PROLOGUE – PART II: THE WEIGHT WE BURIED
The Mawtrain's bones still smoked.
Its carcass lay twisted in the scorched gorge below Kovarra's spine—fused metal, ruptured core veins, and the distant hissing of Sovereign residue slowly being devoured by the earth. The wreck pulsed with residual echoes, like a wounded beast still twitching in its death throes.
The silence that followed wasn't peace.
It was aftermath.
Kael stood atop the ruin, boots pressed into scorched steel, the breath of the mountain still trembling beneath him. The Codex pulses had long faded. Now there was only the weight—of death, of decision, of what came next.
Behind him, hybrids clawed through the rubble. Some screamed for names. Others moved in silence, dragging bodies from fire-warped corridors. The smell of bone-seared armor clung to the air like grief that wouldn't burn clean.
He didn't speak. Not yet.
This was their reckoning.
Talym knelt beside the shattered remains of a Pulse Engine, scribing the death count into a Codex tablet, though the system spat static with every touch.
"Codex instability peaked just before the rupture," he muttered, voice hoarse. "Eighteen confirmed fatalities. Seven from overload. Two—maybe more—incinerated mid-upgrade."
Kael didn't answer. His eyes were distant, locked on the shattered horizon. The wind carried soot like snowfall.
"They trusted us," Talym added quietly. "They followed the signal. And we gave them chaos."
Kael's voice came low, quiet. "We didn't give them the Codex."
Talym looked up. "No. But they believed in us to control it. We should've stopped it sooner."
Kael turned away. "I won't make excuses. I'll make sure it never happens again."
Crate emerged from the chasm below, Grix supporting his limp frame. Both were coated in ash and Sovereign oil, but alive. Barely.
"The forge vaults held," Crate rasped, swaying slightly. "Mostly. We pulled three cores, six cannibalized Codex shards. Enough to rebuild something. Might be the only reason Kovarra didn't fall."
Kael nodded once. Then his voice sharpened.
"Where's Rask?"
Grix hesitated. Crate's jaw tightened.
Then a roar echoed from the depths below—choked, animal, filled with pain.
They found him crushed beneath a fallen girder—his armor cracked, his back a nest of shattered Codex ports. He had shielded a group of young hybrids during the collapse, his body taking the full blast of a ruptured Sovereign conduit.
Kael approached slowly. Rask was still breathing. Just barely.
Crate knelt beside him, checking the damage. He looked up at Kael grimly.
"Codex shell's ruptured. Neural fuses melted. He shouldn't still be conscious. He shouldn't still be—"
Rask's eyes opened.
They burned with something beyond pain. Something stubborn. Unwilling.
Kael knelt beside him.
"You stupid, stubborn bastard," he muttered, his voice cracking beneath the grit.
Rask coughed, his voice like torn iron. "Still alive. Disappointing, I know."
Crate moved to inject a sedative. Kael raised a hand without looking.
"No. Let him speak."
"You gonna... patch me up?" Rask rasped. "Make me your next Codex bomb?"
"You don't need the Codex to return," Kael said, his voice low and certain. "You just need your name."
Rask stared at the ceiling, blood pooling beneath him.
"Rask died under that beam," he whispered. "All that's left is wreckage."
Kael gripped his shoulder. "Then tell me who survived."
A long silence passed. Then, with breath like a vow:
"Ironwrought."
Kael's gaze sharpened.
"Then rise, Ironwrought."
The forge hall stank of scorched memory.
They laid Ironwrought in the central anvil circle while Crate and the Forgebinders rebuilt his armor. Not Sovereign-grade. Not Codex-wired. Hybrid-forged. Bone, steel, and raw memory.
Whisper-Vow returned at dawn. Bloodless, but not clean. Her mask was cracked at the edge, a thin red line across her cheek. She said nothing, simply placed a Warden insignia—mangled and burnt—on the altar beside the forge.
Kael approached slowly.
"You were gone three days."
"There were three masks left."
He stared at her. She didn't blink.
"All handled?"
"All silenced."
Kael gave a quiet nod.
"You ever want to talk about it?"
"No."
Nothing more was needed.
That night, Kael found Serrin seated near the lower forge alcove, legs crossed, working silently as he cleaned a young hybrid's cracked armor plate. The child slept beside him, soot-streaked but alive.
"They still trust you," Serrin said without looking up.
Kael leaned against the stone wall. "They trust the mission."
"No," Serrin replied. "They trust you to make the pain mean something."
Kael exhaled, slow and tight. "Rask nearly died. We lost too many. I keep thinking... maybe the Codex was right to be silent."
Serrin looked up, quiet for a beat. Then:
"Or maybe it saw what you're becoming—and feared it."
Kael's eyes tightened. "I'm tired of building hope out of ash."
Serrin rose, laid a hand on his shoulder.
"You're not just leading a warband anymore, Kael. You're building a future. Don't forget to survive long enough to see it."
Kael nodded, but didn't speak.
By the fifth day, Kovarra had changed.
Ironmark drilled shield formations across the upper tiers, Bront Veil reinforcing impact lines with crushed rebar walls. Ashwing scouts ran recon flights beyond the Teeth's edge, trailing pulse-markers through unclaimed sky. Crate began building modular Codex shells from scrap—detachable, optional, loyal to no central pulse.
The Codex hadn't spoken.
So they built their own voice.
On the seventh day, Kael called them to the summit.
They gathered under an iron arch still wet with blood. No fanfare. No banners. Only the burn of shared purpose.
Kael looked over them, his voice raw but resolute.
"We are not fragments," he said. "We are what they tried to cull, reforge, and enslave. And we are still here."
He met each of their eyes—Ironwrought, Whisper-Vow, Ironmark, Crate, VyrmClaw, Talym, Kestri.
"We bury the dead. Not to mourn. To give them roots."
He raised one hand.
"Ashguard. Bloodbound. Forgebinders. Ashwings. Cladeborn. The Veiled."
Each name echoed in the chasm like thunder.
"These are not titles. They are warnings."
Later, Kael stood beside Talym on the overlook. Below, Kovarra pulsed—not with Codex light, but with living movement. Hybrid divisions in lockstep. Drills. Rites. Purpose.
"What if the Codex never speaks again?" Talym asked.
Kael didn't answer immediately. He dipped his hand into the ash at his feet. Drew a single line across the map of the world etched into stone.
"Then we'll carve our own signal."
He looked toward the rising sun.
"One they can't ignore."
The Codex gave them pain.
They gave it shape.
And from that shape, something monstrous had begun to rise.