Kael's POV
The twin moons bled red above the horizon, casting on the ruins of Eldenmere in a hellish glow.
Smoke curled from the shattered towers. The air reeked of ash, molten stone… and old, broken oaths.
They said it was an omen.
That the old gods were watching.
That blood would be answered with blood.
I didn't give a damn about omens.
I'd already bled for this. Burned for it. Killed for it.
Tonight, I wasn't a soldier.
Or a cursed dragonkin.
Or a pawn in someone else's war.
I was the reckoning.
I stood before the obsidian gates—no crown on my head, no army at my back. Only the silence of the dead and the wind snarling through the charred remains of banners that had once flown with the Tyrant's mark.
The iron doors groaned.
And he stepped through.
The Tyrant King.
Clad in blackened steel, crowned in the bones of conquered beasts, his cloak dragging the weight of a hundred fallen clans. His sword—a jagged blade rumored to be forged from the spine of a dragon—rested in his hand like an extension of his own cruelty.
His eyes met mine. Cold. Hungry.
"You come to kneel," he sneered.
I drew my sword.
No words. No declarations.
The time for speeches died with my brothers on their execution pyres, which he called a battlefield.
He lunged first.
A blur of steel and shadow.
I met him head-on—blades clashing in a burst of sparks that lit the darkness between us.
The shock of it rattled through my bones.
He fought like a beast cornered. Brutal. Cunning. Merciless. Every strike aimed to break, to kill, to remind me that I was nothing in the eyes of kings.
But I…
I fought like a man who had already died once.
And didn't give a damn if I died again.
We clashed again and again—steel shrieking, the ground splitting beneath our feet.
I ducked a sweeping blow meant for my throat. Drove my elbow into his ribs. His snarl split the air. He retaliated with a headbutt that sent fire sparking behind my eyes.
Blood slicked my jaw. I spat it out and kept moving.
Every swing was a memory.
The burning of the Skyvault Spire.
The screams at Eldenmere.
The brother I'd dragged from the gallows—already dead, neck snapped by this bastard's hand.
I gave those memories form. Weight. Steel.
And I drove them into him.
Our blades locked, pressed between us—his teeth bared, mine gritted against the pressure.
"You're nothing but ash waiting for the wind," he snarled.
I leaned in, voice low.
"So burn with me."
I broke the lock—twisting, dropping low, feinting right before rolling beneath his backswing.
My sword sang.
And drove straight through the bastard's heart.
He gasped. One breath. A choking, broken sound.
I met his eyes as the fire drained from them.
There was no mercy there.
No triumph.
Only the cold, hollow satisfaction of a man finishing what should have been done a lifetime ago.
The Tyrant King collapsed at my feet.
The moons flared brighter—
Or maybe that was just the fire in my veins.
I didn't scream.
I didn't cry.
I bent down.
Ripped the shattered crown from his brow.
And I turned my back on his corpse.
I walked toward the waiting darkness, dragging behind me the last chains of the old world—
And the weight of every promise I'd made that had been broken.