Tyrus sat staring at the door, the only unchained part of him.

  The room Rombo had placed him in was far too fine: polished floors, a carved desk, a captain’s bed. Wrong in every way for a prisoner still locked in iron. His foot bounced against the floorboards, not from fear, but from the gnawing impatience that had been eating at him all day. His arms ached where the shackles bit into them, the metal warmed by his skin.

  Then, a hinge crying under strain.

  The door creaked open.

  “Ura. It is time.”

  The guard who entered smelled like rot sealed inside armor: stale sweat, swamp water, and the metallic bite of blood that had not fully dried. Dresdi’s men carried their battles with them like a disease.

  Three Evokians escorted Tyrus down the narrow hall. Halfway through, Rombo appeared, flanked by his own cluster of guards, already wearing that sickening grin like it was part of his uniform.

  “Wonderful news,” Rombo sang, stepping close, his breath sour. “The Supreme General has finally arrived.” He inhaled deeply near Tyrus’ shoulder, as if savoring a scent. “I hope you are as excited as I am, Son of Ura.”

  He clapped once. The guards obeyed.

  The deeper they went into the fortress, the louder the distant screams of Vaga became; thin, stretched, and ragged. They slipped through stone corridors as smoke from outside drifted through cracks in the walls, carrying the smell of burning timber and flesh. Tyrus imagined the streets: the flames, the bodies, the madness. Dresdi’s arrival had turned a kingdom into an infectious wound.

  They turned a corner and stopped.

  Dresdi’s soldiers lined the hallway in two perfect rows, shoulder to shoulder, standing unnaturally still. Their eyes were fever-bright, their faces gaunt, their lips cracked and twitching from some unseen tension. As Tyrus approached, one soldier began to hum.

  A low, broken, off-key note.

  Another joined. Then another.

  Within seconds, the entire hall vibrated with a single, rising, discordant melody; half dirge, half lullaby, something children might sing in nightmares. The sound crawled under Tyrus’ skin, unsettling in ways he couldn’t name. These men were not simply soldiers; they were believers in something truly terrible.

  The guards pushed him forward.

  The humming grew louder.

  They entered the mess hall.

  Every table had been cleared out except one, placed dead center. More soldiers lined the walls, humming the same melody but quieter now: controlled, reverent, like a hymn.

  And at the lone table sat a man built like a fortress wrapped in flesh.

  Red and gold Evokain steel clung to him like a second skin, each plate etched with old symbols that caught the candlelight and bled it into the room. His helmet rested beside him, forged with three golden horns that curved like the crown of some forgotten beast.

  The Red Dragon… the Red Dragon; lay across the table, its ruby sheen dripping with fresh black oil, as if it had been fed and polished with the same ritualistic care reserved for sacred relics. Even resting, the blade seemed to pulse with a faint inner glow, like a slumbering ember.

  He didn’t move.

  He didn’t need to.

  The room bent around him.

  There was no doubt in Tyrus’ mind. No possibility at all…

  This was Dresdi.

  The General of the Grand Evokian Army. The Butcher of the Southern Rivers. The man raised from childhood inside the cage of war.

  And now he was staring straight at Tyrus, his eyes reflecting the candlelight like molten gold swirling in madness.

  The man rose from the table with a slow, deliberate motion; then he began clapping.

  Once.

  Twice.

  A third time, each strike echoing like a hammer on an anvil.

  “Beautiful. Beautiful,” he said, voice rich with approval.

  At his praise, the humming stopped instantly.

  Silence swallowed the room so completely it felt like the air had been snatched away. The walls, tall and bare, suddenly seemed too large, as though the entire hall were holding its breath.

  Rombo stepped forward, puffing out his chest.

  “To our Supreme General,” he declared, his oily voice swelling with theatrical pride. “Commander of the southern forces. Ordained by our Lord and Master, the Holy Evok. Keeper of Evokia and her domains…” He gestured grandly. “I present you with your captured Ura.”

  Dresdi moved.

  His boots, solid slabs of iron, hit the stone floor with such weight that the ground vibrated under Tyrus’ feet. He approached slowly, studying Tyrus with an intensity that bordered on feral curiosity.

  Tyrus did not look away.

  In the torchlight, he finally saw Dresdi’s face clearly: not divine, not monstrous – just a man. A man carved by violence. A man whose pupils were blown wide open inside a sulfur-yellow iris. The eyes of someone living inside a hallucination he believed was prophecy.

  He leaned closer.

  No fear.

  Only anger.

  “Remove the chains,” Dresdi commanded.

  The words were flat and emotionless.

  And immediately the shackles fell away; keys turning, metal clattering to the stone floor. Tyrus’ wrists throbbed with sudden freedom.

  Dresdi turned without another glance, the red-gold of his armor shimmering as he walked back to his seat.

  “Let us sit, then.”

  One of the guards pulled a chair for Tyrus, the scrape of wood against stone loud in the thick silence. Rombo lowered himself beside Dresdi, practically vibrating with excitement.

  The guards filed out of the hall, one by one, doors closing behind them with a heavy thud.

  Three men at a single table.

  Dresdi resumed eating, slicing through a slab of pork with the Red Dragon’s smaller companion blade; still a weapon, even now, even here. Grease glistened across his beard as he chewed. Tyrus sat stiffly, unsure whether he should grab one of the knives from the table and slit the general’s throat or wait for whatever madness this meeting was meant to be.

  “You’ll have to forgive me,” Dresdi finally said, lifting his goblet of wine. “I’m not usually one for diplomacy.”

  He drank deeply, wine staining his lips dark red.

  “I am Dresdi of the Elba,” he stated, chin lifting proudly.

  Tyrus knew the name.

  The Elba; riverfolk of the southern jungles. Hunters. Survivors. Ghosts that lived where sane men died.

  “And you’ve already met Rombo…” Dresdi continued, waving dismissively at the captain.

  He leaned forward, eyes glinting with something between amusement and hunger.

  “So tell us, Ura…”

  A chunk of hog disappeared between his teeth.

  “…what is your name?”

  Tyrus said nothing.

  His throat felt tight, not from fear, but from the violence it took to keep his mouth shut. Every muscle from his jaw to his fists trembled with the effort not to leap across the table and ram a fork through Dresdi’s eye.

  Rombo bristled.

  “Do not be rude, boy. You will answer when our Supreme General is…”

  A single gesture from Dresdi silenced him.

  The general didn’t even look at Rombo. Just raised a hand, palm outward. A king dismissing a barking dog.

  “Our friend is shy,” Dresdi said calmly. “It’s quite all right. He doesn’t have to speak.”

  He dragged a finger across a small berry, crushing it lazily. “He only has to listen.”

  He smeared the juice into his gums with casual reverence.

  Rombo bowed his head. “My apologies, Father. The other prisoners mentioned his name was West.”

  Tyrus blinked.

  Father?

  Rombo was at least forty. Dresdi wasn’t much older. Yet Rombo’s voice carried the tone of a zealous child afraid of disappointing a prophet.

  Dresdi clapped once more, sharp but delighted.

  “West! A Ura from the western band known as West.”

  He tugged at his beard with both hands, dragging the skin of his face downward until he looked like a sagging, distorted mask.

  Rombo leaned forward eagerly, as Dresdi grabbed a handful of berries, fingers shaking with need. He crushed them between his own fingers, then smeared what dribbled out along Rombo’s gums, his eyes going glassy with devotion. Rombo slammed his hand on the table hard enough to rattle the knives.

  “She always delivers,” he shouted, voice cracking with religious ecstasy, still staring into Dresdi’s eyes.

  Dresdi turned back to Tyrus, who stared back in a mix of confusion and disgust.

  “Tell me, West,” Dresdi asked softly, almost tenderly, “are you a coward… or does Her divine promise pass through you?”

  He waited.

  He smiled.

  Tyrus remained stone silent.

  “Do not break my heart,” Dresdi murmured, voice darkening. “Let me not assume you are nothing but a coward… a traitor to your people’s oath.”

  He crushed another berry between his wet fingers, red juices oozing down like blood.

  A guard entered the mess hall and stepped forward, breaking the tension. He set a plate of beans and overly-sauced pork before Tyrus. A mug of red wine. And finally, a small bowl filled with berries; the same eight-eye berries Dresdi and Rombo were devouring.

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  The smell was unmistakable.

  Tyrus’ stomach twisted.

  Eight-eye berries, a hallucinogen so potent that priests used them only in rituals or for the divine.

  Yet here it was served casually at dinner, smeared across the gums of two madmen who ruled an army.

  “Perhaps, West is not aware of what you speak of, Father. Perhaps he is not aware of the nights of the Crying River.”

  Rombo’s voice slithered out, almost pleased with itself, as the guards set a plate before him before returning to their posts.

  “I am aware.”

  Tyrus finally spoke. His voice was low and furious. He stared directly at Rombo.

  Somehow, his lifelong hatred of Dresdi was being overshadowed by the rage this buffoon provoked.

  “Oh, he does speak,” Dresdi mocked, laughing into his cup. “Then tell us, West… how did you survive the Crying River?”

  He swallowed another gulp of wine.

  “Why did my blade never meet your neck?”

  Tyrus hesitated. The anger swelling in his chest threatened to choke him. His eyes burned, but he locked his jaw, forcing his voice out steady but hard.

  “Perhaps it is so that my blade may bleed your black heart.”

  Dresdi did not answer. He kept eating, shoveling food into his mouth with obscene calm.

  Rombo looked at Tyrus with disappointment, as if Tyrus were a child speaking out of turn

  “And what then?” Dresdi said at last, words half-muffled with food.

  He stood. Slowly. With the weight of a man who knew no fear.

  He wiped the grease from his beard with his filthy palms.

  Then reached to the sides of his armor.

  A metallic click.

  The chestplate fell open and clattered to the floor.

  Dresdi spread his arms wide, presenting himself.  “And what then?” he repeated. “What will you do when you kill me?”

  Tyrus stared. A table knife in hand.

  He tightened his grip until the wood creaked, wondering if the blade could pierce Dresdi’s sternum.

  Wondering if he could push hard enough.

  “Do you believe West here has the heart to kill me?” Dresdi asked the soldiers lining the walls like shadows.

  In unison, without hesitation, they answered:

  “No, Father. Not the heart, nor the will.”

  Dresdi inhaled dramatically, then lowered himself back into his seat and resumed eating; like the moment meant nothing at all.

  He grabbed another handful of crushed berries, not even bothering to smear them across his mouth this time. He swallowed them whole, staining his throat dark.

  “You are not the first warrior of the Ura we have dealt with,” Rombo said, watching Tyrus. “But you may have the honor of being the last.”

  Dresdi shook his head, amused, before suddenly slamming both hands onto the table; hard enough to rattle every dish and tableware.

  “For it will be one man who received the vision!” he boomed.

  “One man who sees through the Gods Eye. A warrior. A father. A teacher. A leader who will ascend to the promise of the Evok.”

  He lifted his hands to the ceiling as he recited.

  “But it will not be without steel. And it will not be without blood. And the light of the gods will reveal everything!”

  His gaze dropped back to Tyrus.

  Piercing. Wet with feverish devotion.

  “She will deliver,” Rombo murmured, bowing his head to the prayer.

  “It was I,” Dresdi said, voice trembling with something like pride, “who fed the Red Dragon the blood of the Ungra… the Yula… the Lena… and ultimately the Ura.”

  A few tears escaped him.

  Not sorrow – exaltation.

  “And here you sit,” he whispered, eyes fixed on Tyrus. “A ghost of my past.”

  Dresdi leaned back.

  “There are no more enemies west of this godforsaken continent worthy of my efforts… now that the Ura has been defeated.”

  He paused.

  “There is but one, Father,” Rombo said quietly.

  Dresdi drew in a long, steadying breath. When he exhaled, the frenzy in his eyes dulled just enough for coherence to return.

  “The Evok,” he murmured, returning to picking lazily at his plate.

  He lifted his mug, finished it, and signaled wordlessly for another.

  “What does any of this have to do with me?” Tyrus demanded. “If you’re going to kill me, then what is all this for?”

  “We would like–” Rombo started, but Dresdi cut him off instantly with a single raised hand.

  “I’ll ask you again,” Dresdi said, voice sharpening. “How did you escape me?”

  For a brief moment, the madness cleared entirely from his gaze; replaced by something cold and focused.

  Tyrus swallowed hard, clenching the fury in his throat.

  “My father did not believe I had the heart for that battle,” he said. His breath hitched; only for a second, but enough.

  “He denied me my right to an honorable death.”

  Dresdi’s head swayed, but his eyes never moved off Tyrus, fixed and unblinking.

  “We do not believe in coincidences here… do we, Rombo?” Dresdi asked without breaking eye contact.

  “No, Father,” Rombo replied firmly. “There are no coincidences within our promise.”

  A guard brought Dresdi another cup. Dresdi drank deeply, never looking away from Tyrus. Not even once.

  “I was poisoned,” Tyrus continued. “Sent down the river. By the time I made it back home…”

  He faltered.

  “It was too late.”

  Dresdi began clapping. Slowly at first, then louder. His men joined in, the thunderous applause rattling the stone walls of the mess hall.

  “She always delivers,” Rombo said with reverence.

  “Tell me…” Dresdi leaned forward, delighted, “The legend of the One Ura,” gleefully drinking out of his cup.

  Tyrus froze. He hadn’t expected Dresdi to know that story.

  He felt a wave of shame; shame that the sacred was being dragged into this drunken spectacle.

  The silence between them stretched tight.

  Rombo broke it.

  “If you kill one Ura, the second grows twice as strong! And if you kill him, the third grows three times as strong!”

  “Now,” Dresdi said, spreading his arms, “imagine we kill all the Ura… and only one is left standing.”

  He turned to Tyrus, expectant, then didn’t bother waiting.

  “How strong do you think he would be?”

  A grin split his face.

  “There is no doubt but my own that it is me. It has always been me!”

  He surged to his feet; chair skidding behind him, hitting the floor.

  “It is I who will slay the imposter Ossimo and take my place as the Evok!”

  His voice cracked into a howl, tears spilling freely down his cheeks.

  “She will deliver!” the soldiers thundered in one voice.

  “For it is the promise of Rah-Kell!” Dresdi proclaimed, arms raised high.

  “And here I sit among my sons; the children of Evokia!”

  He paced, half stumbling, eyes glowing violently from the berries.

  “Wielder of the Red Dragon! Destroyer of the southern river tribes! And still! Still… I doubt my own divinity?”

  “She will deliver!” the soldiers roared again.

  “I have prayed that I might ignore my duty,” Dresdi said, finally slowing, breathing heavily.

  “But fate has proven my doubts to be just that.” He lowered his arms.

  “There is no doubt left. No Ura. No Yula. No Lena.”

  “I am still here!” Tyrus snarled. He stared. His voice was deep in anger. His lethal gaze unwavering.

  “And as long as I breathe… so will the spirit of my people.”

  Several shadowed Evokian soldiers reached for their swords.

  “Yes…” Dresdi breathed, as if struck by a divine revelation. “Upon my triumphant return, on these holiest of days…”

  He took a staggering step towards Tyrus, then stopped midway, swaying.

  “A final test of my divinity.”

  His fingers moved clumsily over the clasps at his waist.

  Piece by piece, he unfastened the armor guarding his lower body, letting each plate fall loudly onto the stone floor.

  Until he stood before Tyrus and his watching shadow soldiers in the only sweat-soaked tunic and worn trousers; thin fabric clinging to his aging frame.

  “Deliver me!” Dresdi hissed.

  His face twisted grotesquely as the words left him, spittle threading down his chin.

  He dropped to his knees and yanked his tunic over his head, exposing a chest carved with old battle scars, burns, and the discolorations of sickness.

  “Every time,” he rasped, “she proves me wrong.”

  He threw his arms wide, voice climbing.

  “I have eaten the hearts of countless warriors. The greatest warriors. None have had the heart, nor the will!”

  His limbs flailed, wild and uneven; like a man possessed.

  “Not the heart, nor the will, Father,” the Evokians echoed.

  “Because they fear him,” Dresdi snarled, “and his divinity.”

  His voice softened to a trembling confession.

  “But I know the Evok is an imposter! Everything has been revealed to me…”

  He lowered his gaze to the floor.

  “We must embrace what she has envisioned for us, Father,” Rombo urged gently.

  “And what is that, Rombo?” Dresdi snapped back.

  “To be branded traitors by our brothers? To bask in glory while strangers celebrate the death of my friend?”

  His voice cracked; anger and grief merging.

  “But how can I deny what is made obvious to me?”

  He stared at his hands as though seeing them for the first time.

  “Do you know how many men these bloody hands have destroyed?”

  “All my fathers, brothers, comrades, and friends,” Tyrus answered, voice low.

  Dresdi rose slightly, trembling.

  “And now you stand before me, sure you will deliver me. Because you see a man. Only a man.”

  With deliberate slowness, he grasped the waistband of his trousers.

  The fabric slid down his legs, pooling at his ankles, until Dresdi stood completely naked before him. Fragile in places, monstrous in others, the torchlight revealing every scar and deformity carved by years of war, disease, and cannibalized madness.

  “You do not see the vision,” Dresdi said.

  “But I have seen it. In every life I have taken. Every heart I have eaten. Every child I have robbed of a future.”

  He spread his arms, bare and still trembling.

  “Look upon me now… and witness her promise.”

  “If you want me to prove your doubts correct,” Tyrus growled, stepping forward, “then allow me to show you your mortality.”

  He approached Dresdi, who made no move to defend himself.

  From up close, the general looked… smaller.

  His skin fissured by the sun and age.

  His breath soured by rot.

  His eyes clouded by sickness, pupils fogging like stagnant water.

  Tyrus wondered how such a man had ever brought ruin to an entire people. Lest alone, his people.

  “And then what?” Dresdi asked with a broken smile.

  Still naked, he turned his back on Tyrus; fearless or simply too far gone, and walked back to the table to sit.

  He knew Tyrus would not strike a man from behind.

  “And then,” Tyrus said, voice steady, “I will make my way to the city of Evokia. And I will destroy the Evok and his empire.”

  Dresdi slammed his mug onto the table, wine sloshing over the rim, before drinking greedily.

  “Do you think you have the heart?” he demanded.

  “Do you think you have the will to destroy the people’s Evok?”

  His voice rose, shaking with delirium.

  “Do you believe yourself greater than your fathers? Your brothers? Your comrades? Because that is what it will take if you intend to kill Ossimo!”

  With a sudden violent motion, Dresdi swept every dish and mug off the table.

  They shattered against the stone floor.

  He leaned over the tabletop, gripping the edge with shaky hands, shoulders heaving.

  Tears pattered down onto the wood.

  “You stand in the presence of the prophecy,” Rombo said, lifting his cup as though the wine itself were sacred. “His vision. Her promise. You can imagine how these things can take a toll on a man.”

  He swallowed a mouthful, wiped his lips, and gestured to the chair.

  “Please, take a seat, West.”

  Tyrus imagined standing behind Rombo, imagined his hands closing around the man’s fat throat; imagined squeezing until the smugness drained out of him.

  But the hum of Dresdi’s men along the walls made the fantasy short-lived. They would cut him down before Rombo even choked.

  So he sat.

  Rombo leaned forward, his eyes gleaming with fanatic confidence.

  “Your appearance here on this day is a sign. We do not believe in coincidences.”

  His voice softened as if explaining fate to a child.

  “For too long we wondered what would come after we claimed the southern regions. And now it is revealed. Dresdi is destined for the throne… and when he rips your heart from your chest, he will wash his final doubt away in your blood. Like water to mud.

  Tyrus stared at him.

  “What are you saying? He wants to fight me?

  “Yes,” Rombo replied simply. “It is the only way to honor our vision.”

  Dresdi, still naked, still trembling with the aftershocks of the berries, muttered incoherently at the table; small fragments of prayer, prophecy, and instinct, all bleeding together into delirium.

  “Why even fight?” Tyrus asked, voice sharp. “Why not let me kill him now, if he’s so miserable?”

  Before Rombo could answer, Dresdi lifted his head.

  His eyes were unfocused, yet his voice carried a brutal clarity.

  “That is not the way of our people,” he snapped.

  “You will die knowing I did not surrender. That I never let my doubts interfere with my duty.”

  “The oath of our war,” Tyrus muttered.

  “And I expect no less from you.” Dresdi leaned back in his chair, his bare skin catching the flicker of torchlight, giving him a ghostlike glow.

  Tyrus clenched his jaw tighter.

  “What motivation do I have to fight you if execution awaits me afterward?”

  Dresdi smiled; a strange, hollow smile.

  “I will grant you passage to the east. To Evokia. So that you may fulfill Her promise.”

  “And if I say I don’t believe in the promise?” Tyrus challenged.

  “You do not need to believe.” Dresdi waved the idea away like smoke.

  “It will unfold according to His vision.

  He turned to Rombo.

  “Send word. We will duel in the courtyard tomorrow at dawn. We will honor the Gods of the Summer with a blood sacrifice.”

  “Yes, Father.” Rombo rose, stepped close, and pressed a quick, reverent kiss to Dresdi’s cracked lips before departing with his escort.

  The hall, once full of humming men, felt suddenly cavernous.

  “So it has been said,” Dresdi murmured as he rose from his chair; still naked, still dripping sweat, madness and unfounded conviction.

  “There is nothing left to discuss.”

  He turned, unguarded, unconcerned, and began walking away from the table; his footsteps echoing through the hollow mess hall like the pacing of something ancient and doomed.

  “There is one more thing.”

  Tyrus’s voice cut through the fading echoes of marching boots.

  “My friends in the dungeon. Among them is a Kesh Lord.

  Grant them pardon… and I promise you, I will take the Red Dragon east and drive it straight through the skull of the Evok.”

  He spoke it plainly;

  but inside, he angled the words like a blade, playing directly into Dresdi’s delusions.

  Dresdi stopped mid-stride.

  “A Kesh Lord?” he whispered, as if hearing a line of prophecy spoken aloud.

  “We do not believe in coincidences.”

  He nodded to himself, slowly, dreamily.

  “I will see that Rombo arranges their release.”

  And with that, the naked general resumed his march out of the hall, trailed by the silent procession of his men, their steps mechanical, their eyes glazed with fanatic reverence.

  Soon, Tyrus was alone.

  The torches sputtered low, shadows stretching long across the stripped tables and the stained floor. He remained seated, staring at the untouched food; listening to the lingering hum of madness dissipate into the stones.

  He was unshackled now.

  Free to leave.

  Dresdi had given him that much trust.

  No…not trust. Faith.

  Faith that Tyrus was just unhinged enough to stay.

  Faith that a true son of the Ura could never walk away from a challenge.

  Faith that tomorrow, at dawn, Tyrus would step willingly into a battle ordained by gods no sane man believed in.

  But Tyrus was not pressed.

  He had seen Dresdi clearly; closer than any other Ura had.

  He had measured him.

  The shattered mind. The ruined body. The clouded eyes of a man drowning in false visions. The sickness, literal and spiritual, that clung to him like rot.

  There was no world where Dresdi survived tomorrow's dawn.

  A smile cracked over Tyrus’s face; silent, sharp, and utterly certain.

  He pulled the plate toward him and began to eat the pork, tasting the grease, the smoke, and the salt.

  Tonight, he would rest. Tomorrow, he would end a legend.

  And far above the mess hall, unseen, dawn began its crawl toward the horizon.