It began with a sound.
Low. Faint. A dull, humming throb—like a heartbeat.
Then came the pain.
It crept in quiet, like cold water bleeding through cracked stone. His ribs ached with every breath. His cheek pulsed. Something sticky clung to his skin. Blood, maybe. He blinked.
Darkness answered.
For a moment, Kresos wasn't sure if he'd truly woken, or if he was still drifting inside some half-formed nightmare. Everything felt distant. Detached. But the cobblestones beneath him were too sharp to be a dream.
He opened his eyes.
Night had fallen.
The sky was stained violet, smeared with the last breath of sunset. Lanterns flickered weakly beyond the mist, casting long shadows over the empty streets. Somewhere far off, a cart groaned over stone. A drunken laugh cracked through the air, then vanished.
Mirkull whispered now. That was as quiet as she ever got.
Kresos didn't move.
He lay there, still and aching, listening to the city breathe.
He didn't remember passing out. Just the flash of fists. The taste of wax and blood. The laughter. And then—nothing.
How long had it been? An hour? More? He had no idea.
Only one thing was certain: no one had bothered to move him.
Eventually, he sat up.
Pain stitched through his torso with every motion. He touched the dried blood crusted on his jaw. His fingers trembled. His hands were empty.
The crate was gone.
A few shattered candles still littered the gutter nearby—twisted lumps of wax, already hardened into useless shapes. He didn't gather them. What would be the point?
One step. Then another.
He started walking.
The capital at night was different. Quieter. Slower. The shimmer of noble gold had dimmed behind shuttered windows. Only shadows remained. Shadows, and those too stubborn—or too lost—to sleep.
Kresos kept to the edges.
He moved like a ghost. Silent, forgotten.
Home wasn't far.
Just beyond the edge of Mirkull. Past the part the maps didn't bother naming. Where stone gave way to packed earth, and the city started pretending it had no memory of the people who lived there.
His father would be waiting. Or not.
The outskirts were dead quiet. No guards. No lights. Just houses slumped in the dark like men too tired to stand. The streets were dirt, uneven and pitted. The buildings leaned sideways, held together by old nails.
Kresos turned down a crooked alley.
Stopped in front of a rotting door.
Home.
The roof sagged like a broken spine. The walls were cracked, patched with moss and mud. One window had been covered with an old rag instead of glass. To a stranger, it looked abandoned.
To Kresos, it looked exactly the same as it always had.
He pushed the door open.
It groaned like it hated him.
Inside, the air was thick—damp, sour, soaked with the smell of old liquor and sweat. It clung to the walls, heavy as rot.
Kresos didn't react.
The room was dim. A stub of a candle burned on the table, casting light that flickered more than it glowed. Wax had melted across the wood in lazy drips. Empty flasks surrounded it like fallen soldiers.And in the middle of it all sat his father.
His shirt was stained. His hair — what remained of it, was greasy. His presence filled the room like a bad memory.
Half-conscious. Slumped. One hand on the table. The other around a bottle.
He didn't look up. Just stirred slightly, as if surfacing from a shallow, pointless dream.
"You sell 'em?" he muttered. Voice flat. Eyes closed.
Kresos didn't answer.
Didn't need to.
His father snorted. "Didn't think so."
He leaned back in his chair, staring blankly at the ceiling, bottle swaying loosely in his hand.
"Can't do anything right," he said, like he was reading from a script. "Send you out with good product and you come back empty handed. Again."
No heat. No rage. Just tired contempt.
Kresos stood in the doorway, bruises darkening across his skin. Blood crusted along his temple.
He stayed quiet.
He'd heard it all before.
And he'd hear it again.
Still, something inside him twisted. The silence stretched too long. Eventually, he broke it.
"I told you it wouldn't work," he said quietly. "They wouldn't even hear me out. I didn't even get to speak with the owner of the place"
His father exhaled. A breath that was half sigh, half curse.
"Don't start."
He took a sip. Barely enough to count.
"I make the candles. You sell 'em. That's the deal. You fail, that's on you."
Kresos' fists tightened.
"They wouldn't even look at me."
"They're nobles," his father replied with a shrug, as if it explained everything. " You should've sold the whole crate in an hour. They got coins to spend."
His eyes finally lifted. Met his son's.
He saw the bruises. The blood. The broken look behind the anger.
And frowned.
Not out of concern.
Out of irritation.
"What the hell did you get into now?"
Kresos didn't answer.
His father squinted. Rubbed his face with a groan.
"You'd better not bring trouble here. I've got enough of it without the Guard sniffing around."
Kresos stayed where he was.
His voice was flat.
"They're not coming."
His father grunted and said nothing more.
A long silence followed.
Then, after a beat, Kresos spoke again—this time more quietly.
"Why didn't you become a dragon hunter?"
His father blinked. The question caught him off guard.
Then he let out a bitter chuckle.
"Because I'm not a fool," he said. "Chasing monsters gets you dead. Fast. Especially when your targets are the most fearsome creatures that the gods have created."
Kresos looked down.
He already knew the story. Everyone did.
Dragonbane used to mean something.
When dragons crawled out of the Western continent and lit up the sky, everyone panicked. Soldiers marched. Cities burned.
But the wise kings didn't send armies. They sent a Dragonbane.
Just one. That's all it ever took.
No speeches. No banners. Just a magic sword, knowledge, and a killer's instinct.
Where others died screaming, they walked through fire.
And they got paid like kings for it.
Kresos' grandfather had been the last. A man who still lived in stories. But when his son—Kresos' father—refused the legacy, it all unraveled.
Banished. Cut off. Disowned.
The old man burned the fortune before he'd see it passed down. He drank, spent, and wasted what centuries had built—just to spite the son who turned his back on it.
Now, the Dragonbane name was a joke.
An echo of something the world had already forgotten.
Kresos didn't respond.
His father was already turning back to his drink, sinking deeper into the flickering dark.
The candle on the table had almost gone out.
Kresos watched the flame stutter. His jaw clenched. Thoughts swirled in his chest—sharp and bitter.
He wanted to scream. To demand answers. To ask why his name had to die in the gutter, why he was the one left scraping wax from the dirt while his father drank the past away.
But nothing came out.
What was the point?
He buried it. Like always.
Turned. Walked down the narrow hall.
His door creaked as it closed. His room was little more than a box—just a mattress, a crooked shelf, and a curtain that flapped where glass should've been.
He didn't light a candle.
Didn't bother washing off the blood.
He lay down on the mattress, arms under his head, staring at the dark.
Pain pulsed in his ribs. He welcomed it.
It reminded him he was still here.
That he hadn't disappeared completely.
And as the night wrapped around him like a cold blanket, the resentment stirred again—quiet, slow, and all too familiar.
He closed his eyes.
Sleep came.
But not kindly.