The world was quiet in the way a tomb is quiet.
The ash-choked air of the ancient battlefield hung still, unmoving, as though breath itself had been banished. Nothing stirred—not wind, not time. Only the soft settling of soot, like snow over ruin. The sky above was a twilight haze, bruised and veined with streaks of red lightning, casting long, flickering shadows across the scorched ground. Clouds did not roll; they brooded, low and heavy with what the world no longer had the strength to weep.
In the center of the dead valley, where bones had fused to stone and divine blood still stained the earth like rusted veins, the being stood.
Tall.
Uncloaked.
Unchanged by time.
He had not fallen in the war. He had been forgotten in it.
His bare feet crushed blackened petals as he stepped forw
