Zeik did not look at Aerys when he answered.
His gaze stayed on the ruin — the black earth, the snapped roots, the bodies baked into the trench like offerings to a god who relishes in cruelty.

When he finally spoke, it was quiet… but the quiet of a collapsing star.

“… have you ever wondered why ...

Zeik listened while Aerys spilled himself into the ash—grins, jibes, the casual cruelty of a young man trying to measure legend with bravado. He let the boy speak; his silence was an instrument, not indifference. The ghosts at his shoulders drew in closer as if to hear what the living might say ...

The wind sighed across the trench like a dying breath, carrying with it the iron scent of blood long dried and the soft crumble of ash. The battlefield — once a home, once alive — now lay like a wound that refused to close.

Aersy moved through it, boots sinking in the powder of ruin. He had come ...

Zeik did not hurry from his post once the rune was fashioned. His purpose was dualistic in nature. He needed to not just be able to vanquish his foe, but also to find them. He began. His naten rising to his finger tips, his body still radiating power from his first creation.

The boundless runes ...

Zeik stood at the center of the circle, the pentagram’s lines still burning, the air heavy with the scent of char and wet soil. The sigils around him pulsed — clarity, wrath, renewal, ferocity — each one breathing like a heart, waiting for purpose.

But this one… this last sigil would not simply ...

Zeik continued his slow circuit of the trench, each footfall a measured syllable in a litany of mourning. The ghosts the forest fed him did not relent — they recited the small, terrible dramas that had unfolded here: a mother bracing a child against her chest until the light left both of them, a ...

Zeik appeared within the onyx trench, his body sliding out of the shadow of the lone, surviving tree as if pulled by some reluctant tide.

The place was ugly and honest in its ruin: layered ash, splintered timber, the hollow shells of what had once been home. Corpses lay like fallen instruments ...

They bowed.

Not all at once — but like a tide overtaking the shore. One fell to a knee in the front row, another followed, then another, until it rippled outward through the chamber and into the streets beyond. The Aurorai lowered their radiant plumes. The envoys of distant nations pressed ...

Zeik sat with the weight of her words pressing against him, and for a long moment he said nothing. His jaw worked once, then stilled. His eyes drifted to the floor, then to Khei, then away again.

The silence stretched—not dismissive, but heavy, as though he were biting down on something sharp and ...

The hall’s heavy silence hung like a shroud as Zeik stepped fully into the light, the golden glint of bangles on his wrists catching the flicker of crystalline chandeliers. Gone was the familiar white-furred cape and rugged travel pants; instead, he wore flowing black robes, tattered at the edges ...