Darkness above yawns wider. A thin sliver of sky — or starlight? It might be the surface glow, might be hallucination. I flex up.
I see.
A shaft of dim light, cold but pure. I push toward it, every breath a fire-burst. The smell of earth twisting — ozone, damp stone, rain-kissed pine from forests far above the rim.
I don’t look back. Not yet.
My hand finds another ledge. My knuckles snap as rock gives. I slide — a chunk of stone careens downward, smashessomewhere below, and the echo rattles like doom. For a pulse I see the bottom of the shaft — mist, soft gloom, forest-moon sky beyond. I vomit blood, swallow dark air, taste the salt of fear.
Then — I find another hold. Claw-hand spills blood. Another ledge. A groan from joints. A crack in bone-spurs.
Then light.
Real light. Pale, shaking, alien-star glow filtering down the shaft. The world smells like cold pine and wind. I taste it on my tongue. And something else: hope.
I pull myself through the last ledge. Spurred boots scrape loose stone. I brace. One foot touches firm ground. Another.
I stand. Shaking. Blood stains armor. Ribs ache in rhythm with breathing. My vision swims, a halo of pain behind red-rimmed sight. But I stand.
I draw in a breath of outside air. Cold, clean, alive. Feels like life. Feels like need.
I close my eyes. Let the wind tear across my skin. Let the cold claw deep.
Because I know the path forward.
And it ends where every betrayal began.
I lick blood from my lips. Taste iron — then pine and rain.
“Freya,” I whisper to the wind.
No roar. No promise. Just a vow, carried on the air.
I’m coming.
Not as king. Not as conqueror. But as bone, fire, and hunger.
I gather myself — arm over ribs, cloak torn, spurs broken, blood seeping. Pain a constant hum under life. Every breath a fight.
But the climb has broken something deeper than bones.
It’s forged purpose.
And as long as I draw breath — stone, metal, world — I will not stop.
I do not pray. I do not plead.
I climb.
And I hunt.
Darkness still wrists the world — but now there are voices. Voices in the wind, echoes of memory, ghosts of blood and bone that whisper to me as I claw up the walls of stone.
At first, I think I’m dying. Every breath rips knives through ribs. My forearms burn. My palms slide on slick rock. Blood mixes with sweat — a thin paste that tastes of salt, metal, and failure.
But then a voice — ragged and familiar.
“Steady… one claw at a time.”
