CHAPTER 101: SYVRAK

The scream didn’t just fade.

It lingered.

Not in the air, in something deeper,

something older.

It sank into the earth like blood into soil, spread through the roots of ancient trees, rippled across stone that remembered when gods walked freely and the world was young and terrible.

Every beast within felt it,

Heard it.

Knew it.

The dragon’s presence, uncontained, unfiltered, divine, a signal flare shot into the primordial parts of their minds where instinct lived and reason had never been invited.

It bypassed thought entirely. Bypassed choice.

They didn’t decide to answer.

They were compelled.

Like iron shavings to a magnet. Like moths to flame. Like prey recognizing the scent of something so far above them in the hierarchy of existence that survival instinct inverted, became compulsion, became the desperate need to either submit or destroy before being destroyed.

In the forests to the east, Rakhai packs raised their heads as one, seven-tailed elders and young cubs alike, their fur igniting with inner fire. Their eyes glowed red-orange, pupils blown wide, and without a sound, without hesitation, they began to run.

Overhead, Dravik circled in the failing light, their bronze wings catching the last rays of sun. The call hit them like a physical blow, and they shrieked, high, piercing, wrong—before diving in perfect formation toward the temple ruins, their blue-white flames already kindling in their throats.

The ground shook again.

Raugar burst from the tree line, massive and terrible, their roars splitting the air like the earth itself was screaming. Fire pulsed beneath their skin, veins of molten light glowing through fur that looked like it had been carved from obsidian and rage. They didn’t hunt. They didn’t stalk.

They charged.

And from the lava channels that crisscrossed the region, twisting through stone like veins through flesh, came the Vormae. Liquid flame given serpentine form, their bodies solidifying into obsidian armor as they slithered toward the temple with single-minded purpose.

They came from every direction.

Dozens. Hundreds.

A tide of fur and scale and fire, answering a call they couldn’t refuse.

But at the head of the convergence, rising from a fissure that hadn’t existed moments before, came something older.

Fifty feet of molten fury and ancient hatred coiled into serpentine perfection. Its scales were obsidian plates layered thick as armor, each one etched with patterns that looked almost like runes, almost like scars, almost like the memory of every battle it had ever fought and won.

Thorns jutted from its spine, glowing red at the tips, dripping something that hissed and smoked when it hit stone.

Its eyes burned with intelligence.

Not animal cunning. Intelligence.

The kind that remembered when dragons had walked the earth like gods and looked down on everything else as lesser.

The kind that had watched Pyronox gift humans with power, to fight, to protect, and felt rage so pure it had burned for centuries without dimming.

Syvrak and its kind had tried to challenge the dragons.

Had failed.

Again.

And again.

And again.

Pyronox had crushed them every time, effortlessly, the way a lion might crush an ant. Not with malice. With indifference. As though their rage and jealousy and desperate need to prove themselves worthy meant less than nothing.

But the dragons were gone now.

And the power?

The power was here.

Unguarded. Unsealed. Screaming its presence into the world like an invitation written in fire.

Syvrak’s massive head lifted, tasting the air, and its mouth opened in a roar that made the Raugar’s cries sound like whispers.

Then it moved.

Fast. Impossibly fast for something so massive.

Straight toward the temple.

Straight toward her.

Soren didn’t wait for confirmation.

Didn’t pause to assess the situation, to count the beasts converging, to calculate odds that any sane tactician would recognize as suicide.

He ran.

Frost exploded from his boots with every step, leaving a trail of ice that cracked and splintered in his wake. His breath came sharp and cold, misting in the air despite Solmire’s heat. Around him, the world descended into chaos.

The Winter Knights met the first wave head-on.

Steel clashed against claw. Fire met ice in explosions of steam. Men screamed, battle cries, death cries, the wordless sounds of violence too primal for language.

A Raugar’s roar shook the air, followed by the wet crunch of armor being shredded like parchment. A Dravik dove, talons outstretched, and a knight’s ice spear caught it mid-flight, freezing it solid before it shattered against stone.

But there were too many.

Gods, there were too many.

And they weren’t stopping. Weren’t even slowing to engage fully. They hit the defensive line, broke through or died trying, and kept going.

Toward the temple.

Toward her.

Soren’s mind worked at a speed that would have burned out lesser men, pieces clicking into place with horrible clarity.

The beasts weren’t attacking randomly.

Weren’t interested in the soldiers or the diplomats or even him. They were converging on a single point with the kind of focus that spoke of purpose, of compulsion, of something overriding every natural instinct they possessed.

"They sense something—"

The words were barely a whisper, swallowed by the sounds of battle.

But he knew.

Whatever was in that temple, whatever Eris had become or unleashed or was, every beast for miles could feel it. Could smell it. Could no more resist it than they could resist breathing.

They were hunting her.

Or being drawn to her.

Or—

He didn’t have time to finish the thought.

The temple entrance loomed ahead, its massive carved archway yawning like a throat, and heat blasted out.

It hit him like a physical wall.

Soren didn’t stop.

Ice formed around him instinctively, a shield, a shell, frost blooming across his skin and clothes and hair until he looked carved from winter itself.

The temperature differential when he crossed the threshold was so extreme that steam exploded around him, obscuring everything in a blinding white fog.

The heat he faced at her chambers was nothing but a tiny spark compared to this.

Yet

He pushed through. He always did.

The corridor was worse. Narrower, darker, the walls radiating heat like they were alive and angry. The carvings weren’t just glowing now, they were burning, light bleeding from the runes as though the stone had become translucent, as though he could see straight through to whatever inferno raged on the other side.

His ice hissed and evaporated on contact. Reformed. Evaporated again.

He was burning through power faster than he’d ever burned through it before, and he’d fought wars that cost less.

But he didn’t slow.

Couldn’t.

Because somewhere ahead, through the heat and the smoke and the impossible pressure building in the air, was Eris.

And he would walk through the heart of the sun itself before he let her face this alone.

The corridor opened.

And Soren stopped.

Not because he wanted to. Because his body, his mind, every instinct he possessed demanded it.

Because what stood before him was not something that could be approached carelessly.

The chamber was vast, impossibly so, its ceiling lost in shadow and smoke. The walls glowed with heat, the ancient carvings bleeding light like wounds that would never heal.

The air itself seemed to shimmer, warping reality at the edges, and the temperature,

Gods, the temperature.

It should have killed him instantly. Should have cooked the moisture from his eyes, turned his lungs to charred meat, melted flesh from bone before he could even scream.

But it didn’t.

Because at the center of the chamber, standing on the altar where she had once been broken, stood something that made the fire feel appropriate, made it feel like the only possible response to her presence.

No.

Not Eris.

Something wearing her skin.