The wind tore across the high plains like a banshee’s wail, kicking up swirls of dust and ash that stung Kade Shen’s eyes as he crested the final ridge. Below him, where the Shen ranch should have stood proud—a sturdy barn, patchwork fields, and the weathered house his father built with calloused hands—there was only ruin. Smoke curled skyward in lazy tendrils, black and bitter, staining the late afternoon sun a sickly red. The air reeked of scorched wood and something worse, something that turned his stomach before his mind could name it.

He dropped his hunting pack, the deer haunch thudding forgotten into the dirt, and broke into a run. His boots pounded the dry earth, each step a hammer blow against the dread clawing up his spine. Two days. He’d been gone two damn days, chasing game in the high passes to stock the winter larder. Two days of clean air and quiet trails, while this—this—happened.

The barn was a skeleton of charred beams, its roof caved in like a crushed skull. The fields were trampled flat, stalks bent and broken under hoofprints too numerous to count. And the house… Kade skidded to a halt, breath catching in his throat. The house was a gutted shell, its walls blackened and jagged, windows blown out like empty eye sockets. Flames had devoured the porch where his mother used to sit, sewing under the stars, and the oak door his father carved lay splintered in the yard.

“No,” he whispered, the word barely a sound. “No, no, no—”

His legs moved before his mind caught up, carrying him into the wreckage. He stumbled over a fallen beam, hands sinking into warm ash, and froze. There, half-buried under the collapsed roof, lay his father. Jian Shen’s broad frame was still, his graying hair streaked with soot, eyes staring blankly at the sky. A deep gash ran from shoulder to ribs, the blood long since darkened to a rusty stain. The man who’d taught Kade to swing a blade, to read the wind, to stand tall—he was gone.

Kade’s gaze darted wildly, searching. Ten paces away, near the well, he saw her—his mother, Lin. She sprawled in the dirt, one arm outstretched as if reaching for something lost. Her sewing needle gleamed in her stiff fingers, a cruel mockery of the peace she’d always carried. And then, curled beside her, was Mara. His little sister, barely twelve, her rag doll clutched tight even in death. A single arrow jutted from her back, its fletching stark against her patched dress.

A sound tore from Kade’s chest, half-sob, half-scream, raw and jagged enough to split the silence. He crawled to them, hands shaking as he brushed Mara’s tangled hair from her face. Her skin was cold, her wide eyes dulled. He pressed his forehead to hers, whispering her name, but no answer came. There never would again.

He didn’t know how long he knelt there, the wind howling through the ruin, until a glint of metal caught his eye. Half-buried in the ash near his father’s hand was the saber—the family heirloom Jian had carried since before Kade was born. Its hilt was worn smooth from years of use, etched with faint swirling patterns Kade had traced as a child. But the blade… the blade was snapped clean in two, the steel jagged where it had broken. He pulled it free, clutching it like a lifeline, the weight of it grounding him even as his world crumbled.

A groan snapped him back. Movement—faint, desperate—near the barn. Kade staggered to his feet, saber in hand, and stumbled toward the sound. Old Tuck, the ranch hand who’d been with them since Kade was a boy, lay propped against a shattered stall. His gut was a mess of blood and torn cloth, his breath a wet rattle. “Kade,” he rasped, eyes glassy but fixed on him. “Thank the stars… you’re alive.”

“Tuck!” Kade dropped beside him, gripping the old man’s shoulder. “What happened? Who did this?”

“Red Talon,” Tuck coughed, blood flecking his beard. “Darius Vane’s dogs. Came at dawn… dozens of ‘em. Your pa fought like a demon, but they were too many. Took him down, then the rest…”

“Darius Vane?” Kade’s voice was a growl, the name searing into his mind. He’d heard of the warlord—ruthless, untouchable, a shadow that loomed over the frontier towns. But why here? Why them? “What’d they want, Tuck? We ain’t got gold, ain’t got nothing worth this!”

Tuck’s hand shook as he grasped Kade’s wrist. “The star… your blood… they’re after it. Jian wouldn’t give ‘em up. Said it was yours to carry.” His grip slackened, eyes dimming. “Run, boy. They’ll come back…”

“Stay with me, Tuck. Tell me—” But the old man’s head lolled, his last breath slipping away. Kade stared, numb, as the wind carried off the final echo of his voice.

The star. Your blood. The words rattled in his skull, meaningless yet heavy. He looked down at the broken saber, its fractured edge glinting in the fading light. His father had never spoken of stars or secrets, only of hard work and harder winters. Whatever Vane sought, it had cost Kade everything.

He rose, legs unsteady, and turned back to the carnage. The sun dipped low, painting the sky a deep, angry crimson, as if the heavens themselves bled for what had been lost. He couldn’t leave them like this—exposed, forgotten. He found a shovel near the well, its handle scorched but whole, and began to dig.

The earth was stubborn, packed hard from months without rain, but Kade didn’t care. Sweat mixed with ash on his skin, his arms burned, and still he dug—four graves, side by side. He carried his father first, laying him gently in the soil, then his mother, her needle tucked into her hands. Mara went last, her doll resting on her chest. Tuck he placed beside them, a loyal shadow to the end.

Hours passed, the sky darkening to a bruised purple, stars pricking through like distant eyes. Kade tamped down the final mound, his breath ragged, and sank to his knees. The broken saber lay beside him, a silent witness. He picked it up, tracing the jagged edge with a trembling finger, and felt something shift inside him—grief hardening into something sharper, something alive.

“Darius Vane,” he said, the name a curse on his lips. He pressed the saber’s hilt to his chest, its cold steel a mirror to the fire in his veins. “I’ll find you. I’ll carve your heart out with what’s left of me. This I swear, on their graves, on this blade.”

The wind swallowed his words, carrying them into the night. Kade stood, a silhouette against the dying embers, and turned from the graves. His pack lay where he’d dropped it, the deer haunch already drawing flies. He slung it over his shoulder, the weight a small anchor, and gripped the saber tight. The plains stretched endless before him, a sea of shadow and dust, hiding the men who’d taken everything.

He didn’t know where Vane was, didn’t know what “the star” meant or why his blood mattered. But he’d find out. He’d track every rumor, every hoofprint, until he stood over Vane’s corpse. And if the road broke him—if it took every last shred of who he’d been—so be it.

Kade Shen walked into the dusk, a man unmade, a blade reborn.

Kade Shen walked into the dusk, a man unmade, a blade reborn. The plains swallowed the last light of day, shadows pooling in the hollows of the earth like spilled ink. His boots crunched over brittle grass, each step a dull thud against the silence that pressed in around him. The broken saber hung heavy in his hand, its jagged edge catching faint glints of starlight—a cruel reminder of what it had once been, what he had once been. Two days ago, he’d been a son, a brother, a man with a future. Now he was a ghost, tethered only by the weight of a vow he barely understood.

He stopped, the wind tugging at his worn jacket, and looked back. The graves were faint humps in the dark, barely distinguishable from the scorched earth. He’d marked them with stones hauled from the well’s edge, crude and uneven, but it was all he had. The shovel stood upright in the dirt where he’d left it, a lone sentinel over the dead. He should have said something—prayers, maybe, or the old songs his mother used to hum—but the words wouldn’t come. They’d burned up with everything else.

His pack slipped from his shoulder, the deer haunch hitting the ground with a soft thump. Flies buzzed over it, a low drone that grated against the quiet. He stared at it, the meat he’d tracked and bled for, meant to feed a family that no longer existed. A bitter laugh clawed up his throat, dying before it reached his lips. He kicked the pack aside, letting the scavengers have it. Let the plains take what they wanted. He had nothing left to give.

The saber’s hilt was cold against his palm, the etched patterns worn smooth under his thumb. He lifted it, turning it slowly, as if the steel might whisper answers. His father had carried it always—strapped to his hip during chores, resting by the hearth at night. Kade had begged to hold it as a boy, tracing the swirling lines with wide-eyed wonder. “It’s old, son,” Jian had said once, voice low and rough. “Older than me, older than this land. One day, it’ll be yours.” Kade had grinned, imagining himself a warrior, not a rancher’s kid with dirt under his nails. Now it was his, and the weight of it felt like a curse.

He sank to one knee, the saber trembling in his grip. Tuck’s words echoed in his skull—the star, your blood—a riddle wrapped in blood and ash. Jian had never spoken of stars or secrets, only of the next harvest, the next storm. He’d been a hard man, forged by years of wrestling a living from unforgiving soil, but gentle in his way—quick with a laugh, steady with a lesson. Kade saw him now, clear as day: standing in the barn, showing him how to sharpen a blade, his calloused hands guiding Kade’s smaller ones. “A man’s strength ain’t in the steel,” he’d said. “It’s in what he fights for.”

What had he fought for here? Kade’s eyes drifted to the ruin, the blackened beams jutting like broken ribs. The gash across Jian’s chest flashed in his mind, deep and deliberate—a killing blow from someone who knew how to wield a weapon. His father had fought, Tuck said. Fought like a demon. Against dozens. Kade pictured it—Jian swinging that saber, its arc a silver blur, holding the line as Lin and Mara ran. But they hadn’t run far enough.

A memory struck him, sharp and unbidden. Mara, two summers back, tugging at his sleeve as they sat by the creek. “Kade, tell me a story!” she’d demanded, her gap-toothed grin bright as the sun. He’d spun a tale of a wandering knight, blade flashing against bandits, saving a village from ruin. She’d clapped, eyes wide, and made him promise to be her knight someday. “You’re big enough,” she’d said. “Strong enough.” He’d ruffled her hair, laughing. “Someday, kid.”

Someday was gone. His fist clenched around the saber’s hilt, knuckles whitening. He hadn’t been here. Hadn’t been big enough, strong enough. He’d been chasing deer while his family bled out in the dirt. The guilt was a blade of its own, twisting deep, but beneath it burned something hotter—rage, pure and molten, flooding his veins like wildfire.

He stood, the wind whipping his dark hair across his face, and walked back into the wreckage. The air hung thick with the stench of char and decay, a bitter tang that coated his tongue. He stepped over a shattered chair—his mother’s, the one she’d rocked Mara in as a baby—and stopped at the well. The bucket lay overturned, its rope frayed and singed. He peered down, the water below a black mirror reflecting nothing but stars. How many times had he hauled that bucket up, groaning at the chore, while Lin chided him to stop splashing? Now it was just another relic, useless and still.

Something glinted near the well’s base—a shard of steel, half-buried in the ash. He crouched, brushing the soot away, and found the saber’s other half. The blade’s tip, snapped off clean, its edge dulled but unbroken. He lifted it, holding it beside the hilted piece, and for a moment, he could see it whole again—a weapon of grace and power, not this fractured thing. He tucked the shard into his belt, a piece of his father to carry into whatever came next.

The horizon was a thin line of fading red, the last gasp of daylight bleeding out. Kade turned, scanning the plains. Tracks scarred the earth—hoofprints, dozens of them, fanning out from the ranch like a spider’s web. They headed west, toward the jagged peaks that loomed like teeth against the sky. Red Talon. Darius Vane. Names that meant nothing yesterday, everything now. He didn’t know their faces, didn’t know their numbers, but he’d learn. He’d hunt them, one by one, until the trail led to Vane himself.

He returned to the graves, the saber’s two pieces heavy in his hands. The stones atop each mound gleamed faintly, catching the first starlight. He knelt again, the dirt cool against his knees, and laid the broken blade across his lap. His father’s voice rang in his ears—“A man’s strength is in what he fights for.” Kade had nothing left to fight for, nothing but this: the promise of blood for blood, steel for steel.

“Darius Vane,” he said again, louder now, letting the wind carry it. “You took my family. You took my home. I don’t know what you’re after, don’t know what this star is or why my blood matters. But I’ll find you. I’ll walk through every hell this land has, tear down every wall you hide behind. And when I stand over you, I’ll bury this blade—what’s left of it—in your heart.”

He pressed the hilt to his chest, the cold steel biting through his shirt, and closed his eyes. The vow settled into him, heavy as the graves at his back, unshakable as the mountains ahead. It wasn’t justice—not yet. It was survival, a thread to cling to when everything else had burned away.

The stars were bright now, a scattered crown above the plains. Kade rose, slipping the saber’s hilt into his belt beside the shard. His pack lay abandoned, the deer haunch a dark lump in the grass. He left it there, a final offering to the land that had cradled his kin. The tracks stretched west, faint but clear, a path carved by the men he’d hunt. He adjusted his jacket, the wind tugging at its frayed edges, and took his first step.

The night closed in, vast and unforgiving, but Kade didn’t falter. His shadow stretched long behind him, merging with the dark, a figure unmade by loss, remade by purpose. The saber’s weight was a promise against his side, its broken edge a vow yet to be fulfilled. Somewhere out there, Darius Vane waited, oblivious to the storm he’d unleashed. Kade Shen was coming for him—not a knight, not a hero, but a blade honed by grief, sharp and relentless.

He walked on, into the dusk, until the graves faded from sight, until the plains swallowed him whole.