Zekar stood on a high stone platform overlooking the central plaza. He was twenty-six now, but the boy who had once fished for gems in a stream felt like a ghost, buried deep under layers of scar tissue and a relentless, hardening resolve. He stood bare-chested despite the biting mountain wind, his skin braving the chill in nothing but trousers of heavy, reinforced leather. His chest was broad, his muscles corded and dense—the physical receipt of years spent swinging a hammer in the forge and a sword in the dirt. A fine layer of soot from the morning's final weapon-check still clung to him, settling into the jagged lines of his torso.
Around his neck, the dragon-glass necklace hung low. The black shard caught the dim morning light, its edge sharp and cold. It was his only jewelry, his only luxury—a heavy reminder of what was lost and what was owed.
