It was the hour of the wolf when they came.

I sat alone in my bedchamber in the Ironforge Bastion, the moon a pale burnished gold coin drifting in a vast ocean of tenebrous ink outside the window, the torches guttering low on their iron sconces and the candles slowly dying out. The fires in the great hearth had long since died away, and I sat alone at the large table beneath the arched ceiling of my forefathers’ bedchamber where my banners, once a brilliant blue marked by a sword flanked by the wings of a powerful dragon, now hung tattered and moth-bitten. The air was thick with the scent of dust, aged wine, old parchment, and secrets too old to whisper. The hour was past midnight, and the cold gnawed at my bones. The chamber was colder than stone should ever be.

The great stone table stretched out in front of me, and at its head, I sat with an untouched goblet of dark wine before me. And around the table, I knowingly placed five more cups and a dark iron pitcher filled with a deep crimson wine at its center. I prepared on nights like these. I always know when I should be expecting company.

Then they came.

I knew they would. They always do.

They talk to me in my dreams. They whisper when I wake. They speak in unfettered voices in the daylight. They’re in my dreams. They’re in my nightmares. They’re in my mind, in my chest, and under my bed. They’re nowhere—and at the same time everywhere. They’re the terrifying voices in my head. They’re the dread in my heart. They’re the chill in my bones.

I should have been asleep. But sleep rarely finds me.

Especially when they come to visit.

Not through doors. Not through windows. They simply were, as if they had always been waiting and the veil between thought and flesh had simply worn thin. One by one, they approached the table, their voices low and laden with meaning, each word striking deep into the worn armor of my mind.

…

First, drifting in from the dark recesses of the hall, barefoot and silent, came the Ghost. Cloaked in the robes I wore as a young man, face shrouded by the hood of his cloak obscuring any distinguishable features but holding a solemn demeanor, it spoke with my younger voice.

“I am the part of you that remembers before the crown. Before the wars. Before you became the man they demanded. Before you were reforged.”

He looked like I once did—before the wars, before the crown, before the blood. There was a serenity to him, a sadness too old for his young face.

“You were me once, Your Grace,” he said softly. “But you traded me for duty. For the throne's heavy burden. I am the echo of the boy you buried beneath the crown. Beneath the weight of power. Beneath the weight of struggle. Beneath all the blood. You traded yourself for a throne, and I carry the price of that bargain. Now I am cursed to walk the halls of memory, where your heart once beat unbroken. Before duty, before blood, there was a man who dreamed…”

He moved closer, not walking so much as drifting, a wisp of what once was, his robe trailing like mist behind him. Grabbing the pitcher and the goblet and placed immediately to my left, he filled up his cup and sat down. Sitting still as frost, he bowed his head slowly, and the room felt colder.

"Do you remember what you gave away when you took the throne?" he asked, not with malice, but with sorrow stitched into every word. "I don’t wear chains. I wear memory. And I linger—not to torment you, but to show you the light you lost in the pursuit of power. I am the boy you buried beneath a crown of iron. But I remain… because without me, you forget why you ever started. Remember me. Remember who you are."

…

Then, from the alcove in the far corner of the room, came the Skeleton, bones brilliant white and cracked. He walked with a limp from old, long-forgotten wounds. He bore no eyes, yet I felt his gaze in his hollow sockets. His bones creaked as he stepped forward, the sound brittle as dry branches snapping in a forgotten forest. The hollow sockets of his skull locked onto mine, though there were no eyes—only the pressure of memory pressing into me like cold iron.

“You buried me beneath the Keep, Your Grace,” he rasped, his voice like a gust of wind through an ancient tomb. “But I never left. I am the debt you never paid, the war you cannot forget. My bones are the armor forged in your endless battles. Written on my bones are the stories of every scar you try to hide.”

The Skeleton wore the scored armor of the dozens of battles I’d fought, and the sigil on his dented breastplate was my family’s crest—clawed, marked, and faded.

"You thought burying me would erase the cost. And you buried me deep… but I rise with every oath you've broken, every name you've forgotten, every time the crown weighed more than your conscience."

The wind outside howled through the arrow slits like a funeral dirge.

"I am the reckoning you refuse to count. Every silent scream from a battlefield, every friend you left to rot in the mud while marching forward. I am not just bones—I am ledger. And you, Your Grace, are overdrawn."

He placed one gauntleted hand on the table, the dented iron groaning under the weight of unseen history. Then, gently grabbing the pitcher from in front of the Ghost and the goblet immediately to his left, he filled up his cup and sat down. He bowed his head slowly. A soft creak echoed as he adjusted his head, and the room grew colder.

"You polished your victories, mounted them in halls and penned them in songs, but I am what you stepped over to claim them. You built your legacy on ash. And silence. And fire. And yet…"

He lifted his head slightly, the cracked helm on his brow catching the torchlight. He leaned closer, almost conspiratorially.

"Still, I sit at your table. Not to haunt you. Not to accuse you. But to remind you that everything you've become… was paid for in full."

Then, softer, more intimate, like an old friend’s whisper from the grave, "I do not ask for your guilt. Only your memory."

…

As if from behind my own eyes, a mist passed in front of my face and manifested itself across the table to my right. The Demon, dark as night, muscles corded like twisted iron beneath obsidian skin, grinned down, teeth glinting like molten iron, eyes ember-bright with madness.

“I bring the thoughts you hide, Your Grace,” he whispered, a charred, obsidian claw veined with glowing cracks like cooling magma tapping his own temple. “The desires you bury. The rage you sip like wine. I’m the whisper behind your eyes—the urge to strike, to take, to destroy. Don’t pretend you haven’t missed me… Without me, you are but a brittle cage—empty, hollow, waiting to break. I am the raging fire that burns beneath your peace.”

The Demon smiled wide, lips too full of teeth, voice rich like bloodied silk. The torchlight caught the molten glint in his eyes as he leaned across the table.

"You treat me like poison," he purred, "when I am the fire in your marrow."

The Demon lounged across the table to my right, reclined with an elegance that belied the danger in his grin. His eyes shimmered with ember-heat, and his claws tapped slowly on the wood. He suddenly slammed one strong, twisted hand on the table, the oaken table cracking and giving way under the force of his strike. Then, teeth glinting as he leaned forward and forcefully grabbed the pitcher from in front of the Skeleton and the goblet placed in front of him, he filled his cup to the brim until it overflowed. Without lowering his gaze, he bowed his head slowly, and the room grew colder.

"Every time you wanted something and reached for it… I was there. Every time your anger sang sweeter than your reason, I conducted the symphony. I am the desire you muzzle, the fury you sip in silence. And yet…", his grin widened, and the air shimmered faintly, warped by his presence. "Without me, your justice is hollow. Your strength, impotent. I am not corruption—I am clarity. I am what happens when the mask slips and the truth dares to speak."

Then, more softly, teeth fading beneath a smaller, more dangerous smile, with almost a sigh, "I do not want to rule you. I want to remind you… you are not as noble as you pretend to be. And you never were."

…

With a low, guttural growl that stirred the dust on the stone floor, from the shadows under my bed behind me crept the Monster, his form shifting as it walked toward the table—fur and scale, sinew and tooth, talon and horn. A being born of boyhood fears, every nightmare I had shivered through as a child, his breath rasped like parchment torn in half. He grinned impossibly wide, his eyes gleaming like wet coal.

“Remember me, Your Grace?” he purred, padding forward on limbs that shifted shape with each step. “I’m the part you learned to fear. The terror that kept you awake, trembling under your sheets.”

With a smile revealing sharp teeth too numerous to count, jagged as shattered glass, his breath fogged the air with the scent of old blood and ash. “I am the nightmare you hid beneath your bed—the creeping thought behind your screams, the breathing silence you prayed would vanish, the hunger you feared would answer back. I am claw and fang, shadow and bone—your darkest whimper made flesh. The monster under the bed knows every secret your heart keeps. You learned to silence me, but I never stopped listening.”

Claws rasped the floor as he unfolded himself and crept forward, his form changing with every motion. Childish terror given form and voice. He lifted his many-eyed head. Each eye blinked out of sync, some weeping ink, others unblinking and filled with a hunger that felt older than fire.

Dark horns protruded from his skull—some smooth and polished like obsidian, others splintered and broken. His breath came in rattling waves, thick as oil, clouding the torchlight and frosting the flagstones with a breathless cold. As he moved, his limbs did not walk so much as slither, skitter, and crawl, shifting between too many legs and too many joints, as if he had stepped out of the realm of nightmares.

His mouth opened slowly, too wide, too long, the lips stretching past what flesh should allow. Rows of serrated teeth lined the abyss of his throat, and from that darkness came a low, vibrating purr that sounded like a macabre lullaby. When he spoke, his voice was a layered song—one part guttural growl, one part the trembling whisper of a frightened child, and one part… mine.

"You used to fear me," he said, voice like rusted chains dragged across marble, but behind the horror something strangely… tender.

"I lived beneath your bed when you were small, and you named me 'Nightmare'. But I grew with you. I became the dread before battle, the whisper that your enemies might be right, the terror of what your own hands were capable of."

The Monster slithered forward, limbs folding and unfolding in unnatural sequence. His skin flickered—fur, scale, and hide—as he circled slowly, sharp multi-pronged tail flicking, then curled into the seat to the right of my chair.

He leaned forward on shifting paws, placing his claws on the table, the wood groaning beneath the weight of limbs that defied symmetry. Then, tilting his head and reaching with a limb that ended in both hand and talon, jointed like a spider’s leg, he grabbed the pitcher from in front of the Demon and the goblet placed in front of him. He poured with a grace both unnatural and unnerving, the wine trickling like blood over a blade, and filled his cup. Briefly closing all of his eyes, he bowed his head slowly, and the room grew colder.

"You taught yourself to lock me away. To smile. To command. But I never left. I only learned to hide in bigger shadows." And with that, his voice softened into something awful and gentle. He grinned, eyes black as coal but gleaming with amusement. "I am the fear that keeps you alive. The edge on your sword. I am what reminds you that beneath the king's steel, there is still flesh. And flesh, Your Grace, can break."

…

The last to emerge was the Shadow. He manifested from the creeping shadows at the edge of the table, near the bookshelves, and the distant crevices of the room, a living silhouette of my own form—but taller, darker, and more refined. Perfected. Terrifying. His cloak flowed like ink in water, and his eyes were mirrors that showed my reflection. Not my true reflection… But something more. When he walked, he did so with deliberate grace, like a blade being unsheathed.

“You look tired, Your Grace,” he said, smoothing the black satin of his flowing garments. “Finally ready to see?”

He paced behind the table on the opposite side, the flicker of the torches dimming as he passed. He stepped around the table, slow and deliberate and sat at the head of the table directly across from me. His presence exuded control so perfect it was inhuman.

"The world thinks I am your darkness," he said, his voice a whisper polished like steel. "But I am your refinement."

He stopped, looking into me with eyes that held only my reflection. The Shadow was regal even in his stillness, his silhouette cast by no flame, his reflection caught in no glass, and when he finally moved, it was with a grace honed by cruelty and precision—measured and practiced.

“I am the shape you take when the world demands steel. Look into me and see the king you refuse to become. I am the blade that cuts away weakness, the silence before the strike. Your power is forged in darkness, and I am its unyielding fire.”

He sat straight-backed, as if carved from obsidian and bound in silk, unmoving yet coiled with silent power, his hands folded with deliberate elegance before him. Not a twitch, not a breath wasted—he was the stillness in the eye of a storm, the moment before the sword is drawn.

"I am not your shadow. I am your spine."

He moved as I did, but with a grace like a sword drawn from darkness, silent and deadly. His smile was sharp as a drawn blade.

"Every time you made the hard choice—the one that cost you friends, peace, love—I was the hand on your shoulder reminding you why it was necessary. I am not a monster. I am the weight of consequence sharpened to a blade."

His presence seemed to dim the flames burning among the torches.

"I speak when your heart grows soft. I rise when your resolve wavers. I am what makes you feared. I am what ensures the kingdom survives, even when the man does not."

…

There was no war in their arrival, no fight. Only the cold certainty of something long-expected—like iron doors closing behind me, one by one. There was no outcry, no denial, no bargaining—just the quiet surrender of a man who had run out of places to hide. Instead, I set aside five goblets and a pitcher of dark crimson wine. I felt the weight of the crown like a shackle, though I wore no regalia.

“What do you want?” I asked them, my voice hoarse from nights of silence. The words didn’t rise like a challenge—they fell from my mouth like an old weight I was too tired to carry any longer.

The Shadow leaned forward, his hands clasped together, elegant but sinister. “You summoned us, Your Grace,” Shadow said, though his voice was a whisper that stirred no air. “Whether you meant to or not. We want nothing. We are…what you are. Now own what you can become.”

The Shadow’s voice was a knife’s edge, slicing through the fragile veneer I wore to the world, and a flicker of heat stirred behind my eyes, a restless unquenchable flame that threatened to consume me from within.

“We are the fear you taught yourself to deny, the raw, untamed part of you that remembers what it means to conquer. We remind you of the savage heart beneath a king’s composure. Without us, you lose your edge—the primal will to survive. To conquer.”

He leaned back ever so slightly, hands folded, eyes like twin mirrors fixed on me—not watching, but reflecting, waiting for me to see myself the way he did.

“We are the fire in your veins, the hunger you dare not admit. We fuel your rage, your passion, your darkest desires. Without us, you are hollow, a king who rules with cold hands but no will. We are your truth unmasked—the force that drives you to live, to fight, to conquer.

His gaze drifted toward the rafters as if listening to voices I couldn't hear, then slowly returned to me with the weight of a verdict already passed.

“The past is not dead — it waits in the shadows of your soul. Fear us, and you fear the parts of yourself you refuse to see—the reflection perfected by ruthlessness, shaped by every hard choice you’ve made. We are the steel in your spine, the cold clarity that demands sacrifice for the throne. Without us, you are weak. Timber wood ready for the pyre in a world ruled by iron.”

After pouring the wine, red as old blood, thick as secrets, they toasted… me. And then they laughed. Not one at a time, but all together. It was a sound like glass cracking in winter, like the ringing of steel being worked in the forge, like the cruel crackle of wildfire swallowing up an entire forest of dry timber. The laughter danced along the ceiling beams, echoed off the stone walls, and nestled into a hollow place behind my ribs.

And part of me—a deep, unspoken part—laughed with them.

Because I was tired of pretending to be whole, pretending to rule without rage, deciding with doubt, loving without memory. These monsters, these specters—they weren’t intruders. They were me, each a shard of the crown I wore.

The chamber was cloaked in shadows, the flickering torchlight casting long, trembling shapes against the cold stone walls. The massive oak table between us was scarred and worn, its surface stained with old wine and blood—an unspoken testament to countless nights like this. The heavy iron pitcher sat at the center, dark red wine dripping slowly from its spout, and I sat rigid in my high-backed iron chair, fingers curled tight around my goblet as if holding myself together. My eyes, tired yet full of fire, moved from one figure to the next, the air thick with a tension that pressed against my chest like the weight of the crown I bore.

Then, I raised my goblet slowly, my hand trembling ever so slightly as if to test my own strength. A faint, weary smile brushed my lips, fleeting as a whisper.

“I am many, yet I am one. Without each of you, I am less than whole.”

The five figures nodded, eyes glinting with an understanding that was almost cruel in its intimacy.

“To be king,” I said, voice low but resolute, “is to carry all of you inside me—shattered, scarred, and shining.”

The weight of their presence pressed in, a suffocating embrace that was at once torment and salvation.

I stood, raised my goblet, and gave a toast.

“I am the king,” I said, more to myself than them, head down staring at the wine and my reflection in it. “I must make difficult choices.”

“And we are the price,” said Shadow.

I clenched my jaw briefly, the memory of innocence slipping through my fingers like smoke.

I raised my goblet. “Sköl.”

The torchlight flickered as the wind howled. Around me, they sat—not enemies, not friends, but merely a part of me, and, in unison, they said it in reply, “Sköl”.

And then, I drank.

Then came the pain. Glorious, radiant pain.

Fire coursed through my veins—sharp and searing—reminding me that to live with power is to bleed for it. My soul felt as if molten iron was poured through my bones, reshaping me, reforging my spirit with every agonizing pulse.

The Ghost stepped into my skin like a coat reclaimed, and he restored my memory—not to torment, but to remind. The Skeleton crawled into my bones, nestling like marrow, and my joints ached with the echo of every decision I’d buried. The Demon kissed my lips—fiery and sharp—and slid into the hollows behind my eyes, giving me the freedom of impulse, the honesty of cruelty, the strength of desire. The Monster curled around my heart, and the fear I was running from became like armor. And the Shadow poured into my limbs, a flood of purpose and cold clarity.

And I welcomed them.

When it was done, the goblets were empty, the wine pitcher dry. The specters were gone.

But not truly. Never truly gone.

They were never visitors.

And they did not leave.

They never do.

And perhaps…

I never want them to.

I was forged in the fire.