"The further one climbs, the closer they get to the truth... and the truth is a wound that never closes." – Fragmented Scrolls of the Tamer-King
The sky over Gulmarrak had stopped bleeding.
But the silence it left behind was worse.
Leo stood on the high parapet of the cathedral's skeletal spire, overlooking a city that no longer moved like a wound trapped in time. The people—no longer shadows of themselves—began to breathe. Children laughed with real sound. Soldiers looked confused, touching their faces like waking from a thousand-year dream.
The curse had lifted.
And it was only the beginning.
The Crown Speaks
The moment the last fragment fused into Leo's spine, he began hearing the voices.
Not loud.
Not aggressive.
Just… constant.
Whispers.
Languages he didn't recognize and some he did, but hadn't heard since childhood—his mother's voice, long forgotten, murmuring lullabies through smoke. A soldier's scream echoing across time. A dragon's final words before death.
The Crown of Claws was not just a symbol.
It was a library of suffering.
A vessel of power built by those who tamed monsters not with chains—but with promises.
Fang noticed first.
"Your aura changed."
Coal hissed softly, wings slightly flared. "You're not just Leo anymore."
Leo closed his eyes.
"I don't want to be anything else."
But something inside him whispered: Too late.
Northward
They marched.
The Cathedral spat out a road of white ash beneath their feet, a highway built from magic and regret. Every step brought them closer to the edge of the known world.
Past Gulmarrak lay the Ashen Wilds.
And beyond that, the final kingdom.
Vel'Kaarn.
The Throne of Endings.
Where the Pale Sovereign reigned.
Where the Demon Lord awaited.
The Harbinger's Wake
At the fourth night's camp, the stars didn't appear.
Instead, a white fog descended from every direction.
It wasn't mist.
It was memory made physical.
A rider came through.
Not on horseback—but riding a giant crow stitched from bones and breath. His armor was made from the plates of dead Tamers, and his helm was split into six faces—each one crying silently.
He did not dismount.
He simply looked at Leo.
And said one sentence:
"The Pale Sovereign does not recognize your crown."
Coal stiffened. "A Harbinger."
Fang crouched low, growling. "He shouldn't be this far south."
Leo stood his ground.
"Tell your Sovereign I'm not here for his approval."
The Harbinger smiled.
It was the smile of a corpse being reanimated.
"You misunderstand, Leo of the Claw. He doesn't disapprove of your crown."
"He denies its right to exist."
Shades of the Past
The fog deepened. The world blinked out.
Leo found himself alone in a field of swords.
Every blade bore a name.
He recognized them all.
Mira – his first friend. Dead.Thorne – the mentor who betrayed him.Eira – the girl who kissed him before turning to ash.Halbric – the Tamer who tried to save a monster and died for it.Leo – his own name, etched into steel, covered in rust.
He fell to his knees.
Fang and Coal were gone.
The fog whispered.
"You don't deserve power."
"You are a mistake given form."
"You are the reason she died."
The last whisper cut deepest.
She.
He knew who it meant.
The First Pact
A memory surged.
Leo at age five.
A girl with violet eyes and laughter like lightning.
They'd found a dying lizard-creature, barely alive, its wings torn.
Everyone said to kill it.
Leo fed it instead.
She named it Scorch.
It died anyway.
But not before bonding with him.
She had cried harder than Leo did.
"Never tame something you're not willing to die for," she said.
She disappeared a year later.
No one ever found her.
Until now.
From the fog, she stepped out.
Same violet eyes.
Same smile.
"Hello, Leo."
Leo reached for her.
But her body twisted.
Her jaw cracked open sideways.
Wings sprouted from her back—black as sin.
She wasn't her.
She was what Leo feared she'd become.
Trial of the Crown
The fog turned to flame.
Blades flew.
Leo fought not monsters, but versions of himself.
The coward. The killer. The conqueror. The liar.
Each struck with perfect precision.
But Leo wasn't fighting with fists anymore.
He was fighting with faith.
In Fang.
In Coal.
In himself.
He screamed.
The echoes burned.
The false selves shattered like cheap glass.
And from the ashes, Fang and Coal returned—larger, stronger, more real than ever.
The fog recoiled.
The Harbinger was gone.
But in the sky, a message appeared:
"Your trial has begun."
"To wear the Crown is not enough."
"You must earn it—through blood, loss, and fire."
"The Pale Sovereign awaits."
Vel'Kaarn: The Bleeding City
They saw it at dawn.
A city made of bones, floating above a chasm of lightning.
Staircases curved upward through thin air, held by chains the size of towers.
Guards with no skin patrolled gates that dripped sorrow.
Vel'Kaarn—the end of all roads.
Its ruler?
The Pale Sovereign, god among monsters, king of the Demon Lords, and final test before the war could begin.
Leo whispered to himself, "This is it."
Fang stood tall.
Coal flared his wings.
And deep in the city's heart, someone smiled.
Someone who had been waiting.
For Leo.
For the Crown.
For the end.