"I thought I was marching us straight into a graveyard, but seeing the high commander's sigil still flying over the inner wall made my bleeding lungs feel like they were full of fire again," I rasped, pulling my lathered horse to a sudden halt in the shadow of the capital's grand archway."Dad, look at them," Valis whispered beside me, her small fingers tightening on her reins as she stared through the rising smoke at the hollowed, soot-streaked faces of the city guard. "They look like ghosts."A young guard standing near the iron portcullis dropped his wooden spear into the mud, his eyes widening in complete shock as he stumbled forward. "It's Collins... The Warlord of Oakhaven is here! He brought the kinetic girl!"A sudden, breathless whisper rippled through the hundreds of wounded citizens and battered soldiers huddled under the archway. Mothers pulled their starving children closer, pointing toward us with trembling hands as tears washed clean tracks through the thick layer of as

It wasn't the sound of breaking glass, nor was it the terrifying hum of the anchor beamIt was a brass war-horn blowing a sharp, three-note vanguard rally from the high crest of the eastern hills, echoing wild and free across the smoky valley."What is that?" the glass-weaver growled, turning his head in sudden, sharp confusion toward the eastern ridge.Marcus pushed himself up off his bloody knee, his eyes widening in pure, ecstatic disbelief as he looked toward the horizon. "No... it can't be."High on the eastern ridge, silhouetted against the dark smoke of the burning coast, stood a heavy iron war-wagon pulled by six massive armored steeds. Sitting in the driver's seat, a bloody rag wrapped around his head and his shattered leg propped up on a wooden crate, was Miller, holding the reins with one hand and a lit glass flare in the other.Behind him stood three hundred battle-hardened coastal volunteers, their heavy iron shields catching the morning light, their vanguard banners flyi

"I watched my wife die in a room full of doctors who couldn't save her, so don't you dare stand there and preach to me about the godhood waiting inside that purple rock," I snarled, stepping out onto the narrow obsidian bridge as the blinding glare of the subterranean furnace burned against my eyes."You speak of death like it is a tragedy, Harrison Collins," Lord Kaelen called out from the central altar, his voice echoing over the roaring pit of liquid obsidian with a terrifying, layered resonance.He stood suspended in midair, his arms outstretched as dark crimson strands of raw energy snaked out from the floating shard, boring directly into the flesh of his chest. His veins bulged black against his pale skin, his eyes completely replaced by two pools of swirling, violent violet fire."Step back, Dad!" Valis yelled, running up to the lip of the stone bridge, her white kinetic energy flaring wildly around her small fists. "The air around him is boiling!""He's drawing the liquid glas

"I survived twenty years of war just to realize that a man's life isn't measured by the empires he tears down, but by the promises he keeps to his child," I choked out, my bleeding fingers digging into the jagged, razor-sharp scales of black glass as I hauled my broken body up the monster's neck."Dad! Keep holding on!" Valis screamed from below, her small voice echoing through the vast, subterranean vault as her blinding shaft of white light kept the chest fissure wide open. "The shard is exposed!""Harrison, do it now!" Marcus roared, his hoarse voice cracking with desperate urgency as he used his good shoulder to keep a falling pillar from crushing Miller. "I can't hold this ledge much longer!""Shoot the core, Collins!" Miller wheezed, sitting in the dust with his blood-soaked coat, holding his heavy rifle ready with one hand. "Drive the steel straight into the heart!"The beast thrashed wildly, its massive glass neck twisting like a demonic serpent as the dark, purple-tinted heat

"I thought leaving that blood-soaked city behind would make the silence in my chest stop screaming, but the steady wooden thud of these wagon wheels on the gravel road is the only thing keeping my hands from shaking," I confessed, leaning back against the soft, sun-warmed grain sacks as the creaking carriage rolled through the golden northern valley."You're shaking because you haven't held a sword in three days, Dad," Valis giggled from the opposite bench, her boots kicking rhythmically against the floorboards as she twirled a green sprig of wild clover between her fingers. "Your arms don't know what to do without thirty pounds of iron dragging them down.""I know exactly what my hands are going to do," I shot back, a faint, genuine smile breaking through the heavy exhaustion lingering in my eyes. "They're going to hold a cup of coffee on that porch while you weed the tomato bed.""Who said anything about me weeding?" Valis gasped, sitting up straight with a sharp, dramatic pout that