I didn't breathe.
I couldn't.
The world narrowed to the figure standing across the ruined terrace—shadow dripping from his armor, dead kneeling at his feet, darkness bending around him like a living crown.
My father.
Thought dead for years.
Mourned.
Gone.
Except he wasn't.
He stood twenty paces away, whole and breathing, his chest rising and falling beneath that obsidian armor. His eyes—once gold—now glowed a corrupted red, bright enough to burn through the half-light.
Every piece of me rejected what I saw.
Every piece of me felt it anyway.
The bond in my chest pulsed sharply, Lyra's shock and horror threading through me—but beneath it, something deeper. Her steady presence braced my ribs like a hand.
It didn't help.
Not with this.
I barely registered Muir and Revik rushing up the broken steps behind us. They came to a breathless halt beside Lyra—shoulders heaving, weapons slick with black ichor, eyes wide and fixed on the same impossible sight.
"What… in all the gods' cursed hells…" Muir whispered.
Revik didn't speak. His jaw clicked shut. The look on his face said enough—rage, disbelief, fear for me, fear for the world.
Silence thickened over the battlefield.
Not silence, not truly.
Wind howled.
Clouds churned.
Distant screams echoed from the lower terraces.
But where we stood—on this shattered ledge above a world collapsing—everything had gone still.
Even the dead.
They stood frozen.
An entire army turned to statues.
Their hollow eyes mirrored the red glow in my father's.
My father.
The word felt wrong in my mouth and wrong in my skull.
I remembered him as tall, stern, unyielding. The Fire Nation's greatest general. A man whose shadow I'd grown up trying—and failing—to fill. He'd taught me to fight with blades before I could read. Had made me stand in the rain holding lightning in my hands until I learned control through pain. He'd told me the world respected strength, not mercy.
He'd died with those beliefs.
Or so I thought.
He broke the silence first.
His voice was deep—familiar—but there was a hollowness under it, a slow echo that didn't belong to any living thing.
"Raiden," he said, his eyes sweeping over me with a mixture of disdain and… disappointment. "You've chosen the wrong side."
My stomach twisted.
The dead shifted around him, reacting to his tone, to his power. Some bowed deeper. Some simply stilled more fully.
"Father," I forced out, the word scraping my throat. "How—?"
He ignored that.
His gaze flicked to Lyra standing beside me—the faint glow of her violet fire reflecting in her eyes, in the cracked stone, in the remnants of the bridge she'd burned to ash. She didn't back away from him. Didn't flinch. His eyes then scanned over Muir, refit and Tadewi contempt etched in his features.
He turned back to me with a mocking scoff.
"To think… the son I raised would stand beside sworn enemies." His lip curled. "A water princeling. Air nation filth. And the Primal herself."
Lyra stiffened at the word.
Something in her power pulsed.
My father didn't even blink.
My jaw tightened.
Memories slashed across my mind—his lectures about loyalty, purity, strength. His hatred for the other nations. His obsession with Fire's "rightful rule."
He hadn't changed.
He'd simply become worse.
"We're not enemies," I said, stepping forward before I realized I was moving. "Not anymore. That was your war. Your generation's hatred. We weren't meant to repeat it."
"Look around you. This—what we're doing—this is hope. This is proof that peace isn't just a dream."
My father laughed.
It wasn't human.
The sound crawled over my skin like cold metal pressed against bone.
"Peace?" he echoed. "You still cling to that childish fantasy." He shook his head slowly. "Peace is control, Raiden. Peace is power. Peace is bending the world until it yields."
He stepped closer, and the shadows thickened around him.
"And I must say I am impressed that you finally gained control over that monstrous side of yours." His eyes glinted, red and sharp. "Doesn't change what you did, who you killed."
The comment hit like a punch.
Suddenly I wasn't the commander standing beside the Primal Dragon. I was a boy again—thirteen years old, standing trembling in a courtyard as lightning crawled uncontrollably up my arms and my father shouted that weakness was death.
I hated that the old instinct rose now—my shoulders tensing, breath stuttering, palms sweating despite the heat.
Lyra stepped in front of me before the shame could take root.
Her voice was low, furious.
Steady.
"The only monster here is you," she said.
Her voice didn't raise. It didn't need to.
It was steady, lethal, carved from fire and ice.
My father stared at her.
But she kept going.
"Look at yourself," she said. "Look at what your path has turned you into. Look at the army you command—rotting corpses and twisted beasts." She gestured toward the terraces where the Skyguard fought and bled. "Now look at the one your son leads. Living men and women. Dragons. Allies from nations he was raised to hate."
He stared at her with cold contempt.
Lyra lifted her chin, eyes blazing. "Raiden is more of a man than you could ever hope to be. He fights for people—not power. He stands with those you tried to crush. He has already surpassed you, and you can't stand it."
The bond surged—bright, fierce, impossible to ignore.
Admiration.
Pride.
Something deeper that made my chest ache.
It was the same warmth I'd felt only once before—years ago—from my mother's final breath as she cupped my cheek.
Lyra radiated that same fierce, unyielding certainty.
For me.
My father's expression twisted.
"You will regret those words, child."
"I regret nothing," Lyra said, her words falling like a blade.
He moved.
A blur of shadow and metal lunged for her throat.
I didn't think.
I slammed into him.
The impact cracked stone.
Lightning burst from my skin in a violent flare.
We tumbled across the terrace—his armor scraping sparks against stone, shadows clawing at my face.
His strength was impossible—beyond anything mortal—but I held.
I shoved him back, breathing hard. "You will not touch her. Not while I'm living."
His eyes burned like coals. "You dare put yourself between us?"
"I do." My voice was low, steady. "Again and again."
He studied me for a long heartbeat.
Then he stepped back.
The dead straightened behind him in eerie unison.
"Very well," he said quietly.
He lifted his hands.
Every corpse across the battlefield stiffened.
"Father."
He clenched his fist.
The dead moved.
Not just the ones he commanded.
Ours.
The fallen Skyguard who'd died on the bridges and terrace.
Every ally torn down by teeth and shadow.
They rose.
One by one.
Their eyes glowed the same sickening red as my father's.
Lyra sucked in a sharp breath. Muir swore. Revik's grip tightened around his blade.
And the dead multiplied.
An entire second army forming from the bodies of those we'd failed to save.
We were surrounded.
Outnumbered beyond reason.
Hopelessly outmatched.
My father smiled.
"Now," he said softly, spreading his hands as his vast armies raised their heads toward us, "let us see if your peace can save you."