The plain was broken. Not by swords, not by fire, but by a sound that had crushed the marrow of the world.
Draven still knelt in the ash, arms wrapped around Feyra as she trembled like a leaf in gale. Stonehide lay flat, yellow eyes unblinking, every scale stiff as if it dared not move. His own chest heaved, breath ragged. The roar still lived inside him, echoing in bones, pressing his ribs from within.
Across the field, silence held. War-Bears that had moments ago thundered like avalanches now sprawled on their bellies, whimpering like beaten dogs. Wolves scattered into the black mist. Even the mighty Treant, trunk wide as a keep, bent low, roots recoiling into dirt like prey curling under predator's shadow.
Kaelith Veynar's gauntlets shook when he pulled Ironhowl's leash. The Direwolf's chest-mark blazed, but the beast refused to rise, its head pressed flat to the ground, throat rumbling in pitiful surrender. Kaelith's jaw clenched so hard it hurt.
"Stand!" he hissed.
Nothing. Ironhowl only whined.
Behind him, Dominion ranks collapsed into panic. Handlers screamed. Drakes dropped from sky rather than risk another cry. Even the slave marks burned dim, their glow smothered beneath whatever ancient weight pressed on them.
Kaelith's silver hair clung damp to his brow. Rage burned in his throat, but deeper than rage was something colder — the taste of fear he could not spit out.
"Pull back!" he snapped. He masked the word as order, not surrender, but his soldiers heard the tremor in it. "Regroup west! Move!"
Across the plain, Lysara Valenne crouched low, hand pressed to Nightcarver's slick black fur. The Shadow-Panther had melted into her own silhouette, body vibrating, instincts demanding she vanish forever into the dark.
Her soldiers looked to her, eyes wide, lips trembling. They had faced Dominion blades and fire before, but not this.
"Retreat east," she forced out, her voice sharp, steady despite the sweat on her palms. "Scatter. Live."
Nightcarver flickered, eyes burning violet, but even she did not resist the order. Shadows carried Lysara and her fighters away, not in defeat but survival.
Cael Brennor pressed both hands to the bark of his Treant, feeling it shudder beneath him. The Verdant Bastion's roots had pulled free, curling tight around itself like a child. Cael's own knees buckled. His heart hammered with the echo of the roar.
"This is not our fight today," he whispered hoarsely. Then louder, for every ear still standing: "Fall back! Live to resist tomorrow!"
League banners lowered. Men who had sworn never to yield turned and fled. It was not cowardice. It was instinct — the same that bent Kings and beasts alike.
The World Beyond
And further still, across valleys and mountains, distant rulers stirred. A silver hawk King tucked its burning wings and bowed. A Lord of rivers sank into its own waters. Even in the farthest wastes, hidden Overlords pricked ears and stilled.
All felt it. The law above Kings had woken.
Draven
Draven staggered upright, ash sliding beneath his boots. His hands still trembled, but his eyes fixed east. The Ruins loomed clearer through smoke now, their jagged teeth rising against a sky pale with fear.
Below, soldiers stumbled, dragging chains, abandoning corpses, abandoning pride. Dominion and League alike fled. Marks dimmed on beasts' chests, their pain smothered beneath memory of the roar.
The ground split with a groan. Heat licked upward. Through smoke, Draven glimpsed a shadow larger than villages moving beneath the plain. A glow seared from cracks, molten veins pulsing once, twice. Then gone, as if the beast had slipped deeper, unwilling to be seen fully.
He swallowed, throat raw. If chains ever touched that thing, the world itself would not survive.
Feyra whimpered, pressing close. Stonehide rumbled, uneasy. Draven stroked them both with shaking hand.
"This is the chance," he whispered. "While men scatter."
He pulled cloak tight, bent low, and began moving east, step by step. Past corpses still warm, past banners trampled into mud, past warriors too broken to raise their heads. None looked at him. All eyes were fixed west or down, anywhere but toward the Ruins.
Draven walked the opposite way.
Each step carried him closer to smoke-wreathed spires. The blackened stones of the Ruins' outer ring rose before him, faint glyphs glowing in cracks like old embers.
He stopped at the first stone. Laid his palm against its heat. It pulsed once beneath his skin, as if answering.
"If men disturb such power," he murmured, voice low, steady despite the tremor in his hand, "then I'll find truth before they ruin everything."
Feyra pressed against his leg. Stonehide hissed faint but loyal. Together, they crossed the threshold.