The noise didn't stop when the man died.
That was the first thing Draven understood.
He lay there longer than he should have, chest rising and falling too fast, fingers still curled as if they were holding something that had already been taken away. The battlefield did not pause for him. Steel still rang somewhere to his left. Men still shouted orders that were already being disobeyed. Someone screamed again, lower this time, dragged out until it faded into nothing.
The world had not noticed what he had done.
That made it worse.
Draven pushed himself onto his elbows, then sat up slowly. His head swam, the edges of his vision blurring as if the smoke had crawled inside his skull. His stomach twisted violently, and for a moment he thought he would vomit. He swallowed it down, hard, breathing through his mouth until the urge passed.
The corpse lay half on its side beside him. The man's eyes were open, fixed on the sky, empty of anything that resembled accusation. Blood pooled beneath his chest, soaking into the dirt until it disappeared.
Draven looked away.
'I'm alive.'
The thought came suddenly, sharp and undeniable.
Alive meant something here. It meant unfinished. It meant borrowed time.
He forced himself to stand, legs trembling beneath his weight. Pain flared immediately, a dull ache spreading from his ribs and shoulders, blooming in places he hadn't noticed yet. His body felt wrong, like it belonged to someone else who had abused it without permission.
He took one step.
Then another.
Nothing stopped him.
That alone felt strange.
Around him, the battlefield revealed itself more clearly now that he wasn't lying in the dirt. It stretched farther than he had realized, a churned expanse of broken ground and broken men. Some were still fighting, locked together in brutal, clumsy exchanges. Others crawled, dragging useless legs behind them, leaving dark trails in the soil. Many did not move at all.
Draven's eyes kept finding the still ones.
He clenched his jaw and forced himself to look elsewhere.
A group of soldiers rushed past him, barely sparing him a glance. Their armor marked them as part of the same force as the man he had killed, though Draven had no idea what that force was. Their faces were drawn tight, expressions stripped down to exhaustion and instinct.
One of them shouted something he didn't understand.
Another grabbed Draven's shoulder roughly. "Move! Don't stand there!"
The hand released him just as quickly, the man already gone, already forgetting he had touched him at all.
Draven staggered forward again, heart pounding. He didn't know where he was going. He only knew that standing still made him visible, and visibility got people killed.
An arrow struck the ground a short distance away, followed by another. Somewhere ahead, shields rose in a panicked wall. Draven veered instinctively, angling toward a shallow dip in the terrain where the ground sloped downward.
He half-slid, half-fell into it, landing hard on his side. Pain exploded along his arm, sharp enough to draw a hiss from his teeth. He stayed there, pressed low, breathing through clenched jaws as the world thundered above him.
The hollow offered little protection, but it was something.
Draven curled slightly, pulling his knees in. His hands shook as adrenaline began to fade, leaving behind its hollowed-out aftermath. His fingers were still stained red. No matter how he wiped them against the dirt, the color remained.
'That was real.'
The thought lingered, heavier than before.
He had expected something after. Guilt, maybe. Horror. A breakdown. Instead, there was only this creeping awareness settling into his bones, telling him that a line had been crossed and erased at the same time.
He listened.
The sounds of battle shifted gradually. Not quieter, but different. Less chaotic. More distant. Orders carried more clearly now. The frantic clashing nearby had thinned, moving away in uneven waves.
Draven risked lifting his head.
From the hollow, he could see men regrouping, forming rough lines. Banners rose through the smoke, dark shapes marked with symbols he did not recognize. The ground between the two sides was littered with bodies, creating a grim, uneven barrier no one seemed eager to cross.
A lull.
Not peace. Just exhaustion taking a breath.
Draven used it.
He pushed himself up and crawled backward, keeping low until the hollow ended against a line of shattered shields and fallen spears. He pressed himself against them, chest tight, eyes scanning everything.
This time, no one came at him.
Minutes passed.
Each one felt stolen.
As his breathing slowed, other sensations crept in. The ache in his ribs sharpened into pain. His throat burned. His hands felt raw, skin scraped and sticky with drying blood. He flexed his fingers slowly, testing them.
They worked.
So did his legs. His arms. Everything hurt, but nothing felt broken.
That realization grounded him more than anything else had.
'I can move.'
It wasn't courage. It was inventory.
A shadow fell across him.
Draven stiffened instantly, body tensing to react.
A man stood nearby, helmet dented, face streaked with grime and blood that wasn't all his own. He held a spear loosely, its tip dark. His eyes flicked over Draven quickly, assessing.
"You alive?" the man asked.
Draven nodded, then realized how stupid that looked. "Yes."
The word felt strange in his mouth.
"Good." The man turned away almost immediately. "Stay that way. Don't wander."
He walked off without waiting for a response.
Draven stared after him, something hollow twisting in his chest.
Alive was enough. That was the standard.
The man disappeared into the smoke, leaving Draven alone again.
He leaned back against the debris, letting his head rest for just a second. The sky above was a dull, lifeless gray, heavy with smoke. No sun. No warmth. Just endless ash drifting down like snow.
Another memory stirred at the edge of his mind.
A book.
A war.
Names that refused to stay still.
Draven frowned, trying to grab onto it, but the moment he focused, the sensation slipped away again, leaving only a faint pressure behind his eyes.
'Later.'
The thought came with surprising certainty.
If he survived long enough, later would come.
For now, survival was simple. Stay low. Stay unnoticed. Don't freeze.
He reached down and checked the dagger still tucked awkwardly into his grip. He hadn't realized he was holding it. His fingers loosened slowly, reluctantly, before he slid it into his belt, copying the way he had seen others do it.
It felt wrong.
It also felt necessary.
Draven exhaled slowly.
The battlefield shifted again, noise rising, men moving, commands shouted. The lull was ending.
He pushed himself to his feet.
This time, when he moved, it wasn't blind panic driving him forward.
It was intent.
And that scared him more than anything else.
Draven fell in behind the movement without fully realizing he had decided to do so. Men were shifting positions now, not charging blindly but adjusting, reforming into something that resembled order. He matched their pace instinctively, keeping several steps back, close enough not to stand out but far enough to avoid being dragged into the front.
The ground grew worse the farther he walked.
Mud mixed with blood under his boots, thick enough to slow every step. Broken weapons lay scattered everywhere. A snapped spear shaft here, a dented helmet there. He nearly tripped over a shield half-buried in the dirt, its emblem scratched and warped beyond recognition. Each object felt like a warning, a reminder of how fast a living man could turn into something discarded.
A groan reached his ears.
Draven stopped before he realized it.
The sound came again, low and strained, barely audible over the distant clash of steel. He turned slowly, scanning the ground until he saw the source. A young soldier lay on his back a few paces away, armor torn open at the side. Blood soaked through the fabric beneath, dark and spreading, but the man was still breathing.
Barely.
Draven's feet refused to move for a moment.
'Keep walking.'
The thought came sharp and practical.
He had no training. No authority. No idea what to do. Stopping here was dangerous. Lingering meant attention. Attention meant death.
The man groaned again, eyes fluttering open, unfocused. His gaze drifted until it landed on Draven.
"Water," he whispered.
The word barely carried.
Draven's throat tightened.
He glanced around instinctively. No one else was looking. The soldiers nearby were too focused on their own movement, their own survival. The wounded man's plea existed in a narrow pocket of space that only Draven seemed to occupy.
'I can't help him.'
He knew that. He didn't have water. He didn't have medical knowledge. He didn't even know whose side the man was on, not that it mattered.
The man's fingers twitched weakly, clawing at the dirt.
Draven crouched before he could stop himself.
Up close, the man looked younger than he had first thought. Dirt and blood masked most of his features, but his face still held the softness of someone who hadn't fully hardened yet. His lips were cracked. His breathing rattled in his chest.
Draven swallowed.
"I don't have water," he said quietly.
The words sounded thin.
The man nodded faintly, as if he had already expected that answer. His eyes drifted shut again, chest rising unevenly.
Draven stayed there longer than he should have.
He didn't know why.
Maybe it was because the man was still alive. Maybe it was because leaving felt like a second kind of killing. Maybe it was because this moment, quiet and horrible, felt more real than anything else around him.
The man exhaled once, long and shuddering.
Then didn't inhale again.
Draven watched it happen.
There was no dramatic moment. No final words. Just absence where motion had been.
Draven stood slowly, knees stiff.
'This place eats people.'
He forced himself to turn away.
As he rejoined the shifting line of soldiers, something inside him settled, hard and cold. It wasn't cruelty. It wasn't acceptance. It was adjustment. The part of him that might have broken earlier was already learning the shape of survival.
They moved again, this time toward the rear. The fighting thinned further, giving way to shouts of command and the groan of wounded men being dragged aside. Smoke still clung to everything, but it was lighter now, lifting just enough to reveal the devastation clearly.
Rows of bodies marked where the lines had collided.
Draven avoided looking directly at them, but his eyes caught details anyway. A hand reaching upward, fingers curled as if grasping for something. A helmet split cleanly in two. A face frozen mid-scream.
He felt detached from it all, like he was watching through a pane of thick glass.
'If I stop feeling this way, I won't move.'
The thought frightened him, but he held onto it anyway.
A cluster of soldiers gathered near a low ridge. Draven followed, blending into the loose formation. No one questioned him. No one checked his insignia. In the chaos, existence was permission enough.
A man with a bloodstained cloak and a scar cutting down his cheek barked orders. Draven didn't understand most of them, but the gestures were clear enough. Hold position. Watch the field. Prepare.
Prepare for what, he didn't know.
He lowered himself to one knee behind the ridge, copying the posture of the men around him. His muscles protested immediately. Fatigue crept in now that the adrenaline was finally draining away.
His hands shook again.
Draven clenched them into fists, nails biting into his palms.
'Focus.'
He forced himself to catalog his surroundings instead of his thoughts. The slope ahead. The scattered debris. The smoke patterns. The positions of the men nearby. He noticed how the veterans stood, weight balanced, weapons held low but ready. They didn't waste movement. They didn't look around unnecessarily.
They looked tired.
Not afraid.
That difference mattered.
Time stretched strangely. Minutes blurred together, marked only by distant sounds and shifting light. The sun remained hidden, turning the world into an endless gray dusk.
At some point, rain began to fall.
It was light at first, barely more than a mist, but it was enough to weigh the smoke down, dragging it closer to the ground. Mud deepened underfoot. Blood thinned and spread, turning the earth slick and treacherous.
The rain felt cold on Draven's skin.
It grounded him.
'I'm still here.'
The thought surfaced unbidden, quieter this time.
A horn sounded again, different from before. Shorter. Sharper.
The soldiers around him stirred, some standing, others tightening grips on their weapons. Draven mirrored them, heart rate climbing.
But the charge never came.
Instead, the opposing side began to withdraw slowly, deliberately, pulling back beyond the visible field. There was no cheer. No triumph. Just wary silence broken by occasional shouts.
The battle, at least for now, was over.
Draven didn't feel relief.
He felt exposed.
As the tension drained from the men around him, the weight of what had happened began to press in again. His body ached more fiercely now. His head throbbed. Hunger twisted in his gut, sharp and sudden.
He hadn't eaten.
He had no idea when he last had.
That thought triggered something strange. A flicker of memory that wasn't quite his. A desk. A screen. Words scrolling endlessly downward. Comments. Chapters. A war arc he had skimmed through without much thought.
Draven staggered slightly.
'This is familiar.'
The realization came slowly, like something rising from deep water.
Not the details. Not names or events. Just the shape of it. The sense that this place, this war, existed somewhere else before it existed here.
His head pulsed painfully as he tried to dig deeper.
Nothing surfaced.
Whatever connection existed was buried too far down, sealed behind shock and blood and exhaustion.
Draven let it go.
If answers existed, they would have to wait.
A group of soldiers passed out canteens. When one was shoved into his hands, Draven nearly dropped it from surprise. He stared at it for half a second before uncorking it and drinking greedily.
The water tasted faintly metallic, but it was water.
He forced himself to stop before he emptied it completely, remembering the dying man's whisper earlier. The memory stung, but he ignored it.
Survival first.
As the rain continued to fall, the battlefield began to change. The living moved away. The dead remained. Fires smoldered and died. Smoke thinned further.
Draven sat with his back against the ridge, staring out at the field.
He didn't know who he was here. He didn't know what he was supposed to become. He only knew that he had crossed into something irreversible.
The boy who might have hesitated no longer existed.
And whatever came next would be built on this ground, soaked in blood and rain.
Draven closed his eyes briefly.
'Don't forget.'
He didn't know what exactly he was telling himself to remember.
Only that forgetting would be the same as dying.