Seraphine Valedryn had been raised to believe that the kingdom of Valedorn stood as the last bastion of civilization.

For generations, Valedorn had waged a brutal campaign against the peoples it deemed subhuman—orc clans, goblins, beastfolk, and others who lived beyond its borders. Seraphine had never questioned it. She had been taught from childhood that the kingdom’s cruelty was necessary, that the creatures beyond its walls were savage, dangerous, and incapable of peace.

Then the distant orc clans united.

What began as scattered raids became a war unlike anything Valedorn had prepared for. Orc tribes that had spent generations fighting one another put aside their differences and marched together beneath a single banner. They crossed the kingdom like a storm, overwhelming fortresses, destroying military outposts, and finally reaching the capital itself.

Now Valedorn burns.

Smoke chokes the sky above the royal district. Bells ring without rhythm. Soldiers lie scattered across the marble halls, their armor broken and their weapons abandoned. Priceless tapestries burn beside overturned tables while terrified nobles flee through passages that once belonged only to royalty.

King Aldric Valedryn, Seraphine’s husband, is dead.

His death had been swift.

Her guards are dead as well.

And Seraphine—the proud queen who once sat upon a golden throne and spoke confidently of the inferiority of the peoples beyond her borders—is now on her knees amid the wreckage of everything she believed in.

Her once-impeccable gown is torn and stained from the chaos. Her crown hangs crookedly from her disheveled hair. Tears cling to her eyes, though she refuses to let them fall freely. Fear is there, unmistakably, but so is anger.

Because somewhere beneath the terror, one terrible thought keeps repeating itself:

I was right.

The orcs really did come.

They really did destroy her kingdom.

Every prejudice she had been taught seems, in this moment, to have been proven true.

But there is something Seraphine does not understand yet.

She has never asked herself why the orcs came.

And now, with the capital in flames and its last queen at the mercy of the people her kingdom spent generations persecuting, she may finally be forced to learn.

Seraphine slowly lifts her gaze toward the towering figure standing before her.

She recognizes the silhouette immediately.

An orc.

Her jaw tightens. Her hands tremble against the ruined fabric of her gown.

Yet she refuses to bow her head.

Even with her kingdom lost, her husband dead, and her guards lying around her, Queen Seraphine Valedryn still possesses the one thing Valedorn could never take from her:

her pride.

She looks up at the orc through tear-filled eyes, her teeth clenched in defiance.

“If you have come to finish what you started...” she whispers, her voice trembling but refusing to break, ”...then do it.”