No one visits Duskhollow Reach unless they’re desperate, dead inside, or chasing something the rest of the world swore was gone—

  Hope.

  Fog clings to the land like a funeral shroud.

  The woods whisper in forgotten tongues.

  Even the roads shift when no one’s looking.

  But the people here?

  They endure.

  They plant crops in cursed soil.

  They raise children beneath storm-colored skies.

  And above them all, guarding with blade and flame, stands Count Alaric Ophirein.

  They call him the Iron Fang of the Reach.

  Not because of how many beasts he’s slain.

  Not for his serpent-clad armor or noble blood.

  But because he stayed—

  When everyone else left.

  When plague came, he didn’t seal himself in the manor.

  He rode, house to house, armed with healing potions and fire magic borrowed from his wife.

  When monsters surged from the woods, he stood at the front—one man against a tide of teeth.

  This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

  When winter devoured the harvest, he shared his stores and went hungry with the rest.

  The people love him not out of duty—but out of gratitude.

  The kind you feel for a father who works until his bones crack just to keep the roof from collapsing.

  And somehow, in the whirlwind of grief, duty, and relentless burden—

  He loves them back.

  He knows every farmer by name.

  He reads bedtime stories at the orphanarium.

  He fixes fences with his own hands, when no one’s watching.

  “Other nobles have gold,” they say.

  “We have Alaric.”

  The highborn scoff.

  “Too sentimental,” they whisper.

  “Too soft.”

  “Too loyal to peasants.”

  But even they know better than to face him in the field.

  His class—Oathbound Serpent Knight—is more than power.

  It’s resolve made divine.

  A pact between knightly devotion and something ancient.

  When he moves, his shadow stretches long.

  And serpents follow him like ghosts.

  The estate of House Ophirein has changed under his reign.

  The manor lives again—black marble floors polished by hand, torchlit halls echoing with laughter.

  Six children, each strong and different.

  A fire mage for a wife.

  A cradle-bound secret beneath the shrine.

  A grandfather too broken to rise, yet still whispering truths that bend time.

  What was once a cursed countryside has become a thriving city-keep.

  A place without glamour, but full of life.

  Ten thousand soldiers stand ready to die at his command.

  A home built not on opulence, but on sweat, faith, and fire.

  And at its heart—

  A shrine.

  A forgotten god, remembered only here.

  A statue stands:

  A divine knight, wrapped in a black serpent.

  Sword pointed to the stars.

  Eyes carved with silent defiance.

  The people call it The Forgotten Flame.

  Alaric calls it Ancestor.

  House Ophirein is rising.

  Not on politics.

  Not on coin.

  Not on courtly lies.

  But on grit.

  On loyalty.

  On scars.

  And on a power old enough to bite back.