They had been of closly similar age.
That, many had believed, had been the key. Not only power, not only talent, not only skill—though all those things were important—but kinship.
The closeness that came with growing up side by side, learning together, struggling together.
A ruler and his sword should not stand apart like lord and servant.
No, they had to be brothers-in-arms, their fates intertwined so that one could not rise without the other.
They would do so together.
And so, a tradition had been born.
Whenever a new heir of the Bloodbane line was born, a member of House Valebright would be chosen to swear their loyalty to them—to be their shield, their blade, their ever-present shadow. But not just any member.
It had to be one close in age.
The eldest sons of Valebright were already hardened warriors, men shaped by battle, by command, by the weight of their own legacies.
But that was not what the empire demanded for this sacred bond.
