Two Years Later.
The Divine Domain did not forgive. It only consumed.
Zoran woke before his eyes even opened. His body was the first thing to register the morning—a dull, heavy ache that settled deep in his marrow.
He rolled off his pallet of dried moss, hitting the stone floor with a heavy thud. The gravity here was a jealous lover; it pulled at his skin, his eyelids, and his bones, demanding he stay down. For the first year, waking up had felt like lifting a boulder off his chest. Now, at twelve years old, it just felt like life.
Zoran pushed himself up. His arms shook slightly, the muscles corded and dense, far too defined for a boy of his age. He wasn't the soft Prince of Solmir anymore. The baby fat was gone, burned away by starvation and constant exertion, replaced by the lean, hungry look of a alley cat.
He walked to the window of the makeshift fortress Vorn had constructed. It wasn't much—a small keep reinforced with debris from the Aethalian ruins—but it had walls, and walls were the difference between sleeping and being eaten.
Outside, the sky was the same bruising purple it had been for 730 days. There was no sun, only the shifting ribbons of sapphire light that offered no warmth.
Zoran looked at his reflection in a piece of polished black metal propped against the wall. His ash-blonde hair was shorn short with a knife to keep it out of his eyes. But it was the eyes themselves that had changed. They were no longer just blue; they shimmered with a faint, unnatural resonance, a side effect of living in a world saturated with raw magic.
"Two years," he whispered, his voice raspy from the dry air.
He turned to the corner of the room. A heavy curtain made of stitched beast hides separated his quarters from the Queen's.
Zoran pulled the curtain back gently.
Queen Eliana lay on a bed of scavenged silks. She was pale, her skin almost translucent, looking more like a porcelain doll than a living woman. The air of the Divine Realm was too rich, too heavy for her. Without the King's Stone to protect her, she was slowly fading, her life force leaking out to feed the hungry void around them.
Vorn sat in the corner, as he always did, sleeping upright with his greatsword across his knees. The Commander hadn't taken his armor off in two years. The metal was scratched and pitted, losing its luster, but the man inside was as immovable as a mountain.
"Is she awake?" Zoran asked softly.
Vorn's eyes snapped open. Instant alertness. "No. She stirred once during the false-night. She asked for water."
Zoran nodded, a knot tightening in his stomach. "We need fresh water. The cistern is low. And we need meat."
Vorn stood up, the joints of his armor groaning. "The Scavenger Drakes are migrating through the lower ruins. Dangerous."
"Good," Zoran said, reaching for his weapon—a sword carved from the rib bone of a beast they had killed six months ago. It was ugly and jagged, but it didn't conduct the chaotic magic of the realm like metal did. "I'm tired of rats."
The ruins of Aethalium were a labyrinth of gold and silence.
Zoran moved through the shattered streets in a low crouch. Vorn was ten paces behind him, a silent shadow. This was the deal: Vorn would watch, but he would not interfere unless Zoran was about to die.
To learn to swim, you must swallow water, Vorn had said.
Zoran tracked the signs. Claw marks on a pillar. A pile of acidic droppings. The air smelled of sulfur and ozone.
There.
A Scavenger Drake was tearing at a patch of luminous moss near a collapsed fountain. The beast was the size of a pony, covered in scales that shifted color from grey to violet. It had six legs and a tail that ended in a bone-club.
Zoran's heart hammered against his ribs, but he forced his breathing to slow. Fear is fuel, he told himself.
He gripped the bone sword. He needed to be fast. The gravity made sustained combat impossible; he would tire in minutes.
Zoran lunged.
He burst from cover, closing the ten feet between them in a second. He aimed for the flank, swinging the bone sword with both hands.
The Drake was faster. It didn't turn; it simply lashed out with its tail.
Wham.
The club struck Zoran in the chest.
It felt like being kicked by a horse. Zoran was launched backward, skidding across the crystal pavement. He gasped, the air knocked out of him, black spots dancing in his vision.
The Drake hissed, its frill expanding, revealing rows of needle-teeth. It charged.
Zoran scrambled up, ignoring the screaming pain in his ribs. He couldn't outrun it. He had to divert it.
He tried to summon the magic of Solmir. He pictured the rune for Flash in his mind.
Ignite, he commanded mentally.
Nothing happened. Just a pathetic spark that fizzled instantly in the oppressive atmosphere. The Divine Domain smothered human magic.
"Use the environment!" Vorn's voice roared from the shadows.
Zoran looked up. The Drake leaped, jaws wide.
Zoran dropped to his knees, sliding under the beast's belly. He didn't slash at the scales; they were too hard. He slammed his shoulder into the crumbling base of a heavy golden statue next to him.
The ancient masonry gave way. The statue toppled.
CRASH.
The golden stone slammed onto the Drake's hind legs. The beast shrieked, pinned to the ground, thrashing and snapping at the air.
Zoran didn't wait. He scrambled onto the creature's back, avoiding the snapping jaws, and drove his bone sword into the soft spot at the base of the skull.
Black blood sprayed over his face. The beast seized once, then went still.
Zoran rolled off the carcass, landing in the dirt. He coughed, spitting out blood.
Vorn stepped out from the shadows. He looked at the dead beast, then at Zoran.
"Messy," Vorn grunted. "You relied on the rune again. It almost got you killed."
"I thought... I thought I had it," Zoran wheezed, wiping his eyes.
"Solmir is gone, Prince," Vorn said, hauling the carcass onto his massive shoulder. "The old magic is dead here. Stop trying to be a wizard and learn to be a killer."
Back at the fortress, the training did not stop.
Zoran lay face down in the dirt of the courtyard, coughing up blood. His practice sword lay three feet away.
"Get up," Vorn's voice was like grinding stones.
Zoran groaned, pushing himself up. The adrenaline of the hunt had faded, leaving only the exhaustion. His hands were scarred, his fingernails caked with violet dust.
"I... I can't," Zoran wheezed. "It's too fast."
Facing Zoran was not Vorn, but a second Scavenger Drake—this one alive, chained to a pillar in the center of the yard. Vorn had captured it weeks ago for this exact purpose.
The lizard-like creature hissed, straining against its bonds. It was hungry.
"The Legion will not be slower!" Vorn barked, pacing the perimeter. "The beasts out there will not wait for you to catch your breath! You are the last King of Solmir. Act like it!"
Zoran wiped his mouth. He looked up at the window of the keep. He could see the faint outline of his mother's bed.
She was the hourglass. Every breath she took was a grain of sand falling. If he wasn't strong enough to open the gate, she would die here, buried in an alien world.
He grabbed the bone sword. The handle was slick with his own sweat.
"Again."
Vorn released the chain mechanism.
The Drake lunged. This time, Zoran didn't try to block. He didn't try to use magic. He remembered the pain of the tail-whip from the morning hunt.
Anticipate.
He watched the Drake's shoulder dip. Left.
Zoran sidestepped. The motion was minimal, efficient. The claws raked the air where his chest had been a microsecond before.
Zoran didn't hesitate. He stepped into the beast's guard.
He drove the bone sword down, putting the full weight of the heavy gravity behind the strike. He aimed for the soft cartilage between the neck scales.
Crunch.
The beast collapsed, twitching.
Zoran stood panting, his chest heaving. He looked at Vorn, waiting for the critique.
The big man didn't smile—Vorn never smiled—but he nodded slowly. "Better. But you hesitated at the kill. You looked at its eyes."
Vorn walked over and placed a heavy hand on Zoran's shoulder. "Hesitation is death, Zoran. Pity is a luxury we cannot afford."
That night, in the makeshift chambers of the queen, Zoran, who has secretly been going into the runes, has discovered a rune that he inscribed into the walls of the queen's chamber, the chambers now radiating with a faint, gold-white light from the crystalline fragments woven into the walls to form a temporary Stasis field. They slowed the Void's creeping corruption, granting his mother this fragile reprieve.
The chamber smelled faintly of ozone and ancient stone, but inside the golden light, the air was mercifully still.
"Zoran," the Queen whispered. Her hand, frail and pale, reached for his cheek. Her skin felt cool, like marble against his scarred face. "The light you found... it is a kindness. I feel the silence of this world less."
Zoran leaned into her touch, clutching the knowledge that he had bought them time. "I will find a permanent cure, Mother. I promise."
Eliana gave a weak, sorrowful smile. "My Prince, you carry a crown of fire. Your father, Avelon, carried the Edict as a shield. He used its Arts to protect, but he was consumed by the burden. The Edict demands your soul's greatest effort. It demands the rage and the fear." She squeezed his hand, the effort visibly draining her. "Never let those pieces define the King you will be. Promise me you will find the warmth, Zoran."
Zoran didn't hesitate. "I promise."
Right after watching his mother sleep a bit peacefully today, thanks to the runs for Aethalian, the silence of the fortress was broken only by the crackle of the fire. He and Vorn sat in the main hall, huddled around a blaze fueled by the dried bones and luminous essence of slain creatures.
The meat of the Drake was tough and tasted of sulfur, but Zoran ate it ravenously. His body demanded fuel to keep up with the gravity.
Zoran cleaned his bone sword, scraping the dried black blood from the serrated edge. Vorn sat opposite him, sharpening his greatsword with a rhythmic shhhing-shhhing sound.
"Vorn?"
The rhythm stopped. "Hmn...?"
"Do you think Father is watching?"
The question hung in the air, heavy and childish.
Vorn paused. He looked down at his gauntlet. The King's Stone was fused there, pulsing with a steady, sorrowful light. It was the only piece of Avelon Kai they had left.
"Avelon Kai does not watch, Zoran," Vorn said, his voice low, vibrating through his chest plate. "He waits."
"Waits for what?"
"He waits for you to be strong enough to carry what he left behind," Vorn said. He looked up, his eyes meeting Zoran's. "The Edict isn't just a key, Zoran. It's a burden. Your father broke under it. He died so you would have time to grow strong enough to bear it."
Zoran looked into the fire. The violet flames danced in his eyes. He didn't feel like a King. He felt like a boy holding a sharp bone.
But then he thought of the silence outside. He thought of the Prowler. He thought of the Legions that had burned his home.
"I won't break," Zoran whispered.
Vorn went back to sharpening his sword. Shhhing. Shhhing.
"We shall see, Prince," Vorn grumbled. "Now sleep. Tomorrow, we hunt the Prowler."
Zoran lay back on the hard stone, closing his eyes. The gravity pulled at him, trying to drag him down into the earth.
Let it pull, Zoran thought. I'll push back harder.