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CHAPTER 24 — The Night the Sky Broke
The storm came without warning.
Not rain. Not thunder.
This was something older — the kind of storm that didn't belong to the world of men.
The sky tore open with a cracking sound so sharp it felt like the heavens themselves were shattering. A jagged line of black-gold light ripped across the night, vibrating like a wounded beast trying to break free from its cage.
The camp fell silent.
Flames guttered in the fire pits, shrinking back like they were afraid. Horses kicked against their tethers. Even veteran warriors, men who had faced monsters and armies, stared upward with their breath trapped in their throats.
Dragonsong was the first to move.
A pressure slammed into the back of his skull — a weight, ancient and intelligent, like invisible hands gripping his thoughts. His knees nearly buckled. For a heartbeat, his vision split, showing two realities at once:
The camp beneath him…
And a throne of ash floating in endless, devouring darkness.
Someone sat on that throne.
Someone he prayed he would never see again.
The Sovereign.
"The Sovereign is waking…" Dragonsong whispered, voice barely holding steady.
Arin was at his side in seconds, breath uneven, eyes wide from the aftershock. "What was that? Are we under attack?"
"No." Dragonsong swallowed hard. "This was a summons."
Before either of them could speak further, the earth trembled so violently dust leapt into the air. The ground split open at the center of the camp like something was clawing its way up from deep beneath them.
A figure erupted from the crack — rising, not climbing. Almost floating.
A woman.
Barefoot, dressed in torn white robes, her long hair glowing with a pale fire that wasn't natural. Her eyes blazed with the sigil of the Sovereign — the same mark that haunted Dragonsong's nightmares.
But she wasn't an enemy.
She was shaking. Terrified.
"He's breaking free!" she screamed, voice cracking like breaking glass. "You don't have time. None of us do!"
Soldiers scrambled back, instinctively forming a ring around her, shields raised. Some aimed arrows. Others whispered prayers.
Dragonsong stepped forward, hand raised for calm.
"Who are you?"
The woman collapsed to her knees, palms pressed to the dirt as if begging the earth to hold her together.
"A Herald… one of the last," she breathed. Tears glowed on her cheeks like molten gold. "I was sent to warn you. The chains that bound him — they're unraveling."
Arin shook his head. "That's impossible. The chains were forged by—"
"By gods who are now dead," the Herald cut in sharply. "And he has learned every weakness they left behind."
Another thunderous crack rolled through the sky.
The tear widened.
Golden light — too bright, too wrong — poured through the wound like sunlight bleeding into a world that didn't deserve it.
Dragonsong felt something cold settle in his chest.
"This changes everything."
"No," the Herald whispered, lifting her face slowly. "This reveals everything."
She raised a trembling hand and pointed directly at Dragonsong.
"You were not chosen to defeat him…"
The entire camp held its breath.
"…you were chosen to replace him."
The silence that followed was suffocating.
Arin stepped back, staring at Dragonsong as if he had become someone else entirely. Soldiers who once saw him as a leader now looked at him with something close to fear… or worship.
Dragonsong felt the words crash into him. Replace the Sovereign? Become the very thing he despised? The destiny he had run from all his life suddenly wrapped itself around him like a chain forged from fire and shadow.
He forced himself to breathe.
"Then tell me," he said quietly, his voice steady even as his heart roared like a storm. "Where do I start?"
The Herald's expression softened — grief, pity, and urgency all mixed together.
"At the place where he died," she said. "And where you were born."
She turned toward the glowing horizon, where the gold light spilled like a second dawn breaking through the cracks of the sky.
"The Cinder Gate has opened."
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