Four years after my reincarnation, I could finally walk without wobbling—could finally lift my head and see the world I’d been thrown into.

  The Ironmaw Tribe.

  Even as a child, I understood one thing fast: Ironmaw wasn’t just “barbaric.” It was problematic—the kind of tribe other tribes avoided, the kind of name spoken with a grim shake of the head. In the Land of Keliemos, strength wasn’t admired.

  It was demanded.

  Our camp sat like a scar between stone ridges and a forest that never felt quiet. The gates were made from thick trunks and iron-studded plates ripped from raids. Inside, it smelled like smoke, blood, and meat left too long in the sun. Everywhere I looked, there were marks of survival—missing fingers, burn scars, bandages tied around arms with shaking hands.

  When the hunters left, they didn’t leave with confidence.

  They left like men walking into a mouth.

  I learned the pattern before I learned to read faces: the stomp of boots at sunrise, the barked orders, the clatter of spears, the laughter forced too loud. Then silence for hours.

  And later—

  The return.

  Sometimes with a dragged carcass so heavy it took six men to pull. Sometimes with someone carried back, unmoving, eyes open and empty like the sky in winter.

  And sometimes…

  They didn’t come back at all.

  I didn’t know every word for it yet, but I knew the feeling.

  This place was built on a knife’s edge.

  And I was born into the most unstable part of it.

  My mother was the only softness in it.

  Her name was Serena.

  She wasn’t a barbarian—not even close. Her voice didn’t carry that harsh, clipped bite the Ironmaw women used. She spoke like someone from towns with cobbled roads and doors that locked. Like someone who still believed the world could be organized, safe, clean.

  She told me the truth early—maybe because lying to me would’ve been pointless.

  “I was taken,” she said once, brushing my hair back while the camp roared around us. “From a town near the kingdom.”

  “Taken?” I repeated, mouth stumbling around the word.

  Her smile didn’t reach her eyes. “Slavery. That’s what it was. They raided. They grabbed whoever they wanted. And I was… useful.”

  I didn’t understand the full weight of it until later, until I saw what happened to women brought in chains, until I watched a girl my age flinch when a man raised his hand too fast.

  But Serena?

  Serena lived.

  Not because the tribe was kind.

  Because my father was strong.

  She told me about him like she was talking about a storm that chose to circle her instead of swallow her whole.

  “Your father wasn’t the one who kidnapped me,” she said one day, and for the first time I heard something like pride in her tone. “Someone else did. He was the one who stopped it.”

  I stared up at her. “Stopped it?”

  “Yes,” she said softly. “When they dragged me back to camp… if he hadn’t intervened, I would’ve ended like some of the others.”

  She said it with careful distance, but I could hear what she didn’t say.

  I swallowed. “So… he saved you.”

  Serena let out a breath—half laugh, half something else. “In his own barbarian way.”

  Then she leaned in, voice dropping like the world might overhear.

  “Back then, he was beautiful.”

  I blinked. “Mom—”

  She laughed openly that time, pushing my shoulder. “Don’t look at me like that. I can admit it. Your father… he had a presence. Like the sun when it rises and you can’t stare straight at it.”

  I didn’t know how to match the image in her words to the man I saw in camp—the towering chieftain with scars carved across his chest like a map of victories.

  His name was Krutang.

  Krutang the Red.

  The strongest barbarian in Ironmaw history—maybe the strongest barbarian anyone alive remembered.

  Serena told me stories like they were old songs.

  “He killed a knight commander,” she said. “Not a soldier. Not a patrolman. A commander.”

  I frowned. “From the kingdom?”

  “Yes.” Serena nodded. “And when he did… it shook the knights. It shook the king. They thought barbarians were animals. They thought we couldn’t match their training.”

  She paused, then smiled again—small, dangerous.

  “One by one, your father kept killing the king’s knights.”

  I felt something cold settle in my stomach.

  Even as a child, I understood what that meant.

  The kingdom didn’t forgive humiliation.

  It buried it, then returned later with fire.

  Serena continued, “It stopped meaning anything eventually.”

  “How?” I asked.

  “Because your father kept getting stronger,” she said. “He became a match for Riktor.”

  That name—Riktor—was one the tribe spoke with a certain respect, like even barbarians could acknowledge a blade that didn’t break.

  “Second strongest knight in the kingdom,” Serena said, watching my face. “They say if Riktor ever truly went to war with Ironmaw, the land would bleed for years.”

  I swallowed. “Then why don’t we make peace?”

  Serena’s eyes softened. She reached out and touched my cheek. “Because your father doesn’t believe in peace.”

  She looked past me toward the training grounds where men slammed axes into posts until the wood screamed.

  “This tribe is built on pride,” she said. “And pride doesn’t bow.”

  Then, like she’d remembered something, Serena added, “I told him to avoid the Church of Sacrifice.”

  I blinked. “The church?”

  She nodded. “Too many paladins. Too many zealots. Too many who would gladly die if it meant killing the enemy.”

  Her expression tightened as she said it, and I saw it—the shadow of faith still clinging to her.

  She was a believer in Saryn.

  Even here.

  Even now.

  One evening, Serena carried me to the edge of the gate where the forest began. The air was cooler there, filled with pine and distant wet earth.

  She set me down and crouched until we were eye level.

  “One day,” she said, “you’ll leave this place.”

  I frowned, unsure. “Leave?”

  “Yes.” She nodded firmly, like it was fact. “You’ll do things Ironmaw can’t even imagine.”

  She placed a hand on my chest, right over my heart.

  “But until that day comes, remember this,” Serena whispered. “Your mother will always protect you.”

  I stared at her, something tight forming in my throat.

  “Thank you,” I managed.

  And from that day on…

  I listened to her.

  Eleven years passed.

  Eleven years of hunting my first monster.

  Eleven years of raids on farms, supply wagons, outskirts of towns too weak to defend themselves.

  Eleven years of watching Ironmaw celebrate violence like it was religion.

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  And eleven years of trying to convince my father—Krutang the Red—to make peace with the Kingdom of Keliemos.

  Every time I spoke the words, he answered with his fist.

  Not metaphorically.

  Literally.

  The first time I asked, I was eight, voice shaking but stubborn.

  “Father,” I’d said. “If we keep killing their knights, the kingdom will return with an army.”

  He stared at me, then punched me so hard I tasted blood and dirt.

  “Peace is for the weak,” he growled.

  The second time, I was ten.

  The third time, twelve.

  By fourteen, I didn’t even flinch when he hit me.

  I just stood back up.

  And that seemed to anger him more than anything.

  When I turned fifteen, he finally said something different.

  “If you pass a trial,” Krutang said, looming over me like a cliff, “I’ll think about it.”

  My breath caught.

  “You finally see—”

  I didn’t finish.

  In a flash, Krutang’s fist slammed into my face.

  The world snapped sideways.

  I dropped like a stone.

  When I woke, the air was cold, and my wrists were locked in Krutang’s grip.

  Not restrained—just held.

  Because he didn’t need chains to control me.

  He stood at the edge of a trench cut deep into the earth like a wound.

  I dangled over it.

  Dust fell from my boots into blackness.

  I swallowed hard. “Father… what are you doing?”

  Krutang’s eyes were calm.

  Terrible.

  “To test you,” he said simply. Then he tilted his head, almost thoughtful. “Don’t worry. There’s a safe landing.”

  “Safe—?” My voice cracked. “How is this safe?”

  Krutang’s mouth twitched like he found the question amusing.

  “My son,” he said, and there was something almost gentle in it, “if you die from a fall, you weren’t worth peace.”

  Then he let go.

  I fell.

  Wind tore at my clothes. Darkness rushed up, swallowing everything. I screamed curses at him until my voice became a small thing in a giant void.

  Then impact.

  The earth exploded.

  Rubble and dust blasted outward.

  Pain shot up my legs—sharp, brutal—but my bones didn’t break.

  If I’d been a regular human, I would’ve shattered like glass.

  I lay there a moment, breathing hard, dust in my lungs.

  Then I forced myself up.

  Pitch darkness.

  No torchlight.

  No sound except my own heartbeat.

  I ran—straight ahead—until my shoulder slammed into stone.

  I stumbled back, swore, then turned and ran the other direction.

  My hand brushed rough rock.

  A cave mouth.

  I hesitated.

  The trench was bad, but the cave felt…

  wrong.

  Like it didn’t belong here.

  Still, I had no choice.

  I descended.

  The deeper I went, the more the air changed—cooler, heavier, charged like a storm was trapped underground.

  I shouted down the tunnel just to measure it.

  My voice echoed.

  Echoed.

  Echoed…

  Like it was falling forever.

  Days blurred into each other.

  Hunger gnawed at me. Thirst burned my throat. The darkness didn’t shift, didn’t soften, didn’t give any mercy.

  And always—always—I felt it.

  Eyes on me.

  Watching.

  Waiting.

  By the time I reached the bottom, my instincts were screaming.

  Then—

  Light.

  Not torchlight.

  Not fire.

  Sunlight.

  I stepped forward and the world opened.

  A hidden valley below the earth, bright and surreal, like someone tore a piece of sky and buried it.

  And at its center—

  A giant serpent coiled around a tree so beautiful it looked unreal. Its trunk shimmered with faint crimson veins like frozen lightning. The serpent’s scales carried a deep red sheen, as if fire had hardened into armor.

  One massive eye opened.

  And I froze.

  A voice spoke—smooth, ancient, amused.

  “How unique,” it said. “A mortal holding multiple divinities.”

  My blood ran cold.

  The serpent’s gaze sharpened.

  “Oh,” it murmured, “and something dark. Something… sinister… lurking within you.”

  My hands clenched.

  The serpent tilted its head slightly, like it could smell secrets.

  Then, casually, “What brings you here, little one?”

  I swallowed hard. “I didn’t mean to intrude.”

  The serpent’s gaze didn’t move.

  “I was trying to find a way out,” I continued, forcing the words past my fear. “I… I’ve been wandering that tunnel for days.”

  “Days,” it echoed, almost pleased. “And you show no fear.”

  I didn’t answer, because that was a lie.

  I was terrified.

  But I’d lived under Krutang’s fist. I’d watched monsters drag men screaming into trees. Fear was normal.

  Fear was useless.

  The serpent’s voice deepened. “You must have heard stories of me.”

  My mind flashed—Serena’s whispered tales, spoken like warnings and prayers.

  The ancient serpent sleeping in the mountains behind Keliemos.

  Immortal.

  Bound.

  Crimson.

  My throat went dry.

  “…Akash?” I whispered.

  The serpent paused.

  Then: “Yes.”

  Everything in me screamed to run.

  And I did.

  I turned toward the cave entrance—

  But crimson fire erupted, forming a wall, cutting me off.

  Akash’s voice carried a sharp edge of delight.

  “I haven’t spoken to someone in so long,” she said. “Stay a while.”

  I stopped, chest heaving, staring at the flames.

  Slowly, I turned back.

  My expression must’ve looked miserable, because Akash let out something like a laugh.

  “…Okay,” I said, voice tight. “I’ll stay.”

  “Good.” The serpent’s head lowered. “Come closer.”

  Every instinct said no.

  But I walked forward anyway.

  Step by step.

  Akash watched me like I was the first interesting thing she’d seen in centuries.

  Halfway to the tree, her form shimmered.

  Scales melted into skin.

  The giant serpent became a woman—tall, red-eyed, hair like dark flame. She reached out and grabbed my hands with surprising gentleness.

  Then, as if we were just two people under a summer sky, we sat beside the tree and ate fruit.

  It was absurd.

  It made my head spin.

  Akash bit into a fruit, chewed thoughtfully, then asked, “Tell me about your life.”

  I stared at her. “My life?”

  “Yes.” She leaned her chin on her hand. “You look like someone who has survived too much for your age.”

  I exhaled. “I get beaten constantly.”

  Akash’s brow lifted.

  “For trying to convince my father to make peace with the kingdom,” I added.

  Akash’s gaze darkened. “Peace.”

  “Yeah,” I said, bitterness creeping in. “He thinks it’s weakness.”

  Akash was quiet for a moment. Then she asked, almost casually, “How did you end up down here?”

  “My dad threw me into a trench,” I said flatly.

  Akash’s eyes widened. “He—?”

  She paused, then frowned as if realizing something.

  “…I don’t even know your name.”

  I hesitated.

  The name Serena gave me.

  The name that didn’t belong in Ironmaw’s harsh mouths—yet survived anyway.

  “My name is Garnok,” I said.

  Akash repeated it softly. “Garnok.”

  Then she smiled.

  “If you want to leave,” Akash said, “I can help.”

  My heart slammed.

  “You can?”

  “Yes,” she said, too smoothly. “But only under one condition.”

  My stomach tightened. “What condition?”

  Akash’s gaze flicked to the tree.

  “I can’t leave this place,” she said. “Not by normal means. The crimson phoenix I devoured… in its final breath, it bound my essence to this tree.”

  I stared at the trunk. At the faint crimson glow.

  Akash’s eyes narrowed in thought.

  “So I had an idea,” she continued. “What if I changed what I was bound to?”

  Cold crawled up my spine.

  Akash looked at me.

  Directly.

  “You,” she said. “You’re holding multiple divinities… and something else. Something unknown.”

  Her smile sharpened.

  “You are a perfect replacement.”

  My throat went dry.

  Another thing tied to me.

  Another chain.

  I looked away, but I could feel her attention like claws.

  Silence stretched.

  Then—slowly—I nodded.

  “…Fine,” I said hoarsely. “How do we do it?”

  Akash’s smile widened.

  “Like this.”

  She stretched out her hand.

  I stared at it.

  Then I took it.

  The world became fire.

  Crimson flames engulfed me, eating at my skin, filling my mouth, crawling into my lungs.

  I screamed.

  Pain tore through every nerve like my body was being rewritten.

  Akash’s voice cut through it, sharp and almost excited.

  “You must endure the seal until it’s over!”

  I tried to pull away.

  I couldn’t.

  The flames didn’t just burn—

  They carved.

  And in the middle of it, Akash’s expression shifted.

  She felt it.

  The fire inside her was draining, flowing into me like a river forced into a new bed.

  Her eyes widened.

  She looked at my face through the flames and saw something that made her recoil.

  Something the fire couldn’t burn.

  “Let go,” she hissed. “Let go!”

  I gritted my teeth, voice shredded by heat.

  “THIS IS FOR BOTH OF US!” I roared. “YOU’RE FREE—AND I GET OUT OF THIS TRENCH!”

  Akash stared at me like I’d just sprouted horns.

  A tear slipped down her cheek.

  What type of monster did I just make a deal with? her eyes seemed to say.

  Then the flames died.

  I collapsed to my knees, gasping.

  My body felt… different.

  Lighter.

  Sharper.

  As if something had settled into my bones.

  I looked up.

  Akash stood there—

  But she wasn’t a woman anymore.

  She was a child.

  Small.

  Red-eyed.

  Breathing hard, like she’d run a thousand miles.

  She stared at me, mouth open.

  Then her gaze snapped to my skin.

  Red markings crawled up my arms, over my shoulder, toward my face—snake-scale patterns, vivid like fresh blood.

  Akash’s scream shattered the hidden valley.

  “WHAT DID YOU DO?!”

  And I stared at my hands, at the new marks, at the way the air around me felt charged—

  and realized this wasn’t just a pact.

  It was the beginning of something that would never let me live quietly again.