One Month Later – Laboron
Kael had settled into his family's home, the rhythms of domestic life slowly stitching together the years they'd lost. Mornings training with his father, evenings helping his mother in the kitchen, lazy afternoons entertaining Katie with exaggerated tales (carefully edited to omit the near-death parts).
He still hadn't told them everything. Some wounds needed more time to scar.
His nights, though, betrayed him. Dreams laced with fire and ash, of Lena's bloodied knuckles, Lusca's empty smile, and the Alpha's silent scream. He'd wake breathless, sweat-soaked, always checking that the walls around him hadn't burned to cinders. The world was safe now—safer—but his mind refused to believe it.
Sometimes, Sylvie would sit beside him as he stared out at the Laboron skyline, whispering about her dreams of the future. Sometimes, he even dared to believe in them.
Hundred Kilometers Southeast – The Blighted Glade
The forest here was dead.
Not dying—dead. Grass crumbled to ash at the slightest touch. Trees stood skeletal, their branches clutching at the sky like broken fingers. Pools of stagnant water shimmered with iridescent film, like oil and rot. And between them, corpses in varying states of decay, their empty eye sockets fixed on the clearing's center.
Then—the singing began.
A hundred voices wove together in a harmony that was anything but beautiful. The language was guttural, the syllables clicking and hissing like insects scuttling over bone. It was the kind of sound that slithered down the spine and bit deep—an ancient hymn meant not for gods, but for the abyss itself.
A figure in bone-white robes stepped forward, arms raised. The chanting ceased as if severed by a blade.
"My brothers and sisters of the Hollow Maw!" Priest Lazarus Nero's voice rang out, amplified by the silence. "Hear me! I have brought the Mother of Death to deliver us!"
The crowd erupted—howls, shrieks, the pounding of fists against chests. Some tore at their own skin in ecstasy, blood flowing freely into the cracked, cursed soil. Behind his featureless mask, Lazarus drank in their fervor.
Then—a shadow.
A wyvern passed overhead, its wings blotting out the sun for the briefest moment. Lazarus went rigid.
That silhouette...
A thousand years earlier
The boy knelt in crimson snow, his breath coming in ragged gasps. Around him, the battlefield smoldered, the air thick with the stench of charred flesh and iron. A dragon's roar split the sky, shaking the very earth beneath his knees.
"Damn it... WHY?" His voice cracked, raw with betrayal. "Father, you promised! The Mother of Death was supposed to save us!"
Shadow engulfed him.
The dragon landed with a ground-shattering impact, its obsidian scales glistening with frost and blood. Slowly, deliberately, it lowered its massive head, jaws parting to reveal a growing inferno within—the telltale glow of Dragon's Breath.
The boy looked up into that maw of flame. For a fleeting moment, his reflection danced in the beast's molten eyes.
Then—
He screamed.
The world dissolved into white-hot agony.
Present Day
Lazarus's fists clenched, nails biting deep into his palms. Blood welled, dripping onto the dead earth beneath him.
No, he thought, the phantom smell of his own burning flesh still clinging to his memory. The past is dead.
Above him, the wyvern's shadow faded. The future—his future—was close enough to taste. And this time, the fire would be his.