ChaosRipjaw
How We Roll Winner
Jun15
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A cold dawn drapes the borderlands in a thin shroud of frost, the world itself holding its breath. From high above, the land is a tapestry of scars—broken earth, withered grass bowed beneath the weight of another winter. A battered road winds between empty fields, tracing a slow path to the house at the world’s edge.
The manor is smaller than he remembers—more tomb than stronghold now. Stone walls cracked and pitted. Old battlements crawling with moss, like the bones of something long dead.
Mist clings to the courtyard statues—figures he once knew by name, now faceless in the cold. There is no music here, not anymore—only the wind keening along the ramparts, and, somewhere distant, the hollow ring of a smith’s hammer, beating time for a house that forgets how to die.
Once, the house of Morian held the line against the world. It still does, even now, as it waits—empty halls, hollow rituals, and too many sons gone to war.
Gray dawn presses against the ancient gates, their iron teeth streaked with old rust and chill dew. Saelistra stands before them, wrapped tight in a heavy cloak, her figure painted in the wan half-light. She is the last outpost of order—posture taut, eyes shadowed with sleepless calculation.
Her lips are set in a line that might be determination, or doubt.
Will he come? her stance seems to ask, even as her gaze rakes the barren horizon. She is the kind to expect disappointment; every line of her face says as much.
A faint shiver of movement in the periphery—two younger figures, Eryssan and Veyla, draw close, their steps hesitant, voices barely a breath.
“Who are you waiting for?” one whispers, eyes darting to the distant, empty road.
“Is it the enemy? The armies?”
Saelistra’s reply is measured, careful—almost gentle, but laced with iron. “Not the enemy, no. They will not reach us for quite some time.”
The dawn light is as weak as the hope in the air; that is to say, it is very, very dreary. Oppressive, weighing down on the soul. And the mist seems to swirl.
Will he come?
She breathes one word. “Family.” The word falls with the weight of a curse or a prayer.
The ground itself seems to respond.
A dull tremor stirs beneath the stones—a warning or an omen, hard to say. The guards at her side shift, knuckles whitening on polished halberds. Cold morning air thickens, shadows pooling at the threshold.
A shape emerges, at first little more than a suggestion—a hulking silhouette, drawn from mist and memory.
Each footfall is deliberate. Seismic. The earth answers grudgingly. Feeble sunlight snags on curved blades and jagged armor, on the bone-white mask that devours the lower half of the giant’s face.
Halberds come up with a ringing chorus. “Who goes there? Halt!”
Saelistra’s voice cracks across the tension, sharper than steel:
“You would raise steel to him? That’s no stranger at the threshold. Lower your weapons.”
The guards faltered. Blades and stonelike armor glinted menacingly as the giant strode forward, the air soaking through with palpable killing intent.
“Now!”
A hush falls, broken only by the wind and the slow, relentless approach.
He steps from shadow into the pallid light, pausing just within the gate’s embrace. There is no hesitation in his stance—only a glimmer of something unreadable behind the mask. His gaze flicks from Saelistra, to the guards, and back again—measuring, weighing.
For an instant, the lines of his mouth shift beneath the mask. A smirk, perhaps. Or perhaps it is only a trick of the dawn.
“Still standing watch, Saelistra?” rumbles Drakesthai. “Some things never change.”
She inclines her head, the gesture cool but respectful—something almost fond ghosting at the corners of her eyes.
She turns, cloak flaring behind her, and gestures for him to enter.
The gates groan as they swing wider.
He knows this walk. Knows the way the stones tilt underfoot. Even if it feels like someone else’s memory now.
They move through corridors shrouded in memory and dust. Every step echoes—no voices, no laughter, just the soft thud of boots on ancient flagstones.
Drakesthai’s gaze skims the faded banners, the empty weapon racks, hearths grown cold and gray. Once, this place breathed war and pride. Now, it holds its breath. Or, rather, it would have held its breath, if it had any to hold.
Saelistra breaks the hush. “It’s quieter now, of course. Most of the old retinue are gone.”
He answers, voice dry as old parchment: “Where are the others?”
“At the border,” she replies. “The old enemy gathers armies.”
A pause.
He doesn’t look at her. “And your husband?”
“Selrik is with him. Still holding the line. As are the others.”
“When did he last write?”
“Two weeks, four days, and give or take, perhaps about seven hours ago.”
Drakesthai’s reply is a low rumble. “Then you needn’t worry. Not yet.”
A long silence. Their footsteps alone seem to carry the conversation forward.
“We fight. They endure. The world keeps asking for more.” Saelistra’s words are nearly a sigh.
Drakesthai stops suddenly, voice harder: “Does he know?”
She hesitates, choosing her words. “He is—hoping. He doesn’t know I sent for you. Not really. But he will, soon enough.”
A pause as they walk. It is strange. He could always tell what Saelistra was thinking. Things have changed. He has changed. And so has she, it seems.
“You always did act first, apologize later,” Drakesthai prods her gruffly.
She doesn’t deny it.
He glances at her sidelong, then: “Why?”
Saelistra’s answer is quiet, but unwavering. “He said your name. Then he dismissed the thought. I did what I had to.”
They arrive at the last door—Kaeroth’s chamber. Saelistra stops, lingering at the threshold.
He studies the closed door, the way the handles snag on the edge of his blades. Drakesthai raises a clawed, armored foot to push it open instead.
Behind him, Saelistra’s voice—this time with the faintest catch—follows him: “Drakesthai. Please. Hear him out.”
He glances back, mask unmoved, voice level. “I’ll hear him out. That’s all I promise you, sister-in-law.”
He enters, and the door swings shut behind him with a final, echoing thud.
The room is dim, smelling faintly of sickness and stone.
Kaeroth Morian sits hunched beneath threadbare covers—a scarecrow of a man, veins stark against waxen skin, hair in sparse wisps over a sunken brow. His gaze, when it lifts, is fever-bright and piercing.
He does not need to look to know who enters.
“You’re here.” The voice is as sharp as ever, but the illness beneath it clings to every word.
Drakesthai does not break stride, nor does he bow. “You still recognize me.”
Kaeroth grimaces—somewhere between a smile and pain. “Of course. No matter where you wander, or how many years pass.” For a moment he seems poised to say more, but lets it die in his throat.
His eyes flick down, disapproving. “You still wear that accursed idol?”
Drakesthai’s fingers trace the Goat Dragon talisman at his belt. He doesn’t reply.
They trade barbs, words as blunt as old steel. “I half expected you to be dead,” Drakesthai says, “before I arrived.”
“Not dead yet,” Kaeroth mutters. “The house waits for its reaper.”
Drakesthai surveys the peeling walls, the gloom thick in the corners. “Manor’s falling apart. Suits the state of things.”
A weary sigh. Kaeroth’s shoulders slump further. “Your brothers are scattered. Selrik and Veythas hold the border, as they ever have. Malcion—”
“Dead?”
Kaeroth’s bitterness is almost a smile. “Who can say?”
“Surprised any of them lasted this long,” Drakesthai offers, flat.
“There is more to war than merely skill in killing,” Kaeroth snaps, a ghost of old authority flaring.
“It seems the other houses do not think so,” Drakesthai says, voice like gravel. “Why do the Morians suffer so? Where are the Capras, the Harrowings, the Lampriases? The Isurugis?”
“The Capras have retreated to their isles.” Kaeroth’s breath rasps. “The Lampriases fortify their borders, and the Harrowings—something’s happened. No one can spare the men to find out.”
“So, your allies have abandoned you. As I thought.”
Kaeroth is seized by a coughing fit—deep, rattling. Drakesthai watches, impassive.
“Where is Barlan?” he asks, once the old man quiets. “How could he have let that cough fester this long?”
“Barlan. The staff have thinned to shadows.” Kaeroth closes his eyes, exhausted. “He still limps the west hall, trying to keep things in order. Sometimes I wonder if he remembers why.”
“He is loyal,” Drakesthai says, “Like Saelistra.”
Kaeroth’s voice softens, the edge blunted by loss. “Saelistra’s doing, I suppose. She never lacked for initiative.”
“She did what she felt she had to do.”
“And so she did.” Kaeroth exhales, almost a whisper. “Truly, the greatest daughter-in-law a man could have wished for. The only true Morian by marriage.”
Drakesthai’s reply is as cold as winter stone. “More than you deserve. More than any of us deserve.”
“Ah,” Kaeroth observes. “Us.”
Drakesthai doesn’t reply. An uncomfortable silence falls. Kaeroth’s eyes linger on the dying embers in the hearth.
The old man sighs. “Do you remember when you first held a blade? You were always too strong, too reckless. The others tried to match you, and failed.”
“Strength never won your approval,” Drakesthai says, shrugging slightly.
“No,” Kaeroth acknowledges. “You may be the worst of my sons, Drakesthai. But in the end, a Morian is a Morian.”
Drakesthai doesn’t flinch. He’s been called worse—by men who meant it more. But despite himself, Drakesthai finds his face hardening. Even under his mask, he feels his teeth clenching. “I see,” he deadpans. “Is this all you have to say, Kaeroth? I promised Saelistra I would hear you out, and so I shall. But if you have nothing else, I will take my leave.”
“You saw Eryssan and Veyla,” Kaeroth says, seemingly lost in his thoughts. A curious expression takes him. His attention seems to shift, softer, almost—? “They look to you, you know. Even after all these years.”
“Then they’ll have to find their own way,” Drakesthai says, none too kindly. “The world won’t spare them for my sake—or yours.”
“No,” Kaeroth admits, blinking as if Drakesthai’s words rouse him from reverie. “It will not. Unless—”
He gestures, slow and unsteady, toward a small, battered box on the table beside the bed. Its lock is tarnished, the wood gouged with old scars.
“Take it.”
Drakesthai steps forward, lifts the box in one broad hand. It feels heavier than its size would suggest. But also light enough that he knows it does not contain much. He turns it once, twice—testing the weight of both wood and expectation.
He does not open it. Instead: “What’s inside?”
Kaeroth’s lips thin, the words dragging out like old wounds. “The Morians’ salvation.”
A pause, breath catching in his throat. The old man’s gaze, for a moment, is less fevered and more lost—almost pleading.
“Our salvation.”
The manor’s courtyard lies swathed in cold shadow, the sun still struggling to clear the highest walls. Drakesthai moves through it with a predator’s purpose—broad shoulders cutting through mist and silence, the box heavy in his hand.
Saelistra waits near the archway, her posture guarded but her eyes searching his face for any hint of hope. She intercepts him, voice low:
“Well?”
He stops, mask unreadable. “Well what?”
She steps closer, almost whispering. “What did he tell you?”
“Where to go.” His tone is flat, unmoved.
A breath, then her next question is gentler, almost vulnerable: “And will you?”
Drakesthai shrugs, the movement more armor than answer. “I promised you I’d hear him out. Nothing more.”
Before she can press further, two younger shapes appear from the shadows—Eryssan and Veyla, siblings by blood, marked by the same fierce eyes and stubborn chins. Eryssan stands taller now, shoulders squared as if trying to mimic old stories of heroes; Veyla lingers at his side, wary but unable to hide the flicker of hope in her gaze.
“Are you leaving again?” Eryssan asks, trying to sound braver than he feels.
Veyla, quieter: “Will you bring us something back?”
Drakesthai studies them—his expression unreadable, but something softer flickers beneath the mask. For a moment, his hand lifts, as if to ruffle their hair. He catches himself—realizes they are older now, no longer children—and lets the gesture fall.
Instead, he reaches into his cloak, producing the battered wooden box. It is now split in two, sawn in half and then viciously torn apart, splinters still sharp and raw.
Its contents are gone. The Morians’ salvation. The map to Bren.
He hands each half of the box to each sibling, his voice level but not unkind: “If I return.”
His gaze lingers on them for a heartbeat—hard, yet there is something else. There is something like promise in it, or perhaps only habit.
The dawn is weak and feeble, but it is still there.
Then he turns, strides across the stone, his silhouette swallowed by the pale blaze of morning. The echo of his footsteps lingers long after he is gone, ringing in the stillness—
Drakesthai came to with a sharp breath, his ears and temples still ringing—and a fist already moving.
His massive hand clamped down hard around a slender arm before thought even caught up. A startled shriek rang out. Fabric tore. “Woah, calm down! Sir, please don’t strike!” someone shouted—distant, warbled. It took him a moment to realize the voice wasn’t his own.
Light stabbed at his eyes. The room tilted and spun. He blinked hard, trying to force the glare away, and found himself strapped to a frame of some kind—restraining bands snapped clean through across his chest and wrists, flayed ends still dangling like frayed cotton string. Rend or one of the Talonstrikes had cut clean through a leather strap. The Predator’s Grasp configuration was still engaged.
Good. No one had tried to remove his weapons. Only strength equal to or surpassing his could have wrenched them out in any case.
The woman he held was small, red-and-white robed—some kind of Bren nurse. She trembled in his grip, but didn’t scream again. A man’s face appeared behind her, older, clean-shaven, bearing a medic’s insignia.
“Sir,” the doctor said calmly, raising his hands, “you’re safe. No one here’s your enemy. Can you release her?”
Drakesthai’s fingers relaxed. The woman backed away instantly, cradling her wrist. Neither she nor the doctor reached for a weapon.
“Good,” the doctor said. “You’re lucid. That’s more than we expected.” He stepped closer, keeping his hands in view. “Do you know where you are?”
Drakesthai grunted. “Bren.”
“How many fingers am I holding up?”
“Two fingers, on your right hand, slightly trembling. Callus pattern—blade training, but out of practice. Left knee injured; you favor it when you shift weight. You shaved recently, but rushed it—nick under the chin.”
The doctor, to his credit, wasn’t fazed in the slightest. “Correct. You were found unconscious near the basin’s edge. Took a concentrated blast to the head, if our readings are accurate. Seizures, circulatory shock, full facial trauma. And yet...” He gestured vaguely at Drakesthai’s face, eyes narrowing with clinical disbelief.
“You’re talking. Sitting up. Do you recall what happened?”
Images clawed their way back.
The fire. The witch’s breath, white-hot and searing. Vision going black in one eye. The sizzle of his own flesh. The smell.
He reached up with one gloved hand, fingers brushing the side of his face.
Smooth. No pain. No burns. No jagged ridge of ruin where the flames had chewed bone. His eye—his right eye—still saw.
“Bren’s medical sorcery,” Drakesthai said slowly, “is beyond anything I’ve ever seen. Or heard of. No healer could reattach nerves or regrow half a face in the span of a few hours. Even with advanced treatment, this should have taken months.”
“True,” the doctor said, a hint of pride showing. “Though it is wrought through the skill of our medical mages, it is powered by the Elemental Lords themselves.”
Drakesthai exhaled slowly, settling back into the creaking medical frame. His armor tugged stiffly at the shoulders. He was still armed, still armored. Still breathing.
The doctor’s tone shifted—less clinical now, more cautionary. “You should understand something. The revival you received was granted for surviving the Paragon phase. A gift, not a right. Should you fall in the next trial...”
The next trial.
“They won’t intervene.” Drakesthai finished the thought for him.
A nod. “Yes. You stand alone now. No second chances from here.”
The room fell quiet again.
Drakesthai leaned back further, gears shifting beneath his armor, shoulders relaxing just enough to feel the ache settle in. The lights still buzzed faintly overhead. Rend was quiet. The Talonstrikes waited. He had passed the first threshold. The slaughter before the selection. Now came the real test.
He let his eyes close just once more, briefly, like a soldier adjusting grip before a killing stroke. “Fortunately,” Drakesthai said, opening his eyes. Blue and gold blazed. “I didn’t fall the first time.”
The corridor stank of antiseptic—and ambition. Drakesthai paused just before the open door, feeling the weight of the Goat Dragon mask on his face and the heavier weight and reach of the Predator’s Grasp and Drake’s Maw Assembly—each still not retracted back to the Reaper’s Dueling Array yet. For a moment, he imagined bursting in—one clean kill, no witnesses, no more loose ends.
Rend, eager, raspy: Finish it here. Take the head, make it clean.
Ruin, cold, strategic: Not the place. Too many witnesses. Wait for the right field.
Spinescourge, an oddly mocking tone: Too soft, Draco Mori? Old ways gone dull?
The thought lingered, then faded. With the medics’ warnings still sharp in his mind, something told him that would be a very, very bad idea.
You stupid idiots, said one of the Talonstrikes derisively.
No, not yet. Something better occurred to him. Better, or—
Not every victory comes from the edge of a blade, boy …
He leaned against the doorframe, arms folded, the glint of blades in plain view. His eyes tracked Roxelana Ebontwin, that curious half-dragon witch with the split-colored hair, as she stirred from her cot, sharp and wary.
“Lady Roxelana,” Drakesthai rumbled. “I trust you’re feeling a touch less flammable than last we met. Perhaps our introductions were… overly spirited. Call it the heat of the moment. Shall we call it even?”
She spun at her name. “Oh there was heat alright.” Her gaze roamed over his restored features, making no secret of her disdain. “Will say, I think I liked you better with charred skin,” she said, the words flaring with a blade’s edge. Arms crossed, she pressed on, “But that’s beside the point. Speaking of which, what is the point? Don’t suppose you’re here to finish the job?”
For a moment, a certain kind of lilt in her challenge—sharp, but almost playful—stirred something old and half-buried in him. He’d known that tone once, from lips far gentler than these. “Tempting,” Drakesthai said, a little more good-naturedly than he would have liked, “but let’s save the murder for the grand stage. We’re both finalists, both still breathing—no small feat. You are a contestant. I am a contestant. Surely, there is common ground somewhere between us—at least until the field thins.”
Her brow quirked. The room tensed—dragon and dragonkiller, circling the same spark.
“No sense wasting steel—or fire—on each other here,” Drakesthai continued. “The medics would be scandalized. Besides, you strike me as someone who prefers an audience for such things.”
The urge to draw a blade thrummed at his back, the voices of Rend and Ruin eager as hounds. Not now, he thought, pressing them down. Not yet.
Roxelana hesitated, lips thinned. He watched her weighing him—hunter’s caution behind those slitted eyes.
“... Go on. What are you proposing?”
Drakesthai tilted his head, frank. “Let’s not dance around it. The next arena’s going to be a slaughterhouse. You know as well as I: if we go for each other first, neither walks out whole. But if we… coordinate, even loosely, we might both walk away richer. Simple mathematics.”
“Are you suggesting a truce? You and me?”
Fool’s gambit! Ruin snarled.
You’d let her walk? Spinescourge demanded.
The Censer of Hunger tittered unpleasantly. Let her fatten on hope. We’ll eat later.
You’re one to talk, the Censer of Scorn snapped. You tasted her first.
Drakesthai shrugged, the King Rex Mantles giving the innocuous motion a rather hideous appearance. “Truce, alliance, mutual blind spot—call it what you will. The odds say we gain more from cooperation, for now.”
She glanced to the window, searching the press of onlookers and—Drakesthai recognized that look—would-be killers. He followed her gaze, reading the tension.
“If you need a hand,” he offered, “I have a knack for solving… inconvenient problems. Even the kind that stalk shadows.”
“Inconvenient problems,” Rend guffawed.
What’s with that tone? a Talonstrike wondered.
“Ah, that’s all well and wonderful,” Roxelana snapped, turning her attention back to him. “Shame it’s still daylight.”
A twitch at the corner of his mouth behind the mask. “Night comes soon enough. I believe in professional courtesy. And you seem a woman who knows when business outweighs pride.”
“... Business, you say? Professionality?” For a moment, something raw flickered. “There is so much more at stake here than you can possibly ever know. Maybe if you took your eyes off of my staff for a single moment you’d understand that.”
Drakesthai met her words with mock offense, sharp-edged. “You wound me, Lady Roxelana. Your staff? Please. I’ve never stooped to pilfering walking sticks for my collection.”
A heavy silence settled, charged. Drakesthai let his voice drop, cool and intent. “If opportunity permits, I’d rather aim for something with real bite. And no, not your pet beast—though it has style. But even a reaper’s judgment can get… clouded, when the copper runs hot.”
“Indeed...” she mused, considering.
“So? What’s your answer, Lady Roxelana? The floor is yours—for now.”
She regarded him, measuring. “... Perhaps I misjudged you, Drakesthai.” Impossible to tell if truth or ploy. “But I think I will need a touch more faith.” Her hand extended, open, palm up. “You value your weapons so much, and I am starved for glory... Why don’t we create a scene? Hand me one of your weapons. If you keep your word, I’ll give it back in the arena. If not—well, I’m sure it’ll find its way home.”
He hesitated—a true pause. Her hand hovered, patient, as his own traveled over the array at his sides and back.
The blades erupted into a cacophony.
You’d hand one of us over? Rend pulsed with indignation. To her?
This is folly, Ruin rumbled, growing cold and heavy. Trust is for fools and the dying.
Spinescourge quivered in its socket, disgust threading through every serration. Let her earn a blade’s touch in blood, not barter.
Silence, Drakesthai commanded. He let the noise settle. There were a dozen calculations turning beneath his stillness—the hoarder’s instinct to guard, the reaper’s reluctance to part with any trophy, and the tactician’s cold appraisal. He would not risk Rend or Ruin; their loss was unthinkable. So too were Spinescourge, Gnawer, and the Talonstrikes; he would not part with his main armblades without a fight. The Censers—no, far too easy to use, not tokens for trust.
The Wyrms’ Embraces, or rather, the Left Wyrm’s Embrace. The blade that had nearly torn out her intestines—at least according to the doctor who had returned it to him—and now pulsed with a greedy memory. His fingers curled around the hiltless blade, reluctant, feeling the subtle resonance of the steel—a blade’s soul, restless at the thought of new hands.
“That’s a bold ask, Witch,” Drakesthai said slowly. “But you want a gesture of good faith, you’ll have it.”
He unfastened the Wyrm’s Embrace, holding it out between them, but not yet releasing. “This is the Wyrm’s Embrace. One of two sisters. I claimed this from Yashani the Rakshasa, a great warrioress of Shaochi.”
He saw her eyes flicker with recognition—whether real or feigned, she did seem pleased.
He angled the blade so the faint etchwork along the spine shimmered beneath the infirmary light. “You’ll notice the etchwork along the spine—each mark is deliberate. I’d be… devastated if you marred it.”
He extended it—balanced perfectly between two fingers, lingering, gaze sardonic. She reached with her draconic claw, careful, almost respectful. He could almost sense the blade’s anticipation, the silent judgment of its new bearer.
“She prefers a firm but caressing hand, hates the cold, and will bite back if slighted. Although she’s already tasted your blood, Lady Roxelana. Perhaps she’ll find you … familiar, even more to her liking.”
“Her and I both...” she said, voice like a matching blade. “If I am to her tastes, then I can only pray to find a better substitute. I’d prefer to keep my blood to myself, but if it must come to that... Hopefully it won’t be for a while.”
At last, he let the weapon slide fully into her grasp. A moment passed—a silent pact.
“Consider it a loan, not a gift,” Drakesthai rumbled. “I expect interest. As will she.”
“Then I aught to take my leave. Best of luck to you, Drakesthai; we’re both going to need it.” She moved toward the door, pausing at the threshold. A whisper, just audible—sharp as a talon. “... Soon, oh so very soon.”
He watched her go, already mapping betrayals and contingencies. The weapons on his person murmured with restless hunger, but he silenced them. Soon enough, he thought. The game had changed—and so had the odds.
Once more, Drakesthai found himself in the waiting room, little more than bare stone and old echoes, every surface scrubbed so clean it stank of crushed lichen and some medical distillate. He sat alone, elbows on his knees, head lowered so the Goat Dragon facemask caught the low light—throwing jagged facsimiles teeth and shadows across the far wall. The crowd’s roar filtered through stone, dull and distant, but close enough to rattle the blood.
He kept one eye on the corridor. Doors opened and shut. Someone called a name not his. The air pressed close, thick with the memory of steel and heat and the knowledge that only a handful of them would walk out again.
He drew a breath. It stuttered, uneven. Drakesthai caught it, tightened his jaw, and forced the next one steady. A tremor, nothing more. The old nerves. Not fear, he told himself. Not now.
His arsenal—usually a riot of hunger and jibes—felt off, like dogs leashed too long in the dark.
Rend, whose edge would normally sing for blood, now throbbed low, resentful. What did we trade away for hope, Draco Mori?
Ruin weighed heavy at his spine, its presence colder, more cautious than before. You let her close. That’s not like us. What’s changed?
Spinescourge was a nervous itch along his forearm, serrated and raw. No trust. No truce. You forget, you bleed.
The Talonstrikes flickered, searching for humor and failing. Allies now? Draco Mori’s going soft.
Even the Censers of Hunger and Scorn spun in their rings, unsteady, hungry in a new way. Victory tastes different when you wait. When you hope.
He snapped, a whisper behind his teeth. Quiet. But their agitation echoed his own—a pulse of uncertainty, sharp and unmoored.
He set his jaw, grinding the urge to fidget. What was wrong with him? It wasn’t the memory of pain—he’d tasted worse. The flesh-eating poison lacing Virescent Senn’s prized Gnawer, the blasts of Shaochi firesand wielded by Yashani the Rakshasa, the vicious snares of Berunath twisting bone. Nor was it the brush with death; that was as routine as breath. No, what unsettled him was how close he had now come—not just to loss, but to getting what he wanted.
He should be focused, hungry, above all unflinching, as he had always been. Instead he was pacing the walls of his own mind, chastising himself for letting his guard slip with Roxelana, for bartering away a weapon, for feeling not dread, but anticipation.
Risk had always been his game—his thrill, not an inherited lesson. Even as a boy, he’d taken chances for the sheer pleasure of beating the odds, confident that strength and cunning would see him through. That confidence had carried him further than luck or legacy ever could. But this felt different. This made his pulse skip.
Please, hear him out.
Will you bring us something back?
There is so much more at stake here than you can possibly ever know …
The Morians’ salvation …
Our salvation.
But the words turned. The echo deepened, broadened, as if a new mouth now spoke with all the gravity of the earth itself. The shadows along the far wall stretched; the air thickened, old dust and copper tang.
He stilled, breath shallow. The presence wasn’t sight or sound, but a heaviness—like being watched by something older than the city, older than memory. The Goat Dragon mask felt colder, as if the stone itself leaned close.
What is it you seek here, Drakesthai?
The voice was neither male nor female, but ancient, formed of pressure and slow-moving root. It spoke inside his bones, behind his scars.
Not the prize. Not the blood. The root. What do you hope to become?
He tried to shake it off. This was nerves. A conjured hallucination. Yet the presence persisted, shifting, insinuating.
What do you wish to reclaim—or bury?
Are you still only a collector of blades, or has the hollow grown larger?
He flexed his hands, trying to banish the chill. I don’t talk to stone, he thought, almost aloud. I don’t answer ghosts. But the unease wouldn’t lift. Even the blades had gone quiet, as if the presence had cowed them too.
He scoffed, low and bitter, trying to break the spell. “I’m here to win,” he muttered under his breath. “That’s all anyone needs to know.”
But the question lingered, echoing in the hollows of the waiting room—and in the rootbound places he tried not to name.
A voice echoed down the stone corridor—sharp, authoritative, impossible to ignore. Drakesthai rose without hesitation, the muscles in his back tensing as he adjusted the lay of his blades and set the Goat Dragon mask more firmly upon his face. The world outside the waiting room grew louder: the roar of thousands pressing in, surging like the tide.
Sunlight speared through the threshold as the doors swung wide. The sudden difference in light made him squint, but no matter. All that mattered was the path ahead: out, up, and into the waiting storm.
He stepped into brilliance and heat. The Grand Arena stretched out before him, sand and blood and ancient stone, all dazzling in the noon sun. The scent hit first—iron, salt, and the old dry tang of dust, churned anew beneath a thousand boots.
The stands were a kaleidoscope of color and motion, every seat a boiling knot of humanity. Yet at the very front, the true power waited—robed figures, silent and watching, their poise unbroken even as the masses shoved and howled behind them. The Lords’ chosen: stillness carved from the chaos.
Every step across the scarlet-stained sand seemed to echo with memory and hunger. His boots left a trail beside a thousand others, overlapping prints in a canvas painted by sacrifice. Somewhere behind his ribs, the familiar pulse of anticipation surged—this was the heart of it, the crucible, the only home that ever demanded nothing but strength.
His arsenal seemed to hum against his skin, a low, feverish thrum, as if the blades themselves hungered for the crowd’s gaze.
The air grew heavy, all noise pressed flat as the criers’ voices rang out—many, yet one. Their decree swept across the arena, each Paragon summoned to the pillars by title and deed.
A tremor ran through Drakesthai as he was named: A blood-stained reaper, with iron blessed and cursed in equal measure. His weapons carved gashes through the ever-changing Flux of Factory. Witness Drakesthai Morian, Paragon of Earth!
He ascended his appointed stone, boots grinding against the slab, and surveyed the field—each pillar crowned with legend and threat. Darkness, Fire, Light, Energy. Each rival revealed, each watched and measured in silence. The crowd watched him, as if expecting a monster to bare its fangs.
They see the reaper, he thought, not the roots that hold the blade.
A whisper of amusement rippled from his arsenal. Show them the roots, Rend murmured, half in jest.
The crowd’s hush broke into a tidal roar, washing over the sands in a living wave. Drakesthai breathed it in, letting the heat and hunger settle into his bones. He scanned the arena, seeking every advantage—the lay of the sand, the slant of the sun, the distance to each pillar and each foe. Roxelana an emerald blaze on one side, Radiance gleaming on the other, Zephyra’s coils shifting just beyond. Marrow, a tower of darkness and disdain.
His arsenal prickled, alive with restrained anticipation—so close to violence they could almost taste it. He rolled his shoulders, grounding himself in the ritual of preparation, letting the moment stretch.
Blades sharpen in silence, but they sing in blood, Spinescourge whispered, the old hunger flaring to life.
Drakesthai let his fingers relax briefly, then clench into fists—reminding himself what was his, what was owed, and what he’d come to claim.
Across the sand, a familiar face stepped forward, his every movement a display—every gesture for the crowd and the Lords above. Drakesthai caught the old man’s eyes for a heartbeat, seeing the challenge there, the theater. A familiar taste of arrogance.
Radiance’s voice rang out, bold and clear: “Aside, dear Drakesthai! You had your chance with the lady, yet her staff remains safe in her grasp! Go play with the beast and the hunter, and perhaps claw and knife will be easier for you to pilfer.”
The crowd lapped it up, cheers cascading from the stands, hungry for spectacle, for rivalry, for blood, as Radiance gave a big showy bow to Roxelana.
A prickle of irritation slid beneath Drakesthai’s skin, sharp enough to set his blades murmuring. He hated that tone.
Old men who preen for the crowd should know better than to bait a hungry hound, Spinescourge muttered.
Drakesthai stepped from his pillar, rounding it, voice pitched to carry.
“How rude, for an elder to snatch up the challenge before his juniors even speak,” Drakesthai growled. “But who am I to question wisdom? They say to fear old men in our line of work—though I wonder what happens when the young unite.”
Fool’s gambit, Ruin?
A smirk tugged at the corner of his mouth beneath the mask, eyes flicking to the dragon-witch across the sand. He raised his voice further. “Shall we test the theory, Lady Roxelana?”
His blades still rested in the familiar weight of Predator’s Grasp and Drake’s Maw Assembly—battle configurations, all fangs and threat, made for overwhelming force and wanton bloodshed. But this wasn’t the time for brute show.
He thrust his right arm downward, the motion sharp and practiced. With a click and a shift of balance, he slid only Predator’s Grasp—Rend and the Talonstrikes—back into the tight, lethal geometry of a Reaper’s Dueling Array. The steel settled with a low, satisfying snick, every piece right where it belonged. Rend pulled back ever so slightly, but still ready for action; the Talonstrikes retreated, folding into miniature shields against his forearm. Ready for precision, for the dance, as well as the slaughter.
Will you bring us something back?
If I return.
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