Razik's Fortress, Narn
Year: 6999 NY
The chamber did not welcome light.
What illumination there was came from a few dim, flickering sconces, their flames subdued as if reluctant to burn. Tendrils of smoke rose in delicate spirals from black incense pots set in each corner of the room, their scent sharp and metallic, like charred herbs soaked in old blood. The walls—rough-hewn stone, cold and wet to the touch—were laced with dark moss and the faint traces of claw-marks, old and new. It was a room carved from obedience, silence, and pain.
Adam sat shackled against the back wall, his arms pulled wide, his legs chained tight to iron loops bolted into the stone. The manacles bit into his wrists and ankles—not hard enough to bleed, but hard enough to bruise, to ache, to remind him he wasn't free. The cold crept through the stone and into his skin, but he would not shiver. Not here.
He would not give Razik that.
His breath came slow, steady, though it cost him. Every muscle in his body burned—not just from the battle, but from the long stillness since. He didn't know how long he'd been there. Time did not seem to move in Razik's fortress. It only hung—thick and heavy, like air before a thunderclap.
But I'm still here.
The thought steadied him. He clung to it like a thread, even as the darkness pressed close around him. Even as the shadows whispered that no one was coming.
Across from him, a deeper shadow moved.
It was not sudden. It did not startle.
It simply shifted—like something ancient stirring in its sleep.
And then the eyes opened.
Twin slits of amber-yellow, sharp and calculating, glinting in the half-light. They watched him—quietly, patiently. The way a falcon watches a rabbit just before the dive. The way a flame studies dry leaves.
Razik.
His form was seated in the deep alcove that marked the center of the chamber's far wall, a throne built not of gold, but of black, angular stone veined with glowing crimson. The glow did not come from within the stone, but from beneath it—like something alive had been sealed inside long ago and was still trying to breathe.
Razik's cloak pooled around his feet like a shadow that had forgotten how to rise. His face was half-obscured in the gloom, but the outline of it—sharp-boned, angular, too still—was unmistakable. Smoke curled around him, though no incense pot stood near.
He did not speak immediately.
He let the silence grow brittle.
And then—soft as silk pulled across steel—his voice came.
"Comfortable, are we?"
Adam said nothing.
Razik chuckled—a low sound, more breath than laugh, more appetite than amusement.
"You know, I almost believed the stories exaggerated you," he said. "The last son of the wolves. The 'child' of prophecy. The lion's echo." He paused. "But then, you dodged my Plasma Beads. That… was impressive."
Adam kept his gaze down for a moment longer, breathing in through his nose. The scent of incense and stone was overpowering, but beneath it—just barely—he could still smell air. Real air. Wind. Somewhere, far above this place, the sky still waited.
He looked up.
"Was that what it was?" he asked. His voice came out hoarse, but even. "Felt more like a tantrum."
Razik's eyes narrowed, but the smile remained.
"Ah. Good. You're still pretending to be brave."
He stood.
The motion was fluid, graceful—inhumanly so. His paws made no sound as he stepped down from the alcove. The cloak followed him like trailing smoke. And though he walked slowly, it felt as though the room moved around him instead—as if his presence bent the very space through which he passed.
He stopped a few feet from Adam.
There was no heat, no warmth of flesh. The air around him chilled, ever so slightly. His shadow fell across Adam like a curtain.
Razik knelt.
Now their eyes met—one pair glowing faintly with suppressed fury, the other calm, amused, deeply dangerous.
"You feel it, don't you?" Razik whispered. "Even now. That tug. That thread running through your chest. It's starting to wake up in you."
Adam blinked, his jaw tight.
"Whatever it is you think I am," he said quietly, "you're wrong."
Razik didn't blink.
"No," he said, "you are wrong. You still think this is about you."
He stood again, pacing slowly, his arms behind his back.
"This is not about Adam Kurt. This is about something older. A bloodline that should have died a thousand years ago. A word that should have been forgotten. But here you are. A walking contradiction. And contradictions," he said, pausing, "must be resolved."
Adam's fingers curled into fists. The chains rattled softly.
"You're afraid," he said.
Razik turned back, a flicker in his eye.
"What?"
Adam leaned forward, as far as the shackles would allow. "You're afraid of what I might become. Of what that word might mean. That's why I'm here. You don't want to stop me. You want to control me."
The temperature seemed to drop further.
Razik's smile faded.
In its place came silence.
And then:
"I don't fear you," he said softly. "I fear what happens if someone else reaches you first."
He raised a hand—and in it appeared a flicker of light. Not fire. Something… heavier. Dimmer. Like the shadow of fire. It hovered just above his palm, pulsing faintly.
"This," Razik whispered, "is your inheritance."
The flicker leapt toward Adam's chest.
He gasped as it hit him—like a fist made of ice and flame driving into his heart. Pain bloomed outward through every nerve. But he didn't cry out. He bit down, hard, jaw trembling.
Razik watched him.
The light vanished.
But something else had been planted.
"You're quite resilient, Adam Kurt."
Razik's voice floated through the gloom like silk drawn across glass — soft, but sharp at the edges. There was a glimmer of amusement in it, though of the kind that comes from watching something squirm just before it breaks. He returned to the seat and sat down, leaning forward from the seat in the shadows, just enough that a sliver of light spilled across his face.
It was not a comforting sight.
The lines of Razik's features were too clean, too symmetrical — not handsome, but crafted, like a statue molded by a hand that prized perfection without mercy. His cheekbones were high, his brow smooth, his mouth fixed in a half-smile that never reached the eyes. And those eyes — like liquid amber, bottomless and unblinking — gleamed with an intelligence that did not simply observe, but dissected.
Adam stared back.
He did not flinch, even with the pain he felt all over his body. Not outwardly. His body, bound and aching, remained still. Shoulders square. Spine straight against the cold stone. But beneath that calm, his mind churned like a river beneath ice.
Every instinct screamed danger. Not just physical — though Razik was a threat in every sense — but something deeper. This was not a brute. This was not a tyrant drunk on power. Razik was curious. And that made him infinitely more dangerous.
"What do you want with me?" Adam asked.
His voice echoed slightly in the chamber — not loud, but firm. He bit each word as if it cost him to let them go. Not because of pain — but because of control. He would not give Razik the satisfaction of seeing doubt.
Razik's smile curled further, just slightly, as he folded his arms with deliberate calm — like a noble preparing for a long, predictable monologue.
"The Wolf Tracient," he mused aloud, as though speaking of a half-forgotten myth.
The title sat on his tongue with mockery, but beneath the scorn there was something else — hunger.
"You were all supposed to be gone," he said. "Eradicated. An ugly word, I know. But efficient. Since the Great War, your kind has been nothing but a whisper in the dark. Ghosts with no graves."
He paused.
"And yet," he added, his tone darkening slightly, "here you are."
Adam said nothing. He did not blink.
But inside — his thoughts twisted.
Why now? Why here? How much does he know?
Razik leaned forward again.
"You're not simply surviving, Adam," he said, softly. "You're hiding something. Someone taught you. Trained you. Shielded you." His gaze narrowed. "That takes more than luck. That takes knowledge. Ancient knowledge."
He waited, watching.
And then, with almost casual cruelty, he said it:
"Aryas."
The word dropped into the room like a stone in still water.
Adam's breath caught — just slightly.
The name curled in the air. Heavy. Sacred. Forbidden.
He had not heard it spoken aloud in years. Not even by Dirac. It was not the kind of word you tossed around. It was the kind of word you protected. Like fire in a snowstorm.
He tried to keep his face still.
But Razik had seen it.
The flicker.
Just a heartbeat's hesitation. But it was enough.
Adam's jaw clenched. He steadied his voice.
"I don't know what you're talking about," he said, calm and flat.
The lie was clean — polished by practice. But even the cleanest lie leaves a trace.
Razik's smile didn't vanish this time. It grew.
"Aryas," he repeated, softly. "The old ones. The pillars. The heart of the world — if you believe such things." He circled slowly, like a lion enjoying the last few steps before the leap. "You see, I'm not like those blind fools who call them superstition. I know the truth. I've seen the fractures. And I've seen what happens when someone touches that truth without understanding it."
He stopped behind Adam.
"You haven't touched it yet," he said. "But I suspect it's waking in you."
Adam stared straight ahead, breathing evenly, even as he felt the weight of Razik's presence just behind his neck. The chains at his wrists creaked quietly as his muscles tensed.
"You're reaching," Adam said finally. "You want it to be true. You're hoping I know something, because you're afraid you don't."
Razik was quiet for a moment.
And then… he laughed.
A soft, dry sound. Controlled. But not humorless.
"I like you," he said. "You remind me of someone I buried."
He moved again, stepping around to face Adam.
"You won't talk willingly. That's clear," he said. "But you will talk. There are… methods."
The smile faded now, but his voice remained calm — too calm.
"Even lions break, Adam. Even gods bleed, if you know where to cut."
Adam looked up at him, eyes like steel.
"So cut," he said. "But you won't find anything in me that bows to you."
Razik regarded him in silence.
Then, almost gently, he reached out and placed a single clawed fingertip against Adam's chest — just above the heart.
"I'm not going to break your bones," he whispered. "Not yet."
His hand dropped.
"I'm going to break your hope."
_____________________________________
As if on command, Razik flicked his wrist — not with force, but with that quiet, terrible ease of someone who had never needed to raise his voice to be obeyed. The motion was casual, almost elegant, like a painter beginning a stroke across canvas.
From the corners of the chamber, they emerged.
The Hyena Tracients — monstrous silhouettes hunched with muscle and menace — stepped out of the darkness on silent paws, their movements deliberate, their teeth bared in twisted, gleeful anticipation. They came in twos and threes, thick-limbed and slow, yet somehow more terrifying for it, like beasts who knew the chase was over. Their yellow eyes gleamed like tarnished gold, reflecting the faint firelight with a sickly gleam. Their claws scraped against the stone as they drew closer, the sound sharp, like a butcher's knives being dragged across a slab.
Adam tensed.
Every instinct in his body screamed to fight, to leap, to defend — but the chains held him fast. They did not rattle, for he refused to thrash. Still, the cold iron cut deep against his wrists and ankles, pressing into fur and skin and the pulse beneath. A quiet, cruel reminder: You are not free.
And yet… in his mind, he ran.
Not away — never that. But forward. Through the shadows of thought, past the iron, past the fear. He reached for the smallest flicker — the place inside himself that had not yet dimmed. Kon. His friend. His brother-in-arms. His shadow on the battlefield. He's out there. He's still fighting. Somewhere beyond the stone walls and poisoned air, Kon was moving. Hunting. Planning.
Adam closed his eyes for the briefest breath. His thoughts quieted into a single point of flame.
We promised. We don't give up. Not ever.
The Hyenas stopped a pace before him. Their breath came in snarls, warm and rancid, drifting across his face like the exhale of a furnace. One of them licked its lips, tongue long and unnatural, teeth jagged as broken glass. Another chuckled, low and guttural — not laughter, but hunger. A few tilted their heads, curious, as if wondering where to begin.
Adam did not move.
He swallowed hard, his throat dry, his heartbeat thundering in his ears. But he kept his eyes level. His stillness was not surrender — it was resistance. The only kind left to him.
From his seat, Razik watched.
He did not smile now.
He savored.
There was something about the tension — the moment stretched taut between fear and violence — that pleased him. The artistry of control. The patience of cruelty.
He waited just long enough for Adam to begin bracing for pain.
And then, with a flick of his hand, he dismissed them.
"Not yet," Razik murmured, almost to himself.
The Hyenas paused, blinked, and then slunk backward like smoke withdrawing from a flame. They disappeared into the corners once more — vanishing so cleanly it was as though they had never been there at all.
Adam exhaled — not relief, but readjustment. The threat had passed. But the game had changed.
Razik stood.
"I'd prefer we do this my way," he said, his voice now silk again — dangerous in its softness. "Slowly."
Adam didn't answer.
Razik walked in a slow circle, fingers clasped behind his back, each step echoing lightly across the stone. The air thickened around him — not from magic, but from meaning. As if the room itself feared the next words.
"The Aryas," Razik began, "are more than relics. They are truths shaped into form. Concepts made flesh. Each one a lens through which the world can be rewritten."
He paused before Adam, tilting his head.
"And the Arya of Creation… that one," he whispered, "can birth worlds from thought. Can pull down stars, or raise valleys from dust. In the right hands, it is salvation."
A pause.
"In mine… it is correction."
Adam's fingers tightened against the iron.
He knew these stories. Legends, Dirac had called them once, late at night beneath the blue-glass stars. Not bedtime tales, but memories. The Arya of Creation — the first and most potent. It had not been built, but found. Woven into the bones of the world by Asalan Himself, they said, hidden where only the true line might awaken it.
His line.
My family kept it hidden for generations.
And now Razik was close.
Too close.
"Where is it?" Razik asked.
The question was spoken without force. No threats. No raised voice. Just inevitability.
Adam answered without hesitation. "I don't know."
The lie was clean.
But Razik was a connoisseur of lies. He tasted the falsehood on the air the way a wolf tastes blood in snow. His eyes did not narrow. His lips did not curl. Instead, he simply stepped back.
"We'll see," he said.
There was no fury in him. That was what made it worse.
Fury breaks fast.
But this?
This was patience sharpened to a blade.
He turned and began to walk toward the door, his cloak whispering behind him, trailing shadows in his wake.
"Rest well, Adam," he said as he reached the threshold. "Tomorrow, the truth begins to bleed."
And then he was gone.
The door sealed behind him with a heavy, iron sigh.
Alone once more, Adam let his breath out — slow and controlled.
The pain would come. That was certain.
But he would endure.
Not for defiance alone.
Not for pride.
But because something inside him had stirred.
The Arya of Creation.
It was there — beneath his thoughts, behind his bones — like a buried sun, waiting to rise.
He didn't know how to reach it.
Not yet.
But it knew him.
And it was watching.
Adam closed his eyes.
In the darkness, he saw not chains, not dungeons.
He saw the faces of those he loved.
Dirac.
Amaia.
Kon.
And beyond them all… a whisper of a lion's roar in a field of stars.
"I will not break," he whispered.
Not tonight.
Not ever.