The battlefield lay in ruin.Smoke clung to the shattered plain, curling in lazy, poisonous tendrils that refused to lift. Bodies lay strewn like broken dolls, armor cracked, banners trampled into mud dark with blood. The abyss still pulsed faintly behind them, though it had sealed itself into a jagged scar across the earth as if mocking the living who had survived its hunger.Kael stood among the wreckage, his blade still dripping with ichor. His breath rasped in his chest, each inhale tasting of ash. He had fought for hours, dragging men back from panic, holding the line against shadows that should never have been. But for all his effort, what did they have now?The army was no army.Some knelt in prayer, lips moving in hollow whispers to gods who had long since abandoned them. Others sat dazed, clutching wounds too deep for cloth to bind. A few had discarded their weapons altogether, staring at their bloodied hands as if they no longer recognized themselves.And above them all, the

The night had not ended, but it already felt longer than any day in memory. The battlefield was a graveyard now, and the wind carried only the stink of ash, blood, and fear. Every soldier in the remnants of the royal host felt it that bone-deep knowledge that something had shifted, something vast and final.Eldrin was gone. Isolde had followed him into the abyss.And what remained of the army was fraying at its seams.General Kael stood at the perimeter, where torches guttered low and dying. His hand rested on the hilt of his battered sword, but his gaze fixed not on steel or fire, but the horizon. The east was paling faintly, a bruised promise of dawn. Yet the light felt like mockery, for dawn was when the Riders of Ashen Flame would march. He knew it with a veteran’s certainty. They would not let this night’s chaos end without striking the killing blow.Behind him, the camp murmured in broken voices. Soldiers whispered prayers, clutched charms, or sat hollow-eyed as if already ghost

At first, Eldrin thought it was his mind playing tricks on him the distant throb of his own heartbeat, the echo of his own breathing. But the deeper they descended, the more he realized the sound wasn’t coming from within. The ground beneath them pulsed faintly, rising and falling like the slow beat of a giant heart. Veins of red light threaded through the black stone, glowing faintly with each pulse. It wasn’t earth. It was flesh, or something worse.Isolde walked beside him, her torch flickering against the oppressive dark. She tried to keep her steps firm, but he could see the tension in her jaw. Neither of them had spoken for some time.At last she broke the silence.“Do you hear it too?” she asked, her voice low, as if speaking too loudly might wake something sleeping in the shadows.Eldrin nodded slowly. “Yes. The abyss lives.”Her fingers tightened on the torch, and for a moment, she looked like she might throw it into the darkness. Instead, she pressed on, though her tone grew

The air inside the abyss hung thick and oppressive, like wet stone pressing against the lungs. Every step Eldrin and Isolde took echoed, swallowed almost immediately by the black fog curling around them. The deeper they went, the more the world above seemed like a dream distant, unreachable.But the chains were real.They stretched out across the cavern floor like rivers of iron, glowing faintly with runes that pulsed in rhythm with a heart that did not belong to man. The sound was not a beat but a drum, slow and resonant, and with each thud, the ground quivered beneath their boots.Isolde stopped, her breath hitching. “Do you feel it?”Eldrin nodded stiffly. The curse in his veins throbbed in answer, shadows twitching beneath his skin as though eager to break free. He clenched his fists to still them, but the darkness writhed like it recognized whatever was bound in this place.At the cavern’s center, the chains converged into a great mass, disappearing into a hulking shape that shif

The night was thick with unease. The army’s camp sprawled across the valley like a wounded beast, its fires flickering low, its warriors speaking in hushed voices. Beyond the barricades, the mountains brooded under a bruised sky, their peaks black teeth gnawing at the heavens. Eldrin walked the rows in silence, cloak drawn tight, eyes shadowed. Men stiffened as he passed, some saluting, others lowering their gazes, unable or unwilling to meet his eyes. He could feel it in their stares: the weight of their doubt. The memory of his descent into the abyss clung to him like a second skin. They whispered that he was no longer wholly theirs. At the heart of camp, Kael stood over a rough-drawn map, barking quiet orders to the captains. When he saw Eldrin, the scarred general dipped his head, but his eyes betrayed the strain. “The Riders are massing,” Kael said, jabbing a calloused finger at the inked lines. “Scouts say they’ve fortified the old fortress at Blackspire. If the warlord int