIRD COLUMN—THRUST FORWARD!"
The middle phalanx broke from the wall and stormed straight for the banner, collapsing the Veil's command in a matter of minutes. The rider fell. The standard dropped.
And like that — the enemy's will crumbled.
It was not a battle.
It was a slaughter.
Over 2,000 Veil Order soldiers lay dead or routed. The rest scattered across the coast, pursued by slingers and the remaining phalanxes.
Markos dismounted near the blood-soaked banner.
A young Nafonian, maybe nineteen, stared at him with awe.
"We... we beat them, sir. We beat them!"
Markos didn't smile.
"We endured them. There will be more."
He turned to see Delia on a distant ridge, watching with a strange look in her eyes. She knew what this meant.
The Blue Cuirassier was no longer hiding behind legend or mask.
He had returned — not in silence, but in blood and steel, with 500 spearmen who now believed they could conquer the world.
And he would teach them how.
The battlefield at Hollow Plains had long since fallen silent.
Smoke drifted lazily above burned wagons and abandoned Veil Order tents. Markos stood over a map spread across a makeshift table in a captured command post, listening—not to the men, but to the wind.
It was shifting.
And so was Astonicum.
Within three days, word of the victory spread like wildfire.
In Florentine, merchant caravans praised a mysterious commander who broke the Veil's back with only 500 men. In Scolacium, taverns whispered of a forgotten tactician from the East. In Nafonia, Delia's capital Syrkon saw processions of sailors swearing new oaths to the cause — not for any Emperor, but for survival.
And at the heart of it all?
Markos of Constantinople.
Not the Blue Cuirassier. Not yet. Only those closest to him, including Delia, knew. And they guarded that secret like a dagger hidden beneath silk.
But the legend was blooming.
Without an elected emperor, power in Astonicum was paralyzed — for years, the duchies bickered over rituals, borders, and bloodlines.
Now?
They had a common enemy.
The Pazzonian invasion, and their Veil Order's raiding near the Hollow Sea, which finally they realized and it jolted the nobles into temporary sanity.
Scolacian knights rode west to the mountain passes to guard it. Nafonian ships turned east to purge the Pazzonian so-called trading ports there. For the first time in years, joint war councils were held — without a throne. That frightened some. It thrilled others.
In Nafonia's marble hall, a cynical commander muttered:
"We've done in two weeks what four emperors failed in twenty years."
But Markos knew better.
Unions forged by panic shattered just as quickly.
He observed the meetings silently — never seated among the dukes, never raising his voice. Just a foreigner with cold eyes and precise suggestions.
"You want to retake your coasts?" he said once. "Then don't waste men holding cities. Bleed them at the crossings. Ambush their supply lines. Teach the enemy to fear travel."
He wasn't trying to be the hero.
But to soldiers who had known nothing but confusion and retreat, he was clarity made flesh.
In a private moment, Delia pulled him aside.
"They'll want more from you."
Markos glanced at her.
"Let them want."
"And when they learn who you were? The Blue Cuirassier isn't just a symbol. He's a challenge to the throne."
He didn't answer. He didn't need to.
"I don't need the throne, I don't want it."
As reinforcements arrived in camps outside Syrkon, banners fluttered that had never flown beside each other — hawks of Scolacium next to dolphins of Nafonia.
Younger soldiers called it the "Truce of the Foreigner."
Older ones knew better.
This was not peace.
It was the eye of the storm.