The Price of Unity

  A Fantasy Novel by [Saksham Pandey]

  Chapter 1: The Night the King Fell

  The storm had passed, but the air still carried the weight of something unfinished. Solren stood alone in the great hall, his father’s body at his feet, and the celestial weapon still humming in his hands.

  The blade, forged from something beyond mortal understanding, pulsed with a quiet, steady glow. It had stolen the life from a king.

  It had made Solren a murderer.

  No one could ever know.

  His father had ruled through war, carving his name into history with blood and steel. A man who had once known love but had long since abandoned it. The day his wife and daughter were burned alive by a dragon’s fire, he had lost the last pieces of his soul. He had not grieved—only sharpened his blade and declared war on a world that could take so much from him.

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  Solren had grown up in the shadow of that war. He had seen the price of his father’s rule, the countless lives thrown into battle, the suffering of a kingdom that knew nothing but conflict.

  When the time came to unite the two warring nations, Solren had done what his father never could.

  He had ended the war.

  And for that, his father had tried to stop him.

  It was supposed to be a confrontation, nothing more. One final attempt to make his father see reason. But the old king would not listen. He had drawn his blade first. And in that moment, Solren had known—there was no future where they could rule together.

  One of them had to die.

  The celestial weapon had decided for him.

  And the moment its energy tore through his father’s chest, Solren had felt something else—a surge of power. The raw force of lightning and fire, powers his father had inherited when his wife and daughter perished, had passed into him.

  It burned through his veins like a storm barely contained.

  This was not a victory.

  This was a burden.

  He stepped back, exhaling shakily as he looked at the lifeless body of the man who had raised him.

  The people would never know the truth. They would believe what they wanted to believe—that the gods had punished the war-hungry king, that the heavens themselves had struck him down.

  Solren would let them believe it.

  Because if they ever learned the truth—if they ever saw the blood on his hands—then everything he had built would fall apart.

  And the unity he had fought for would be lost