The Commander's office at Fort Gairn was cold, even with the small coal burner struggling against the mountain chill. The single torch cast harsh shadows that made Commander Malrik Dorn's face look carved from granite.
Sergeant Kellen stood before him, uniform torn, the panic still wet on his skin.
Dorn didn't look up from the report. He spoke, his voice low and utterly devoid of warmth. "Start from the Rhino. Use plain words, Sergeant. And tell me only what you saw."
Kellen swallowed hard, his voice raspy. "The beast, Commander. Full shackle. Heavy grade. The man… Chainbreaker… he stood a distance away. He spoke something—just a sound—and the phantom chains—the rune effect—they fractured like glass. They just ended."
Dorn finally looked up, his eyes black and sharp. "He didn't touch the Rod or the beast?"
"No, sir. He only spoke. And the Rhino roared, its horn glowing red, Noble-grade, and it got stronger the second it was free. A Noble-plus surge, sir. We're taught the shackles only loosen when a handler is sloppy, but this man… he just ended them."
Dorn leaned forward, his voice like the crack of ice. "Detail the Shackler Rods."
Kellen fumbled, struggling to detail the mechanics.
"The Rods are heavy iron, sir. Rune-based. We channel our will through the ring of runes, and they project the phantom shackles. They are ghostly iron, sir, visible to all, that clamp down on the victim. They're meant to hold the biggest threat, Commander. To hold the Magma Drake if it ever fully rises. The Chainkeepers told us they were too untested to use on it yet. That the smaller beasts and the villagers were the test site—to refine the formula before they tried to contain the Overlord."
"And this Chainbreaker," Dorn finished, his voice slicing the air. "This man walks up to the test site and proves the whole formula wrong. He demonstrates that freedom makes them stronger, and that our rune-weapon has a fatal flaw."
Dorn motioned sharply. "Get him out of my sight. Assign him to latrine duty until his uniform stops smelling of fear." The guards snapped to attention and dragged Kellen away.
Meanwhile, on the dusty roads leaving the liberated village, the first wave of refugees moved with a hurried fear.
An old man trudged past the smithy. He stopped only to call to Joran, the blunt smith.
"Brenn says the storms are coming, Joran! The Dominion won't stand for this. They'll burn the whole village to find that man!"
Joran, his arms crossed, didn't flinch. "Let them come. I saw the beast rise higher the moment the chains snapped. That's a truth you can't burn away." He looked at the dented weapons Draven had scavenged. "Scrap iron won't last. Come to my smithy when you're ready."
Further down the path, a young mother whispered to her child, repeating the words they'd heard from the newly freed: "Dominion chains humans. The Chainbreaker freed them." Her eyes darted back, divided between fear and a fragile spark of hope.
Dorn traced a line on his Fort Gairn map. "The report to the Citadel goes out at once. Mark it Highest Priority: Code Black."
He gave the order to Lieutenant Ren: "We capture the Chainbreaker alive. I need to see the anti-chain light with my own eyes. I need to know how he breaks what cannot be broken."
Miles away, Draven stood on a ridge overlooking the borderlands. The last of the refugees were departing. Mira looked troubled.
"The word is spreading too fast," she said, her hand resting near the Silvergale Falcon. "The fear is rising with the hope. They say the storms will follow the Chainbreaker."
Draven's gaze was steady, fixed on the spreading dark of the horizon. His voice was calm and firm, a simple vow that carried the weight of the new world he was building.
"Let it spread. If hope runs ahead of me, let it run."
The night pressed in, thick and cold. The storms were moving. And the Chainbreaker was ready to meet them.
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