The promise settled deep, terrifying and intoxicating. Eyrix looked out over the bloodstained stones, over the people who had bled for him, and understood that freedom came with a cost he could no longer escape.As dawn crept pale over the horizon, Eyrix stood on the wall, the cold stone biting into his palms. Smoke drifted upward, carrying the night away in slow, gray ribbons. He felt changed, stretched thin between who he had been and who Ironclaw had tried to make him.Ryder joined him without a word.“I’m afraid,” Eyrix admitted.Ryder nodded. “So am I.”They stood together as the sun rose, knowing fear no longer meant surrender, and that the war for Eyrix’s freedom had only just begun.For the first time, the future did not feel like a cage. It felt like a battlefield he had chosen, and that choice, fragile and fierce, was finally his.He squared his shoulders, met Ryder’s steady gaze, and accepted the truth settling into his bones: whatever came next, he would face it standing,
Last Updated : 2026-01-26 Read more