Only emptiness, the kind that haunted places where song and laughter used to live.
They stepped to the edge and stopped.
What had once been the market square was now a scatter of broken stone and crooked signposts. Roofs were gone, but some walls still stood, cracked and leaning, as if still protecting something. The fountain at the center was blackened, but still whole. Water trickled weakly from its spout—as if it, too, refused to stop.
There were no bodies.
But there were shadows of lives.
And somehow—
that felt worse.
Viktor stood still. As if he were waiting for something. Anything.
Tarnic murmured, “They came without warning. Before first light. Before anyone could fight. Could run.”
Amerei closed her eyes, tears breaking down her cheeks—a child’s red cloak lay folded on a stoop, untouched by wind.
Viktor looked up at the sky. Smoke clung to the clouds. Hazy streams of sunlight.
His mind churned, tormented. How had it come to this? Where were the voices crying warning, the shadows that should have stirred? He searched the sky for answers and found none—only smoke-dimmed light and the bitter taste of blame searing his tongue.
The Midnight, gifted to see, knew too late.
And he, Endowed to fight, didn’t know at all.
His eyes slammed shut,chest swelling beneath his leather cuirass.
Heat rose under his armor, fire stoked by grief. Wind curled tight around him, as if bracing for war. His words came slowly. As if he were stepping out in the void.
“I will avenge our people.”
He opened his eyes.
“I am Vek drakar ven’dros.”
(I am the one who walks into fire… and lives.)
“Ruakite.”
A hush fell over the elders.
One by one they turned to look at him.
His Endowment burned beneath his heart. Rising with every breath.
He saw it.
The ambush.
The way the dragons split the sky.
Suddenly, the valley was a battlefield. Viktor—flanked by ballistae. The Sagittarii of Vykenra behind him. Dragons would come, two at a time. One for him. One for the archers. His sword, the wind, the fire. Tearing wings. Shredding scales.
No dragon would cross the threshold of the desert.
He swore it.
