The field still smoked, but the war was gone.
Dominion banners lay trampled in mud, their black and crimson dyes soaked through with blood. League standards had fallen too, silver threads dulled beneath ash. Men and beasts alike were strewn in grotesque silence. Not slain by sword or fire alone, but crushed by a roar that had pressed the marrow from their bones.
Draven tightened his cloak around his shoulders and rose. His legs trembled, but not from fear now — from choice. All around him, survivors crawled west or east, dragging chains, clutching wounds, fleeing from the memory of the sound that had broken them. Dominion handlers whipped slack beasts, their marks still dim from shock. League scouts pulled comrades by the arm, whispering prayers. Not one man looked toward the Ruins.
Draven did.
The jagged silhouette loomed through smoke, spires of black stone clawing at the sky. They were closer now, so close he felt their presence even in his chest, like a second heartbeat beneath his own.
Feyra pressed to his heel, ears flat, fur bristled. Stonehide trudged behind, scales scraping stone, tongue flicking in restless unease. Both wanted to follow the fleeing tide. Instead, Draven set his boots the other way. Against the flow.
A Dominion soldier lurched in the ash before him. The man's armor was dented, blood spilling from a gash across his chest. His eyes were glassy, his slave-mark hand trembling as if the ink itself had turned on him. He croaked when he saw Draven walking east.
"You—fool…" He coughed blood, spattering the dust. "…that's where the fire sleeps."
Draven didn't slow. He stepped around the man, gaze fixed on the black horizon.
The ground shifted beneath him as he drew nearer. Fields of corpses gave way to stone, jagged and broken, as though the earth itself had been burned hollow. A metallic tang seeped into every breath, harsh on his throat. Feyra whimpered, nose twitching. Stonehide hissed, tail dragging low.
Here, even death was not still.
A Servitor corpse twitched on the path, its body already bloated and stiff. The slave mark etched across its flank pulsed once, spitting sparks, and the beast convulsed violently — dead eyes rolling white before falling limp again. Smoke hissed from its chest, a stench of burned ink.
Draven froze, bile rising in his throat. Even in death, the chains cling to them.
He knelt, pressing a hand to the soil. Warm. Too warm. Not the warmth of sun, but of something deeper — heat that should not linger in stone.
Ahead, black rocks bore fissures glowing faintly red, as though embers slumbered beneath their skin. And carved into one ridge, half-hidden beneath soot, was a mark that chilled him more than the corpses had: a claw gouge, three lines deep as a man's arm, wide enough to swallow him whole.
Feyra growled low, her fur rising like flame. Stonehide flattened itself to the ground.
Draven stared at the gouge, throat dry. He didn't need anyone to tell him what had made it. The roar still lived in his bones. The Magma Drake had not come from elsewhere. It had risen from here. The Ruins were its den. Its resting place.
And he was walking in.
The first stones of the Ruins lay before him now, massive slabs cracked and weathered. He stopped at the threshold, breathing hard, eyes locked on the black surface. Even the distant sounds of retreating armies were gone. Here, silence held — thick, suffocating, absolute.
He stepped forward.
The instant his boot struck stone, the air changed. Heavy. Dense. The world outside muffled, as though he had plunged underwater. The slab pulsed beneath his foot, faint but undeniable — like a heartbeat buried deep in the earth.
Feyra whimpered and pressed against his leg. Stonehide hesitated, claws scraping stone. For a long moment it didn't move. Then, with a low rumble, it followed.
Draven's own chest tightened. Not from fear, but from recognition. He pressed a hand unconsciously to his collarbone. No mark was there yet. But the skin burned faintly, as if something beneath was waiting to be written.
Then came the whispers.
Not words. Impressions.
Chains clinking in darkness. Vines unfurling from cracks. Ash crumbling to dust.
He staggered, clutching his head. They weren't voices in his ears, but images in his blood, flooding his mind like old memories that weren't his.
Feyra barked sharply, snapping him back.
He lifted his gaze — and froze.
A glyph etched into the slab before him had flared green. Only for a moment, then dimmed. As though some ancient ember had stirred to life, recognizing something it had not seen in centuries.
Draven reached out, breath catching.
The stone pulsed again. This time, in perfect rhythm with his heartbeat.
Feyra growled, Stonehide hissed — both beasts sensing what he could not name.
Draven whispered, voice raw in the silence:
"The Ruins have noticed me."