The sun rose pale over the Ashen Verge.
Draven walked slowly, Feyra close at his heel, Stonehide trudging behind with his pack. The land bore scars of the night before. Black soil was churned into trenches, and broken banners hung limp from shattered poles.
He had come almost ten kilometers since leaving the ridge. That meant he was within forty of the Ruins now. The jagged towers loomed clearer each day, jagged spires rising like teeth against the sky.
But between him and that destiny lay a graveyard.
The battlefield stretched wide, a carpet of ash and bodies. Human corpses lay heaped in lines where formations had broken. Beasts sprawled in grotesque shapes — fur burned, scales cracked, roots snapped like twigs.
Draven swallowed hard. He had seen animals die before, but never like this. These weren't hunted for food or culled in sickness. They had been forced to fight until the marks burned them out, then discarded.
Feyra whined, pressing against his leg. Stonehide sniffed the air, tongue flicking, uneasy.
Draven forced himself onward.
---
Here and there, remnants of power lingered.
A wolf's corpse still sparked faintly, arcs of lightning crawling across charred fur. The antlers of the silver stag glowed dimly, pulsing as if remembering light. A Treant's severed branch twitched, roots curling weakly before going still.
Even in death, their gifts did not fade at once. It was as if the world itself was reluctant to let them go.
Draven knelt beside a small Servitor calf, chained by a broken collar. Its ribs heaved once, twice. Its eyes met his — wide, confused, afraid.
He reached out, whispering, "Easy… you're free now."
The beast exhaled, a soft wheeze. Then it went still.
Draven's hands shook. His throat burned.
How many more had died like this? How many would keep dying so long as men etched marks into their flesh?
He clenched his fist until his nails dug into skin. *If the world sees them as tools, then I'll change the world.*
---
The air shifted.
At first, he thought it was smoke rising from the corpses. Then the ground trembled beneath his feet. Heat spread through the soil, faint but undeniable.
Feyra froze, ears flat. Stonehide dropped low, scales rattling.
Then it came.
The roar.
It wasn't sound. It was weight.
It slammed into the field like a tidal wave, pressing the air flat. Draven staggered, knees buckling. His chest caved as if the sky itself had descended.
The cry carried no words, no reason — only presence. A voice older than the kingdoms, older than the marks, older than the laws men lived by.
Every soldier left alive on the field collapsed, weapons falling from their hands. Dominion or League, it didn't matter. They all trembled.
Beasts whimpered. War-Bears dropped to their bellies. Wolves howled and scattered. Even the roots of dead Treants twitched in fear.
Far beyond the battlefield, across valleys and forests, other rulers stirred. Beast Kings in their distant domains lifted their heads, snarls dying in their throats. Nobles crouched low, instincts overwhelming reason. They felt it too — the call of something above them.
Draven's vision blurred. His heart hammered so hard he thought it might burst. His bones felt hollow, as if the sound might shatter him from the inside out.
He clutched Feyra against his chest. She whimpered, her body pressed flat, ears trembling. Stonehide didn't move, frozen like prey under a predator's gaze.
"This…" Draven gasped, words rasping in his throat, "…is above King."
The roar rolled again, shaking the ground, cracking stones. Heat licked the air as fissures glowed faint red.
Then, as suddenly as it came, the sound faded.
The battlefield fell silent. No crows cawed, no wind stirred. Only the smell of ash lingered.
Draven stayed crouched, chest heaving. His whole body trembled, but not from weakness. From awe.
Whatever had made that sound was no beast bound to chains, no King crowned by instinct. It was law given flesh. Fire given voice.
And it had awoken.
---
Draven lifted his head, eyes burning. The Ruins loomed in the distance, closer now, wreathed in smoke.
If a creature like that could be forced into chains, the world would break.
"If this is the power men disturb," he whispered, voice steady despite his shaking hands, "then I'll find the truth before they ruin everything."
He straightened, pulling Feyra close, patting Stonehide's armored back.
The battlefield was no place for mortals. But ahead lay the Ruins. The answer he sought.
And so, shaken but resolute, Solen Draven walked on.