Velmark was closer by dawn, but no less haunted.
The plains between us were silent—no birds, no wind, just the low, ever-present thrum of buried infrastructure like the earth itself was remembering how to scream. Agro walked slow, his breath even, hooves crunching over brittle soil. The sun bled weak and red across the horizon, more warning than warmth.
It reminded me of Draal.
Everything did, lately.
The further we moved from the empire's grave, the more I felt its bones. Laid bare in broken spires, dead conduits, half-buried mechanisms twitching like nerves trying to remember movement. This world wasn't just ruined—it was resisting its own death.
And I was starting to understand why.
The Crown hadn't spoken since the cliffs. But I could still feel it—quiet now, not absent. Watching. Its weight sat wrong in my pack, like it was waiting for something.
Or someone.
Velmark rose in fractured layers as we neared. Its skyline was a mangled crown of jagged towers and collapsed skybridges, half-swallowed by rust and time. What had once been a border city during the Empire's height was now a fossil—forgotten, but not untouched.
I could see movement.
Small. Faint.
Figures darting between shadows. Smoke curling above the ruins—not from campfires.
Controlled. Precise. Like beacons.
Agro stopped short.
He felt it before I did.
Not fear. Not panic. A stillness. That quiet between breaths when instinct grips you tight and whispers: Turn around.
But I didn't.
I slid from the saddle and crouched low behind a cracked stretch of ferrocrete, glass powder crunching beneath my boots. Peered through a jagged gap in the wall.
Soldiers.
Not Empire.
Burnfaith.
Black-and-scarlet insignia, robes cinched high, masks carved from oxidized bone. Ten at least. Maybe more beyond the line of sight. Some were scanning the area with relic-goggles, one was unpacking a twisted piece of detection tech that hummed like a dying heart. The rest held formation around a makeshift perimeter—tight, disciplined, and far too quiet.
Zealots didn't move like that unless they were waiting for something.
Or someone.
I slipped back into shadow, breath shallow, heart tapping cold against my ribs. Burnfaith wasn't just a story anymore—they were here, hunting. This wasn't a sweep. This was a stakeout.
They were looking for something.
Or someone carrying something.
Like a Crown.
Like me.
I reached for the pack before I could stop myself, hand brushing the canvas, the Crown's hum rising with contact. Not frantic. Not afraid.
Excited.
And that terrified me more than the soldiers.
They hadn't seen me. Not yet. But staying wasn't an option. Neither was circling wide—the city's ruins stretched into a jagged canyon to the north and dense wreckage to the south. If I wanted to get around, I'd have to go through the outskirt ruins to the west—closer to the soldiers, but less patrolled.
I cursed under my breath, guiding Agro low along the trench line. We kept to the gaps—shattered walls, collapsed vehicles, old transport rails swallowed by earth. The wind picked up slightly, just enough to carry the tang of scorched oil.
Then I heard it.
A scream.
Short. Wet. Cut off fast.
I froze.
Agro did too—ears pinned back, muscles taut.
It wasn't near the soldiers.
It came from deeper inside Velmark.
A trap?
Or something worse?
The Crown stirred—again, that slow pulse of memory threading through my thoughts. Blood. Chains. A throne cracked with ash.
No direction. Just pressure.
But it was pulling me forward.
And gods help me, I followed.
The ruins thickened fast.
Velmark wasn't built like Draal. It had no grand avenues, no ceremonial halls or imperial statues. It was vertical, jagged, built in defense. Tight corridors. Low overhangs. A maze of alleys and shattered bastions, half-swallowed by rust and rooted with the skeletal remains of some long-dead vinework. Everything creaked like it wanted to fall.
Or scream.
I edged through the broken courtyards, stepping over wreckage and blackened armor too far gone to salvage. Agro stayed behind this time, hidden in the trenchline.
Ahead, the air shimmered faintly—smoke thickening.
And then I saw her.
A girl, maybe seventeen, bleeding from a cut across her temple, crawling behind a rusted engine housing. Her breath came fast, shallow. She was trying not to make a sound.
She failed.
A second figure loomed behind her. Burnfaith, not in full robes—a scout. Mask off. Younger than I expected, his face carved with ritual scarring. He raised a blade—curved, serrated, humming with heat.
I didn't think.
I moved.
Boots scraped rust, blade in hand before I remembered drawing it—muscle memory not mine. The sword forms from the shard kicked in like instinct. Quick. Low. Efficient.
I hit him hard—side tackle, both of us crashing into shattered metal. The zealot swung, blade singing past my head. I caught his wrist, slammed it into the wall, once, twice, until the hilt fell. He roared, blood spitting from his mouth, then went limp.
Dead, or close enough.
The girl stared up at me, wide-eyed, blinking through blood.
"You're not with them," she rasped.
"No," I said. "You alone?"
A faint nod.
"They took the others," she whispered. "Toward the center. They think something's buried here. Something they can awaken."
I felt the Crown throb hard against my spine.
A memory hit me like a lash.
Not mine.
A tower, buried in Velmark's center. Not a weapon.
A vault.
And inside… a throne.
Not the king's.
The one that turned the king.
I swayed, caught myself on the wall, breath tight. The girl watched, terrified.
"You're bleeding," I muttered, trying to ground myself.
"I'll live," she said. "But you need to go. If they find you—"
"They're already looking."
I helped her up, my eyes drifting westward toward the deeper ruin. The vault was real. And the Burnfaith weren't just looking for weapons—they were looking for something tied to the Crown. To me.
To what I might become.
I turned back toward the fissure-riddled skyline, heart pounding, every step toward the center of Velmark burning deeper.
Agro was waiting.
So was the past.
So was the thing beneath the throne.