“Mother,” Jiro said, his voice tight, rough with the dust of a hundred distant roads and the weight of a desperate plea. He stood at the edge of the clearing, a figure etched in shadow and grim resolve, his once vibrant robes now faded and torn, a stark contrast to the immaculate, earth-toned ...

The twin suns of Edo sank beneath the jagged spine of the western mountains, painting the sky in molten gold and bruised violet. Dalazar stood frozen at the edge of the world as he knew it, breath caught in his throat, heart pounding like a war drum in silence. Before him rose the Nova Forest—a ...

He looked at Jiro, his face a map of ruin.

"You...are a direct descendant of Ains? He... survived the failed coup?

" For centuries, we lived as if we were chosen. Unconcerned with the affairs of the world around us. Hiding beneath our grandeur. But Azar's hatred never left. He had been plotting ...

They continued on. Jiro exhaled, the steam from his breath curling into the cold. "Now that I've spilled my guts in the most vulnerable fashion," he said, voice low, rough as gravel. "Your turn."

Dalazar did not move. His silver eyes — sharp, ancient —flickered like guttering flames in a gale. He ...

"Why did you leave them?" Dalazar asked. "The Nova Forest. Your people. Why are you out here, in this wasteland, hunting men for coin?"

Jiro closed his eyes. He wasn't sure why he was humoring the kid with these explanations. Perhaps it was boredom, or perhaps, after so many years of carrying ...

The days fell into nights, and from those same nights, the day began again. A rhythm as old as breath, as inevitable as time. For more than a week, that cycle had carried Dalazar and Jiro across the scorched back of Edo—the cracked plains of Gilgesh, where heat shimmered like ghosts above the earth ...

-The Following Day-

Just before the breach of dawn pierced the night sky, Dalazar could be found tossing and turning in the room Jiro had rented for him. His body was clad in cold sweat, muttering the names of those lost to him—names that tasted like ash on his tongue. Within the expanse of his ...

Juro reached into his coat and placed a small, leather-bound book on the table between them. It was unassuming, yet it pulsed faintly, a subtle rhythm like a sleeping heart. Scarlet script, the colour of old blood, glimmered on the cover: Knights Index.

“This,” Jiro said, his finger tapping the ...

Rain stitched silver lines through the night as Dunlao exhaled itself back into existence.

“This boy…there’s no mistaking it.”

The thought struck Jiro Kageyama with the weight of a remembered wound as sensation returned to him—the chill of wet stone beneath his sandals, the distant laughter of ...

The rain fell in sheets over Edo—cold, relentless, indifferent. It sluiced through alleyways carved between towering pagodas of iron and glass, washing filth into gutters where rats scurried like shadows fleeing the dawn.

The man offering the bread stood without pretense: cloaked in worn indigo ...