003
1599 Words
The bells of Dunhallow rang until the bone walls vibrated.
Eron stood in the shadow of the great jaw-arch with the other hunters, his hood pulled low, his heartbeat—both of them—pounding so hard he worried the people at his back could hear it. The air smelled of oil, bone dust, and the nervous sweat of a dozen men and women preparing to walk toward something that should never have existed.
Captain Merrow paced before them, boots crunching on powdered titanbone.
“Listen well,” he barked. “The fall site is crawling with scavenger clans. Lightning storms are still active. Residual titan energy may be unstable. And the Heartguard—”
A murmur rippled through the ranks.
Merrow continued grimly. “—the Heartguard have been sighted on the northern ridge. They will reach the titan by nightfall.”
Eron swallowed.
The Heartguard were not mere soldiers. They were zealots shaped in the shadow of dead gods. Paladins carved from bone faith and fanaticism.
If they sensed the titan-heart inside him—
His chest tightened. The second heartbeat hammered once in warning.
Hide. it seemed to pulse.
Eron focused on controlling his breathing.
Merrow kept talking. “We move out in two groups. The main party will secure the spine and establish a perimeter. The advance team will scout the chest cavity for remaining ichor deposits and structural hazards.”
Eron’s stomach dropped.
Advance team.
Merrow’s eyes swept over the hunters, stopping on him.
“Vale,” Merrow said. “You’ll lead the advance group. You know the quickest path.”
Eron tried not to visibly flinch.
“Understood,” he managed.
Merrow nodded once. “Good. Don’t die. It’s bad for morale.”
A few hunters laughed weakly. Eron did not.
They set out before noon, slipping through Dunhallow’s teeth-gate and crossing the bone fields in disciplined formation. The sky was a dim haze, streaked with the lingering gold smoke of the titan’s descent.
Eron kept to the front, moving with long strides he tried to make look normal. But every step stirred the strange new strength inside him, and the titan-heart’s faint glow spread warmth across his ribs.
“Eron.”
He stiffened.
The voice belonged to Joren, a broad-shouldered hunter a few years older, carrying twin bone axes and the perpetual scowl of someone who thought smiling weakened the jaw.
“You were there first,” Joren said, falling into step beside him. “At the fall.”
“Yeah.”
“What did you really see?”
Eron kept his gaze ahead. “A lot of broken terrain. Dust storms. A titan the size of a mountain. Same as you’ll see.”
Joren grunted. “Funny. Rumors say you stayed inside it longer than you admit.”
Eron felt heat crawl up his neck. “Rumors say a lot.”
“Hmm.” Joren studied him. “You look different.”
Ice shot down Eron’s spine.
He forced a laugh. “Did you expect me to come back prettier?”
Joren didn’t smile. “No. But something’s off with you.”
Before Eron could answer, a whistle cut through the party.
“Quiet in formation!” Merrow barked. “Eyes forward. We’re entering unstable ground.”
Eron exhaled silently.
They reached the titanfall valley by mid-afternoon.
The sight hollowed the air from Eron’s lungs even though he’d already seen it.
The titan’s corpse lay like a broken continent—ribs rising like curved cliffs, its fallen arm forming an entire ravine, golden steam rising from fissures in its flesh.
But it wasn’t empty anymore.
Scavenger banners flapped in the wind—red, white, black—staked into bone. Makeshift tents dotted the ridge. Pickaxes, bone saws, climbing ropes—all the tools people used to carve wealth from divine remains.
And lower, near the titan’s skull, tiny figures moved like insects.
“Bone raiders,” someone whispered. “Ashclaw Clan.”
Eron clenched his fists.
The Ashclaws were vicious, desperate, and dangerously unpredictable.
“Stay away from them,” Merrow ordered. “We’re not here to fight unless we have to.”
They circled the ribcage toward the chest cavity—Eron leading the way. The air hummed with residual titan energy. Cracks in the bones glowed like veins of molten ore.
Eron’s skin prickled.
The closer they came, the stronger the titan-heart inside him pulsed.
He doubled over slightly, gripping a rib.
“You good?” Joren asked sharply.
“Fine,” Eron forced out. “The air… it’s thick.”
“Feels normal to me.”
Of course it did.
The heartbeat inside him thrummed again, faster now, like it was calling to its dead vessel.
Do not enter, a whisper coiled through his thoughts.
His head snapped up.
“What?” Joren asked.
“Nothing.” Eron straightened.
They reached the lip of the chest cavity.
The massive chamber yawned before them, an impossible cathedral of bone and dead flesh. Crystallized ichor glittered in the darkness.
Eron swallowed hard.
The heart chamber lay deep inside. Empty now. But its power soaked every surface.
Merrow pointed. “Vale, Joren, Sella—you three go down. Inspect the ichor fields and structural stability. The rest, hold position.”
Eron nodded numbly.
He climbed down first.
With each step, the heartbeat inside him grew louder.
Thump.
Thump.
Thrum.
Sweat beaded at his neck. His hands trembled.
Joren noticed. “You sure you can climb?”
“I said I’m fine.”
But he wasn’t.
Something moved.
Eron froze.
Deep in the chest cavity—where the heart had once hung—something shifted.
A faint shimmer.
A ripple of golden dust.
Sella gasped. “Did you see that?”
Joren swore under his breath. “What in the dead gods—”
Eron’s pulse raced.
Then a shape emerged from the dim light.
At first, it looked like dust swirling upward.
Then like threads of gold weaving together.
Then like a face trying to form—
But not human.
Not fully.
The shimmer condensed into a creature of pure titan-energy:
half wolf, half wraith, glowing gold through cracks of bone and smoke.
It raised its head.
And looked at Eron.
His breath stopped.
The creature’s eyes glowed with the same light pulsing beneath his skin.
Recognition.
Obedience.
A bond.
“Oh no,” Eron whispered.
“DOWN!” Joren yelled.
But the creature didn’t leap.
It bowed.
To Eron.
Sella made a strangled sound. “Why is it—why is it doing that?”
Joren’s voice was tense. “Vale. What did you touch in here?”
Eron couldn’t speak.
Because the creature wasn’t alone.
More golden dust rose.
More cracks of light formed limbs, eyes, spines.
Three.
Five.
Seven.
A whole pack.
All facing him.
All bowing.
Sella backed away. “Captain Merrow needs to see this.”
“No!” Eron said too quickly.
Both hunters turned to stare at him.
He forced himself to breathe, to think, to not lose control.
If Merrow saw this…
If the Heartguard saw this…
He would be hunted, dissected, sanctified, or worse.
Joren narrowed his eyes. “Vale. What aren’t you telling us?”
Before Eron could answer, a horn blast echoed across the valley.
A long, low note carried by bone and wind.
He went cold.
“That’s not ours,” Sella whispered.
Eron didn’t need to ask.
He knew.
The Heartguard had arrived.
And they were close.
“Up!” he snapped. “We move! NOW!”
Joren’s gaze sharpened. He opened his mouth to argue—
Then the titan-wolves growled in unison.
Not at Eron.
At something above.
Merrow’s voice bellowed from the ridge: “Advance team! Fall back! FALL BACK!”
But it was too late.
A massive shadow dropped onto the lip of the ribcage.
Metal boots struck bone.
Heavy cloaks fluttered.
Bone masks glinted in the dying light.
Heartguard.
Eight of them.
Their pauldrons carved from titan teeth. Their armor etched with runes. Their weapons—spears, axes, halberds—hummed with stolen divine power.
The leader stepped forward, mask carved in the snarling visage of a god.
His voice echoed through the ribcage like a sermon sharpened into a blade.
“By order of the Divine Remnants, this fall site is now sacred ground. All scavengers, hunters, and trespassers must submit to inspection.”
His head turned.
His mask tilted.
He stared directly at Eron.
The titan-heart inside Eron spasmed.
Hard enough to make his knees buckle.
They scent me., the whisper breathed.
Joren watched Eron with sudden, terrible understanding.
“Vale,” he whispered. “Why is your chest glowing?”
Eron looked down.
His shirt glimmered faintly—barely visible, but visible enough.
The lead Heartguard raised his hand.
“Seize the boy.”
Eron’s blood turned to fire.
The titan-wolves snarled, erupting into golden light.
Sella screamed. Joren reached for his axes. Merrow shouted commands from above.
And Eron—
Eron ran.
The heart inside him roared.
Golden power surged through his veins.
He leapt upward, catching a rib, swinging himself higher with inhuman strength—
The Heartguard lunged after him.
Titan-wolves leapt between them, jaws of light snapping.
Chaos exploded through the ribcage.
Eron scrambled toward the open sky, lungs burning, bones humming, the world tilting around him.
The voice inside him surged:
RUN, HEARTBEARER.
RUN BEFORE THEY CARVE YOU OPEN.
He didn’t look back.
He ran.
Because now everyone in the valley knew:
Eron Vale wasn’t just a witness to a falling god.
He was carrying one.
- Writer
