He stood in the wreckage—shattered stone beneath him, the ground soaked in blood. One hand hung loose at his side. The other hovered forward, just enough to remind the silence who it belonged to.
His eyes swept across the ruined horizon.
Then he spoke.
"Rise."
The shadow at his feet pulsed once. Then again. And from it, like smoke being pulled into shape, they began to rise.
The first were the Sins—each one dragging power behind them like gravity, their faces half-hidden in dark folds, their presence pressing in from behind Kael like a curtain of dread.
Then came the rest.
Undead soldiers by the thousands.
Some had just fallen. Their skin still carried the warmth of death. Others were brittle—pulled from the earth with nothing left but cracked bone and the smell of soil.
Armor clung to them in pieces. Shields scorched black, blades notched or broken, helmets hanging off half-shaped skulls. They didn't match. They weren't meant to.
But they all stood.
