—Narrated by Veyren and Nyavell—
Veyren
The wind had stopped.
That was the first sign.
Not the figure.
Not the horses' panic.
Not even the Jewel's pulse.
It was silence where sound should've been a stillness too absolute to be natural.
We stepped from the carriage slowly. Armor creaked. Fingers hovered over hilts. Even Ruzakai, usually grinning, had gone quiet. His jaw was tight. His stare was fixed.
At the bend in the road, a figure stood.
Cloaked. Hooded. Still.
Unarmed or so it seemed.
But presence isn't always measured by steel.
Some carry weight like gravity.
And this one bent the air.
As we approached, the figure lifted his head.
And for a heartbeat I forgot what air was.
He was young. No older than twenty-one.
But there was nothing unfinished about him.
His skin was pale, brushed with the ash-grey of Tenshyra. Black hair fell to his jaw, streaked with silver like old lightning scars. His eyes glowed soft white. Not magical. Something older.
Like memory.
Like judgment.
His robes were tattered, once-royal, worn by time. Beneath them, armor shimmered with sigils I'd only seen in forbidden texts.
Angelic script.
Fallen marks.
The kind the Church swore never existed.
He didn't look at us like an intruder.
He looked at us like someone returning to a place that had forgotten him.
Nyavell stepped beside me, silent as ever.
"He's from Tenshyra," she said quietly.
I nodded. "House of Nocthyr."
Her head snapped toward me. She hadn't expected that.
"That name is gone," she said. "Erased."
"And yet, here he stands."
The boy stepped forward.
Not fast. Not threatening.
Measured. Calm.
But his attention was locked on the carriage.
Or rather, on the container inside it.
The black one.
The Jewel.
It pulsed once.
Then again.
Then louder.
Thumm.
Thumm.
THUMM.
The sound wasn't just in the air anymore.
It was inside us.
Inside me.
My pulse synced to it without meaning to.
"Hold position," I ordered, my voice steady but low. "We don't rush the unknown."
That broke the silence.
Ruzakai stepped forward, half-snarling. "Unknown? He's a Tenshyrian. That is known."
Blades flashed in his hands.
"They don't cross the ridge unless they want to kill," he added.
"Or deliver a message," Caelith murmured, moving between us and the figure, shield half-raised.
"What kind of message needs eyes like that?" Ruzakai growled, refusing to lower his stance.
Nyavell didn't speak.
But her stare sharpened. Her posture adjusted.
We were no longer simply watching.
We were deciding.
And still, he walked forward.
"Name," I said, calm but direct. "Now."
He tilted his head not arrogantly. Curiously.
"Auren," he said.
"Of the House of Nocthyr."
The wind returned.
And it howled.
He took another step.
Then another.
And with each one, the black container began to resonate.
Thumm.
Thumm.
THUMM.
The Jewel pulsed harder—no, stronger.
It wasn't sound now.
It was a feeling.
In our bones. In our breath. In our blood.
"What in the gods' names…" Ruzakai muttered. "It's ringing like a cursed bell."
"It's not reacting," Caelith said. "It's calling."
Auren stopped just short of the carriage.
His glowing eyes stayed fixed on the container.
"It remembers," he said, almost to himself.
"What does?" I asked.
"The Jewel," he said. "It remembers what it once was. And what it was meant to protect."
"Or destroy," Nyavell added, eyes narrowing.
"You know what it is, don't you?" I asked.
He looked at me, not like a stranger.
Like someone recognizing a long-lost piece of himself.
"It's not a Jewel," Auren said. "Not truly."
"Then what is it?"
A pause.
His voice nearly cracked with reverence.
"A scale."
The silence that followed was complete.
Even the wind refused to move.
"A… dragon's scale?" Nyavell asked.
"Not just any dragon," Auren said. "The first. The World-Serpent. Born of Fallen breath. Bound by Heaven's fire. Its death ended the old age… and began the new."
The revelation didn't settle like fact.
It landed like a prophecy.
And behind us, the Jewel beat again.
Thumm.
Thumm.
THUMM.
"You were born to this," I said softly.
Auren nodded.
"The House of Nocthyr wasn't erased because it betrayed the Crown. It was erased because it remembered too much."
He turned toward the open road.
"And now," he said, "the road ends here for one of us."
Nyavell
The first time I saw him clearly, we stood on the edge of the world.
Mist coiled across the cliffside like silk, wrapping around boots and hooves alike. Below us: a valley of ruin. Burnt soil. Fallen towers. The graves of three empires.
And he stood at the edge of it all.
Auren.
Born of Tenshyra.
The last blood of a house so feared, the Church won't say its name aloud.
He looked like shadow carved from starlight.
Still. Breathless. Untouched by wind or dust.
A cracked gold clasp at his collar shimmered faintly beneath his cloak.
And behind me the Scale pulsed again.
I didn't sense him through Aetherion. Not even a ripple.
He was blank. Empty.
A void in the shape of a man.
"Why are you here?" I asked.
His eyes met mine. Pale white. Deep as sky.
"Because the Scale remembered me," he said.
And then….
The black container screamed.
Red light burned through the seams. Horses reared. The air twisted with pressure.
Caelith moved instantly, shield raised.
"Contain him," Veyren said. His voice held no panic.
Only certainty.
Ruzakai charged. "My pleasure."
He struck hard and fast, one blade wide, the other stabbing center-mass.
He never landed a blow.
Auren didn't move.
But Ruzakai flew backward like he'd been struck by thunder. He hit the ground, windless and dazed.
No magic. No flash.
Just force.
Absolute and invisible.
Caelith flanked him, not attacking. Watching.
"Don't make me bind you," he warned.
Auren sighed.
"I told you. I'm not here to fight."
"You just dropped our strongest fighter," I said.
"Because he came at me.
"And you'll come with us?" Veyren asked.
"If it brings me closer to the Scale, yes."
Veyren gave the signal.
I stepped forward with the sanctified chains cold iron, woven with crescent scripture. If he was cursed, they'd burn. If he resisted, they'd cut deeper than steel.
He didn't resist.
He lowered his arms.
And as I bound his wrists, I felt something behind him.
Not a presence.
A being.
Not watching.
Waiting.
Zybaah.
We returned to the carriage.
Ruzakai muttered curses under his breath, wincing.
"Tenshyra," he spat. "We should've burned that cursed place a decade ago."
"We don't burn what we don't understand," Veyren said.
"We don't understand it because we don't burn it," Ruzakai snapped.
But even he didn't try again.
Inside, I sat across from Auren.
He was still. Silent. Breathing in perfect rhythm with the Scale.
He didn't have to come.
He chose to.
And that scared me more than any threat he could've made.
"Who are you really?" I whispered.
He opened his eyes.
And no light in the world looked so final.
"I am Auren Nocthyr. Blood of Zybaah. Last of the Fallen."