Chapter 11: The Unfinished Prophecy

  "What if the war was never meant to be won?"

  Scene 1: A Scholar in the Ruins (Ragnor Meets Idris)

  The air was thick with the scent of fire and stone, the remnants of the gods’ undoing lingering in the ruins of the once-sacred temple. The war was over, and yet the land did not feel victorious. The sky loomed heavy with a storm that refused to pass, the wind carrying whispers of something forgotten, something waiting.

  Ragnor moved through the ruins like a specter, his steps slow, heavy with the weight of what he had done. The fortress of Albion had crumbled, the gods had shattered, and yet, the silence here unnerved him more than any battlefield had before. This place—this temple, carved into the bones of the mountain—had once hummed with divine presence. Now it stood as a corpse, stripped of its soul, abandoned by the very forces that had once ruled it.

  He ran his fingers along the broken stone, feeling the ancient carvings beneath his touch. Words from an age before his own, before even the cycle of warlords and kings. Fate had been written here, long before his sword had ever tasted blood.

  A voice, soft as shifting sand, broke the stillness.

  "You were never meant to win."

  Ragnor’s hand froze against the stone. His grip tightened on the hilt of his sword as he turned, eyes scanning the dim interior of the ruins. At first, he saw nothing—only shadows stretched long by the dying light. And then, from the depths of the temple, a figure emerged.

  Wrapped in layers of dark robes, the man moved with the patience of someone who had seen centuries pass as if they were mere moments. His hair was silver-threaded, his beard long, his face lined with the weight of knowledge. But it was his eyes that struck Ragnor most—deep-set, gleaming like embers in the dark, holding secrets that the world had long since tried to bury.

  The man did not bow. He did not address Ragnor as king or warlord, as so many had before. Instead, he studied him with an expression of quiet amusement, as though he were gazing upon an answer to a question he had spent a lifetime asking.

  "Would you strike down a man who knows the truth?"

  Ragnor did not lower his blade. "That depends on the truth."

  The man’s lips curved slightly, though there was no mirth in it. "Then sit, and I will give it to you."

  Ragnor hesitated. He had seen men with knowledge before—prophets, mystics, those who spoke of visions and dreams. Most had been wrong. Most had been liars, desperate for a place in history. And yet… there was something about this man. Something that did not waver beneath the weight of the moment.

  He lowered his sword, but only slightly. "Your name first."

  The man inclined his head. "Idris. Keeper of what remains."

  "Remains of what?"

  Idris turned and began walking deeper into the ruins. "That," he said, "is the only question worth answering."

  Ragnor followed, his boots echoing against the ancient stone. Shadows danced across the walls as torches flickered in the cold air. The deeper they went, the more the carvings changed—no longer images of gods, but of men. Kings. Warlords. Warriors standing against an unseen force, blades drawn, eyes filled with the same quiet fury Ragnor had felt in his own heart.

  He stopped before one carving. His own face stared back at him. Not exactly, but close enough that his breath hitched in his throat. The warlord in the stone stood with his sword raised high, his expression locked in defiance. Beside him, another figure—one who bore an eerie resemblance to Sigurd.

  A chill settled into Ragnor’s bones.

  "This is not the first time," Idris murmured, watching him closely.

  Ragnor swallowed the dry taste of ash. "What do you mean?"

  Idris exhaled slowly, placing a hand on the carving. "You thought you ended it. That you shattered the cycle. That by killing the gods, you had freed the world." His eyes met Ragnor’s, sharp and unyielding. "But the truth is far older than your war. You did not break the chain, Stormborn. You only loosened it."

  Ragnor clenched his fists. "I ended fate."

  "You ended a thread of it," Idris corrected. "One strand, among many."

  Ragnor turned fully to face him. "Then tell me, Scholar. What was this war truly about?"

  Idris studied him for a long moment before speaking, his voice dropping lower, as if the very temple listened.

  "It was never about Albion. It was never about men, nor kings, nor even gods."

  He gestured toward the carvings once more.

  "It was about something far greater. Something that has always been watching. Waiting. And now that you have cut the chain… it has seen you."

  A cold wind swept through the temple, and for the first time in his life, Ragnor felt something unfamiliar crawl up his spine.

  Fear.

  Scene 2: The First Seal of Fate (The Hidden Prophecy Revealed)

  The chamber stretched far beyond what Ragnor had thought possible, deeper into the mountain than any mortal hand should have carved. Time itself seemed to hang in the still air, caught in the cracks of the ancient stone and the dust that lingered undisturbed. Idris walked ahead, his steps slow and deliberate, his hands brushing along the walls as if greeting old friends.

  Torchlight flickered, casting long shadows over the carvings that ran the length of the chamber. They were different from those outside. Here, there were no gods, no celestial figures looming over mankind. Instead, the walls bore the weight of something older—something written in the bones of the world itself.

  Ragnor’s eyes narrowed as he took in the images. War upon war, etched into stone. Great battles waged under a sky split open by fire. Warlords raising their blades, their faces eerily familiar. And at the center of it all, one unbroken pattern—a warrior standing against the tide, a brother at his side, a kingdom at his back.

  His jaw tightened.

  "How long has this gone on?"

  Idris did not answer immediately. He pressed a hand to the wall, tracing one of the figures. A warlord, bearing the same storm-forged blade that now hung at Ragnor’s side. The same fury in his eyes. The same weight upon his shoulders.

  "As long as time has remembered," Idris murmured.

  Ragnor clenched his fists. "I was never meant to be free, was I?"

  Idris turned his head slightly, his expression unreadable. "No one ever was."

  Ragnor’s breath came slow and steady, though he could feel the fire rising in his chest. "The cycle is broken. The gods are dead. I killed them." His voice was iron, but something about the silence that followed unsettled him.

  Idris exhaled. "And yet, here you stand, staring at a war that was fought before your ancestors ever took breath." His fingers curled against the stone. "Ask yourself, Stormborn—what does that mean?"

  Ragnor turned back to the carvings, his mind grasping for a certainty that was no longer there.

  The warriors in the stone were not just like him. They were him. Or perhaps, versions of him. Warlords who had stood where he now stood, believing as he had believed. Fighting as he had fought. Dying as he had died.

  "It means…" His voice faltered. He forced the words out, though they tasted bitter in his mouth. "It means I wasn’t the first."

  Idris stepped beside him, his voice softer now, almost reverent. "And you will not be the last."

  A cold knot settled in Ragnor’s stomach.

  He tore his gaze from the wall, forcing himself back to the present. "What is this place?"

  Idris gestured toward the far end of the chamber, where an altar stood—a massive slab of obsidian, its surface carved with runes that pulsed faintly, as if they still remembered something the rest of the world had forgotten.

  "This," Idris said, "is the First Seal of Fate."

  Ragnor moved toward it, his pulse quickening. The runes on the altar were unlike any he had ever seen, shifting under the torchlight as though unwilling to be read. The moment his fingers brushed the surface, a wave of something ancient surged through him.

  Visions.

  Not memories, but echoes.

  Flashes of steel and fire. Warlords standing at this very altar, their hands bloodied, their eyes alight with fury or despair. Kings kneeling before something unseen. Wars ignited, not by conquest, but by command.

  And then—Sigurd.

  Ragnor gasped as his brother’s face flickered through the vision. Sigurd, standing at this very place, his eyes wide with a horror Ragnor had never seen before. He was speaking to someone—no, not someone. Something.

  The words were lost in the storm of images, but Ragnor saw it clearly.

  Sigurd had known.

  His brother had stood here before him, had heard the same truths, had looked into the same abyss.

  And he had been afraid.

  Ragnor staggered back, the vision snapping like a thread cut too soon. His breath was ragged, his hands trembling with something he could not name.

  Idris watched him in silence.

  "You thought you broke the cycle," the scholar said finally, his voice heavy with something close to pity. "But you merely set the first piece into motion."

  Ragnor’s heart pounded. His voice was hoarse when he spoke.

  "Then tell me, Idris. What did I set in motion?"

  Idris turned toward the altar, his fingers brushing over the shifting runes. "Something older than your gods. Older than your war. A design written into the marrow of the world itself." He exhaled. "You thought your brother fought for a throne. You were wrong."

  He turned back to Ragnor, his gaze sharp, unwavering.

  "He fought to keep this sealed."

  A slow dread crept into Ragnor’s veins.

  "And you," Idris continued, "have set it free."

  Scene 3: The Architects of Fate Stir (The First Signs of a Greater Force)

  A chill swept through the ancient chamber, though no wind stirred. The moment the words left Idris’s lips, the weight of something unseen pressed against the walls, thick as the darkness beyond the torches. The runes on the altar pulsed—once, twice—before fading into cold, lifeless stone, as if something within had just turned its gaze elsewhere.

  Ragnor stepped back, his instincts tightening like a coiled spring. The silence was unnatural.

  "What was that?" His voice was steady, but his fingers clenched around the hilt of his blade.

  Idris did not answer immediately. His eyes, shadowed beneath the hood of his robes, flickered with something that Ragnor had not seen before—not fear, but a deep, knowing wariness.

  "They have noticed us."

  Ragnor’s jaw tightened. "Who?"

  The scholar exhaled slowly. "The ones who built the chains you thought you shattered."

  A pulse of wrongness trembled through the stone, making the torchlight flicker. The shadows along the walls stretched unnaturally, lengthening like living things. The carvings depicting the warlords of old seemed to shift as if trying to step free from their prisons of stone.

  Then, the whispers began.

  Not voices. Not words.

  Something deeper. Something older.

  A vibration in the air, like the sound of strings plucked on an instrument too vast for mortal ears to comprehend. A resonance that hummed against bone and blood, seeping into marrow.

  Ragnor shuddered.

  For all the wars he had fought, all the horrors he had faced, he had never felt anything like this. The gods had been cruel, their power suffocating, their will absolute—but they had been tangible. They had spoken. They had fought.

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  This was different.

  This was something that did not fight, because it had never needed to.

  The air itself was bending under its presence.

  "Idris," Ragnor growled, his patience fraying. "What am I looking at?"

  The scholar did not move. His voice was low, measured, as though speaking might call attention to them.

  "Not looking," he corrected. "Being seen."

  The ground beneath them trembled.

  The shadows along the walls twisted, stretching impossibly until they no longer belonged to the carved figures. Their edges flickered like tattered cloth, shifting between forms, shifting between realities.

  A laugh—low, distant, cold—rippled through the chamber.

  Not a god’s laughter. Not even a voice.

  The mere impression of amusement.

  Ragnor’s grip on his blade tightened, the old instinct to fight rising in his blood. He had defied gods. He had killed warlords. He had crushed the chains that bound him.

  Yet every instinct screamed at him now.

  This was not something to fight.

  This was something to run from.

  The laughter deepened, warping like sound passing through water. It became something else—something closer to a voice, yet still without shape, without form.

  "You opened the door."

  The words slid into his mind without passing through his ears. They carried no tone, no emotion, only certainty.

  "We are watching."

  The torchlight flared, then extinguished.

  Darkness swallowed them whole.

  For a single moment, there was nothing. No stone. No chamber. No Idris.

  Only the vast, endless abyss of something beyond fate itself.

  And then—silence.

  The torches blazed back to life, their flames wild, unstable. The carvings on the walls were still, frozen in place as if nothing had happened. The runes on the altar lay dormant.

  The presence was gone.

  But the air remembered.

  Ragnor let out a breath, though his muscles remained locked in battle-readiness. The sensation clung to his skin, the weight of unseen eyes still pressing against his soul.

  Idris turned slowly, his face as unreadable as ever.

  "You cannot fight what you do not yet understand," he murmured.

  Ragnor exhaled sharply. "Then start talking."

  The scholar’s fingers brushed against the altar one last time, his expression grim.

  "You thought your brother betrayed you," he said softly. "But he tried to warn you."

  A pause.

  "And now it is too late."

  Scene 4: Echoes of the Past (The Truth About the Warlords Before Him)

  Ragnor did not speak as he followed Idris deeper into the temple’s ancient corridors. The scholar moved with purpose, his dark robes whispering against the stone, his pace unhurried but unwavering. The torches burned low here, their golden glow struggling against the ever-present chill in the air. It was the cold of something ancient. Something that had been waiting.

  The further they walked, the heavier the silence became. Not an emptiness, but a weight, thick with the presence of things unseen. The walls, once adorned with divine imagery, had begun to change. No longer did they depict gods and kings, but warlords—figures carved into the rock with a brutal precision, each one locked in battle, each one holding the same blade Ragnor carried at his side.

  He slowed, his fingers brushing the cold stone. The faces of the warriors were eerily familiar.

  Not in detail, but in presence.

  "I know them," he murmured.

  Idris’s footsteps did not falter.

  "Of course you do."

  The passage ended in a vast chamber, its ceiling lost in darkness. In its center stood a circular stone altar, carved with runes older than any language Ragnor had ever known.

  Idris stepped forward, resting his hand against the altar’s surface.

  "They have all stood where you stand now."

  Ragnor narrowed his eyes. "Who?"

  The scholar did not answer. Instead, he whispered something beneath his breath, an incantation in a tongue that did not belong to any mortal language. The moment the last syllable left his lips, the chamber trembled.

  A deep, resonant hum filled the space, vibrating through Ragnor’s bones. The air thickened, and suddenly, the walls came alive.

  Shadows flickered, taking form, stepping from the stone.

  And the past unfolded before his eyes.

  One by one, figures emerged—warlords clad in armor of ancient make, their faces set in grim determination. Some bore the insignias of long-dead kingdoms, others of empires lost to time. They were warriors of every age, of every era, but their eyes...

  Their eyes were the same.

  The same fire. The same burden.

  The same fate.

  Ragnor took a step forward as the first of them—a warrior clad in iron, his braided hair streaked with silver—turned his head as if to look at him.

  The vision flickered, shifting.

  The warrior knelt before something unseen, his sword held aloft. A voice—distant, hollow—echoed through the chamber.

  "I kneel not as a servant, but as one who understands."

  The vision fractured, replaced by another.

  A different warlord, this one younger, standing at the edge of a battlefield. Blood soaked his armor, his hands, his face. He looked up toward the heavens—toward something vast and unseen.

  "You offer me eternity," the vision whispered, "but I will not be your pawn."

  The scene shattered again, shifting faster now.

  Another warlord. Then another.

  Kneeling. Standing. Accepting. Defying.

  Over and over.

  The weight of it pressed against Ragnor’s chest.

  "This is not a prophecy," he said softly. "This is a pattern."

  Idris exhaled. "Yes."

  The images slowed, until only two remained.

  The first—Ragnor recognized immediately.

  Sigurd.

  Standing in the same place Ragnor stood now, his face twisted in something between fury and terror. He was speaking, but the vision had no sound. Yet Ragnor could feel the words.

  "I will not be erased."

  Then the vision shattered.

  The final image rose from the altar, and Ragnor felt his breath catch.

  It was himself.

  Not as he was now, but as something else. Something more.

  He stood upon a battlefield, sword in hand, his face unreadable.

  At his feet, the world burned.

  And beyond him, something loomed.

  Something vast.

  Something waiting.

  Then, as quickly as it had come, the vision collapsed, fading back into the stone.

  Silence returned to the chamber.

  Idris turned to him.

  "You were never the first, Ragnor." His voice was quiet, heavy. "And you will not be the last. Unless you end this for good."

  Ragnor said nothing.

  Because for the first time, he realized—Sigurd had not been wrong to fear what came next.

  He had not been afraid of dying.

  He had been afraid of what Ragnor would become.

  Scene 5: The Hollow Sky (Something is Watching)

  The air was different when Ragnor stepped out of the temple.

  It was still Albion—the same broken land, the same endless battlefield, the same wind whispering through the ruins. And yet, something was wrong.

  The sky loomed heavy above him, thick with storm clouds that had not been there before. The war was over, the gods were gone, and yet the heavens churned as if something unseen had been disturbed.

  Ragnor exhaled, stepping forward into the dying light.

  Idris followed at his side, his expression unreadable.

  "The sky should have cleared."

  The scholar did not answer.

  Ragnor’s boots crushed the brittle remains of what had once been the temple’s grand entrance. Stone pillars lay shattered, ancient symbols now no more than dust. The battlefield stretched before him—corpses, steel, the remnants of a war that should have never happened.

  And yet, it was the sky that held his gaze.

  Because something was moving up there.

  He stopped.

  Idris, sensing the shift in his stance, did the same.

  "What is it?" the scholar murmured.

  Ragnor did not answer. He was staring. Watching.

  High above, just beyond the veil of storm clouds, something vast stirred. It was not lightning, nor wind, nor any force of nature. It was something deliberate.

  It was watching him.

  A slow chill crept up his spine. His hand found the hilt of his blade.

  Then, a whisper.

  Not in his ears, but in his bones.

  "You see us now."

  Ragnor inhaled sharply, his pulse hammering against his ribs.

  Idris stiffened.

  "They are aware," he murmured.

  Ragnor turned his head slightly, just enough to glance at the scholar.

  "Who?" His voice was steady, but something in his chest twisted.

  Idris’s lips pressed into a thin line.

  "Not the gods. Not fate. Not anything you have fought before." His eyes flickered toward the sky. "You thought you freed yourself, Ragnor. But the gods were only the first ones to fall. And those who built them..."

  He trailed off.

  Ragnor clenched his jaw, looking back toward the storm.

  Something shifted again—just a flicker, just for an instant. A shape, an outline, something wrong.

  Then it was gone.

  The storm churned, but it did not break.

  "You cannot fight what you do not understand," Idris said quietly.

  Ragnor exhaled, rolling his shoulders.

  "Then I will learn."

  The wind howled through the ruins, and for the first time in his life, Ragnor Frostborn understood what it meant to be hunted.

  Scene 6: Sigurd’s Final Warning (A Voice from the Grave)

  The wind shifted.

  It came without warning, rolling through the ruins like a whisper in the dark. The scent of rain clung to the air, thick and metallic, carrying the weight of something old.

  Ragnor stopped mid-step.

  His fingers flexed against the hilt of his sword, a warrior’s instinct tightening through his body. Idris, a few paces ahead, noticed his hesitation and turned.

  "What is it?"

  Ragnor did not answer.

  The wind moved again. But this time, it spoke.

  "You fool… you should have listened."

  Ragnor’s breath locked in his chest. He knew that voice.

  "Sigurd."

  He turned sharply, scanning the ruins, but there was nothing. Only the broken stones, the crumbling remnants of Albion’s past.

  And yet, the air moved.

  A whisper of motion, a flicker of something just out of reach.

  "It’s not over."

  The words came softer this time, barely more than breath. Ragnor took a slow step forward, his pulse hammering against his ribs.

  "You only cut the head… but the body… the body still moves."

  A shadow passed through the ruins—too quick, too silent. Not a man. Not a ghost. Something else.

  Ragnor’s grip on his blade tightened.

  "Sigurd." He spoke the name with measured calm, but something in his stomach twisted.

  The wind did not answer.

  Idris exhaled behind him, his voice grim.

  "A dead man should not have a voice."

  Ragnor’s jaw clenched.

  "And yet he does."

  Silence settled. The ruins stood empty, the battlefield still.

  But Ragnor knew what he had heard.

  And deep in his bones, he knew this war was not yet done.

  The wind carried no more voices, only the hollow hush of a world that had lost its gods. Ragnor exhaled, his grip on his sword loosening as he turned away from the ruins. Sigurd was gone. Not in body alone, but in every thread of existence. And yet… something of him had remained, a voice buried in the bones of fate itself, whispering where no mouth should remain to speak.

  Idris met his gaze. “A dead man should not have a voice,” he murmured.

  “It wasn’t his voice anymore,” Ragnor said, stepping away from the ruins. “It was something else.”

  And deep down, he knew that something had been listening.

  Scene 7: A World That Does Not Remember (The War That Wasn’t?)

  They walked in silence, the temple ruins fading into the mist behind them. The air had changed. It was subtle at first, like the world itself was… uncertain. Ragnor felt it in the ground beneath his boots—not a steady thing, not stone, but something yielding, like the earth had not yet decided whether to be solid or dust.

  “Do you feel it?” Idris asked as they ascended the broken steps.

  Ragnor did not answer. He only continued forward, emerging onto the battlefield where the dead lay thick.

  The battlefield stretched before him, a silent graveyard beneath the darkening sky.

  Ragnor walked among the fallen, his boots pressing into the damp earth, the scent of blood and fire still lingering in the air. The bodies lay where they had fallen, twisted in death, weapons scattered beside lifeless hands.

  But something was wrong.

  He slowed his steps, his gaze narrowing.

  The bodies were flickering.

  Not like flames, nor like shadows shifting under the dying light. It was subtler—like a trick of the eye, as if their forms were unraveling, struggling to remain part of this world.

  Ragnor knelt beside one of the fallen, a warrior clad in Albion’s silver crest, his face frozen in the horror of his final moment. Slowly, cautiously, Ragnor reached out—his fingertips brushed against the man’s shoulder.

  And for the briefest of moments, he felt nothing.

  Not flesh. Not armor. Not even air.

  Nothing.

  He pulled his hand back sharply, his breath coming slow and measured. His gaze swept across the field, realization creeping into his mind like a poison.

  "This battle…" he murmured under his breath.

  Idris stepped beside him, watching carefully. He did not speak at first. Instead, he crouched, pressing his palm against the ground as if searching for something unseen. The scholar’s brow furrowed, his breath slow and controlled.

  "Do you see it now?" Idris finally asked.

  Ragnor’s fingers curled into fists.

  "This war was never real."

  The words felt foreign on his tongue, but they carried weight.

  A performance. A stage. A script written long before the first blade was drawn.

  Had any of it mattered? Had the blood spilled across this land been real, or had it been nothing more than an echo of something greater?

  Selene’s voice broke through the heavy silence.

  "What is it?"

  She had approached without him noticing, her steps light, cautious. She had fought for Albion with everything she had, given her soul to this war. But as she looked between them now, the unease in her expression mirrored the turmoil burning within Ragnor’s chest.

  He did not answer.

  Because he did not know.

  The bodies did not flicker because they were illusions. They flickered because something was still rewriting them.

  Ragnor knelt beside a fallen warrior, brushing his fingers against the armor. For a fraction of a second, the steel was smooth, polished—then, in the blink of an eye, rusted and broken. As if history had yet to decide whether this man had fallen yesterday or centuries ago.

  Idris exhaled, watching the battlefield ripple in the dying light. “You understand it now, don’t you?”

  Ragnor rose slowly, the weight of realization settling upon him. “It’s not that the war wasn’t real.” His voice was quiet. “It’s that it was never meant to be permanent.”

  The war had been written and rewritten. Again and again. A stage set, destroyed, and set again. And someone—something—had just turned the page.

  Scene 8: The Architects Stir (The First Sign of the True Enemy)

  The battlefield had lost its weight by the time the sun set.

  The dead remained where they had fallen, but the moment had passed, faded into something less tangible. Ragnor sat on the edge of the ruins, his eyes fixed on the distant horizon. He could still see the fortress, a crumbled silhouette against the last light of day. It should have felt like an ending. But it didn’t.

  The sky had changed. The air had changed. And as the stars emerged, something was… wrong.

  The sky stretched above him, vast and endless, the stars scattered like shattered glass across an ink-black canvas. But as he watched, unease coiled in his gut.

  The constellations were wrong.

  Ragnor narrowed his gaze. Some of the stars had shifted. Some were missing entirely. And then—something moved.

  A flicker. A distortion at the edges of the void.

  Ragnor’s fingers tightened around his blade.

  A presence loomed beyond sight, something ancient, something vast. It was not a god—not like those he had faced before. This was something older.

  A whisper of wind curled through the ruins, carrying a voice that did not belong to this world.

  "He feels it," it murmured, though it spoke in no tongue Ragnor had ever heard. And yet, he understood.

  The wind carried another voice, layered upon the first.

  "He looks upon the sky, and he sees the cracks."

  Ragnor rose to his feet.

  A shadow fell across the heavens, vast and formless, something shifting beyond the fabric of reality itself. It was watching. Waiting.

  Idris stepped beside him, his voice grim. “You feel it, don’t you?”

  Ragnor did not ask what he meant. He already knew. The Architects had not merely noticed him.

  They were watching. And they were moving.

  And then, at last, he spoke.

  "The Architects. The ones who built fate itself."

  Ragnor clenched his jaw. The weight of understanding settled upon him like iron chains.

  He had fought gods. He had broken the cycle.

  But the gods were never the masters of fate. They were only messengers.

  And now, the ones who wrote history had turned their gaze upon him.

  Scene 9: This Is Only the Beginning (The Final Whisper of the Unwritten)

  Ragnor did not sleep that night.

  He stood at the edge of the ruined city, watching the storm in the distance. The air was too still. The land too silent. He had broken the cycle, shattered the chains that bound men to an eternal war, and yet… something remained. Something unseen.

  The sky loomed above him, vast and hollow, the constellations forever altered. Behind those scattered stars, something moved.

  A shadow at the edges of existence. A thing without form.

  The wind shifted.

  A voice. A whisper carried through the ruins, threading through his bones, his blood, as if it had always been there, waiting for him to listen.

  "This was not the story you were meant to tell."

  Ragnor stiffened. His fingers flexed around his sword hilt as he turned sharply. But there was nothing. No one. Only the wind curling through the shattered stones.

  The voice did not come from the land. It did not belong to the sky. It existed within him.

  "You think you broke the chain. You think you are free."

  The wind howled through the ruins, the stones trembling as if the world itself recoiled at the sound of it.

  "But the page has only turned."

  Ragnor exhaled slowly, his heart steady despite the cold weight pressing upon him.

  The air seemed to twist, the ground beneath his feet shuddering. He could feel it—the presence. Something watching. Something waiting.

  "The storm is not over, Ragnor Frostborn."

  The stars above flickered.

  "The storm has only begun."

  And then—silence.

  The wind died. The night stretched on, empty and vast, as if nothing had ever been spoken at all. But the weight of it remained.

  Behind him, Idris stood at the base of the ruined steps, watching. He did not ask what Ragnor had heard. He did not need to.

  For a long moment, neither of them spoke.

  Then, at last, Ragnor exhaled, closing his eyes briefly before opening them to the hollow sky.

  And in a voice that carried the weight of battle, of gods, of fate itself, he answered the silence.

  "I know."