Alaric woke before dawn.
He always did on battle days. Not because of fear—fear slept deeper than that—but because his mind refused rest when too many men would depend on his choices by sunset.
The tent was quiet. Too quiet.
No arguments outside. No nervous jokes. No armor being checked again and again by hands pretending to be busy. The camp felt as if it was holding its breath.
Alaric sat up slowly and rubbed his face. The scar along his knuckles caught the dim light of the lantern. Old wounds. Old habits. He flexed his fingers once, then reached for the sword resting beside him.
The weight felt right.
That mattered.
He stepped outside.
The sky was pale, undecided between night and morning. A thin mist clung to the ground, curling around boots and tent poles like something alive. Soldiers stood in small groups, quiet, respectful. When they saw him, they straightened. Some nodded. Some lowered their heads.
None spoke.
Alaric walked through them without ceremony. He had learned long ago that speeches were overrated. Men listened better when you shared the same dirt beneath your feet.
At the edge of the camp, Roth waited.
Roth Hale had once been a boy who followed Alaric into his first war. Now he was a general with grey in his beard and too many ghosts behind his eyes.
"They're ready," Roth said.
Alaric looked past him, toward the valley. Enemy banners were visible even through the mist. Dark shapes. Familiar shapes.
"They always are," Alaric replied.
Roth hesitated. "Scouts report no movement since midnight."
Alaric nodded. "They're waiting."
"For what?"
"For us to make the first mistake."
Roth gave a tight smile. "You plan to?"
"No," Alaric said. "I plan to end this."
Roth studied him for a moment longer than necessary. "You've said that before."
"I know."
They stood in silence after that. The kind that didn't need filling.
When the horns finally sounded, the world snapped awake.
Shields lifted. Lines formed. Orders traveled faster than fear. The valley filled with noise so suddenly it felt violent—metal, shouting, the thunder of boots.
Alaric moved with the front line.
Not because he needed to prove courage, but because soldiers fought differently when they could see their king close enough to bleed. He drew his sword and felt the familiar calm settle in his chest. The battlefield simplified things. There was no politics here. No hesitation.
Only direction.
The first clash came hard.
Steel struck steel. A man fell. Another took his place. Alaric's sword moved as it always had—clean, efficient, without excess. He did not think about the faces in front of him. Thinking made mistakes.
Time lost meaning.
Victory came quietly.
The enemy line weakened. Retreat began at the edges, spreading inward like rot. Alaric felt it before he saw it. Wars had a rhythm. This one was ending.
That was when the air changed.
Not colder. Not heavier.
Empty.
Alaric took a step forward—and stopped.
Something was wrong.
His chest tightened. He tried to inhale.
Nothing happened.
No pain. No impact. No spell that he could see or feel. Just a sudden, absolute refusal. As if the world had decided he no longer required air.
Confusion hit first.
He looked down at himself. No wounds. No blood. His hands still gripped the sword, steady but useless.
This isn't death, he thought.
This isn't how it happens.
His knees hit the ground.
Sound faded unevenly. Shouting turned distant. The clash of metal dulled. The battlefield pulled away from him, piece by piece, like a memory he no longer owned.
Alaric tried to speak. To order something. Anything.
His vision darkened instead.
His last thought was sharp and unfinished:
I didn't finish—
And then there was nothing.
Breathing dragged him back.
Rough. Fast. Uncontrolled.
Alaric gasped and choked, air burning his lungs as if he had never used them before. Light stabbed into his eyes. A ceiling hovered above him—wooden, cracked, unfamiliar.
He tried to sit up.
Pain exploded behind his eyes and forced him back down.
"Easy," someone said. "Don't move."
The voice was wrong.
Too young. Too light.
Hands pressed against his shoulders. Stronger than they looked.
"Is he awake?" another voice asked.
"Yes," someone answered. "He's awake."
Alaric swallowed and forced his thoughts into order. The smell around him was wrong too. No blood. No smoke. Herbs. Oil. Clean.
He lifted his hands.
They were not his.
Slim fingers. No scars. No calluses earned over decades of war. Panic rose, sharp and sudden, but he crushed it before it could take hold.
"Where am I?" he asked.
His voice cracked.
The people around him exchanged looks. Not fear. Not suspicion.
Reverence.
An older man stepped forward. His robe was marked with symbols Alaric did not recognize, stitched with care and precision.
"You are safe," the man said. "The summoning was successful."
Alaric stared at him.
"Summoning," he repeated slowly.
"Yes," the man said. "You were called from another world."
The words settled too easily. Like an answer waiting for a question that had already been asked.
Alaric closed his eyes for a moment.
A battlefield. Silence. Darkness. Now this.
He did not like it.
But it made sense.
"If I was summoned," Alaric said, "then this world needed something."
The man nodded. "It still does."
"What is this place?"
"Elyndor," the man replied. "A world sustained by magic—and slowly failing."
Of course it was.
When they left him alone, Alaric sat at the edge of the bed and stared at his hands again. He flexed them, testing strength that wasn't there yet.
A king without his body.
A warrior without his scars.
He stood and faced the metal basin near the wall. The reflection showed a young man's face, unfamiliar and sharp-eyed.
But the gaze was his.
"Fine," Alaric said quietly.
If this world had pulled him from his own, then it would learn exactly what kind of man it had taken.
Somewhere far beyond the room, unseen and uncelebrated, something ancient shifted—
not in excitement,
but in relief.