The last Remnant

This is the prologue if the first book i am currently writing.

PROLOGUE
PART I : SHADOWS OVER TYRIA
Autumn had always suited Tryia
The summer’s heat had passed, leaving the city cooled and sharpened, like a blade dipped in water. Leaves,bronze, gold, and crimson whirled along marble streets and gathered in the corners of courtyards and stairwells.
Lanterns glowed softly in the deepening night, their halos of amber light turning the drifting leaves into flickers of living fire.

The Sapphire Gulf rolled beneath the cliffs, dark and endless. Waves hissed and sighed against the stone like the city’s great slow heartbeat. Ships slept in the harbor, their masts rising like a forest of bare branches, rigging creaking gently with the tide. Somewhere, a late-working dockhand sang a low, tuneless song. In the winding alleys of the lower quarter, laughter drifted from tavern doors before being swallowed by the crisp air.
Above it all, carved into the white cliffs that overlooked the bay, Castle Tyrian watched.

The fortress had stood for centuries—elegant yet formidable, its towers rising like spears of pale stone, its battlements wrapped in banners of deep blue embroidered with the silver lion of the empire. Tonight, firelight gleamed from windows set high in its walls, flickering like stars trapped in stone.

On the outer eastern wall, two figures leaned against the crenellations, the soft scrape of armor and the murmur of low conversation the only sounds that disturbed the quiet.

“Another night with nothing to do,” Garron said,

rolling the tension from his shoulders. He was broad-shouldered and middle-aged, with a beard flecked liberally with grey and eyes that had seen enough battles to be grateful for boredom.

“You say that like it’s a curse,” replied Fenrick.

He was younger, thinner, with a more hopeful slant to his smile. He tugged his cloak tighter around him. The sea wind had teeth tonight.

“I’ll take quiet over the last riot at the south gate.” Garron snorted. “That wasn’t a riot. That was one drunk noble and a horse that hated him.”

“Aye. The horse had the right of it.” Fenrick’s grin widened. “Still, it’s a fine evening. Look at it.”

They did. The moon hung low and pale, casting a silver path across the water. The city below seemed almost delicate from up here—its domes, towers, and plazas softened by the distance and the veil of night. Smoke drifted lazily from chimney stacks. The constellations above mirrored the scattered lamps below so perfectly that for a moment, it was hard to tell where sky ended and earth began.

Fenrick sighed. “My wife loves nights like this. Says the world looks cleaner.”

“She’d say that about anything that isn’t your boots,” Garron muttered.

“Fair. She says the mud follows me home like a puppy.”

“The mud or the ale?”
Fenrick laughed quietly.

“Depends on the night.”

Their voices faded into the murmur of the wind. For a time, they stood in a companionable silence, watching the sea and sky trade glimmers of light.
Down in the harbor, a bell tolled the hour.
Above, clouds drew a thin veil across the moon, softening its glow.

Garron exhaled, breath ghosting in the chill air. “Peaceful.”

“Almost enough to make a man forget the world can burn,” Fenrick answered.

Garron cast him a sideways look. “Why in all hells would you say that?”

Fenrick shrugged. “Cause if we don’t say it, the gods might think we’ve gotten too comfortable.”

Garron opened his mouth to retort,
And stopped.
The hair along his arms prickled.
The breeze, which had flowed steady from the sea all evening, abruptly died. The banners along the wall drooped, as if the air itself had grown heavy. A strange hush rolled over the battlements, so sudden that Garron could hear his own heartbeat.
“Did you feel that?” he asked.
Fenrick frowned. “What?”
The lantern flame beside them sputtered.
For an instant, the world dimmed.
Not as though the light had flickered—but as if something enormous had passed between the world and the sky.
Garron’s eyes snapped upward.
At first, he saw only stars.
Then one of them vanished.
Another.
Then a swath of them, blotted out by a shape, vast and gliding and utterly silent.
His mouth went dry. “Fenrick.”
“I see it,” Fenrick whispered.
The thing crossed the moon, and moonlight traced its outline: great wings, ragged at the edges yet powerful; a long, sinuous tail; a body armored in overlapping plates that caught the light with a dull, oily sheen.
“A bird?” Fenrick asked, though his voice held no conviction.
“No bird has bones that big,” Garron breathed. “No bird makes the air feel like this.”
The creature banked, turning, and as it did, Garron saw a second silhouette upon its back.
A rider.
Cloaked, armored, seated firmly between the beast’s shoulders. They were slender, but the armor added a sharpness to their frame. A gleam of silver flashed where a face should be, a mask, smooth and reflective, hiding every feature. No hair was visible, no skin, nothing to betray gender or age. Just cold, polished metal.
Fenrick’s hand fumbled for the signal horn at his side. “I’m sounding the al—”
The beast opened its jaws.
The world turned gold.
Fire erupted from its maw in a torrent, a blazing river that cut through the night and swallowed the far watchtower. Stone exploded. The shockwave hit Garron and Fenrick like a blow, hurling them backward. Heat seared exposed skin. The screams of men on the adjacent tower were swallowed by the roar.
The eastern wall shuddered.
Below, the city awoke.

PART II : FIRE IN THE CASTLE
Deep within Castle Tyrian, in chambers warmed by a soft hearth and scented with cedar and linen, King Koric Armada dreamed of snow.
In his dream, the world was muffled and soft. The clamor of court, the weight of crowns and treaties and war maps—all of it had been stripped away, leaving only the quiet crunch of his boots and the distant laughter of his sons as they threw snow at each other in the palace courtyard.
He turned in the dream, trying to see their faces.
The tower exploded.
The blast tore him from sleep. The bed shook. Heat washed across the room, followed by the distant boom of falling stone.
Koric’s eyes snapped open to darkness cut by flickering orange. The hearthfire had leaped higher, reacting to some unseen pressure. Shadows jumped wildly along the walls.
Another blast sounded, closer this time.
Then came the screaming.
“Koric…” Queen Elsera’s voice shook as she sat up beside him, already clutching the small, warm body that had nestled between them sometime during the night. Talren whimpered, stirring, his curls damp with sweat. “What’s happening?”
“Stay with him,” Koric said, already swinging his legs from the bed. His feet hit the floor just as a fist smashed against the chamber door.
“Your Majesty!” Captain Varric’s voice was raw, urgent. “Open up! Now!”
Koric snatched a robe and his sword in the same motion. Elsera rose, wrapping a shawl around herself with one hand while holding Talren tightly with the other. The toddler blinked in confusion, eyes wide and glassy.
“Papa?” he whispered.
Koric crossed to the door and yanked it open.
Varric stood there, helm under one arm, hair plastered to his forehead with sweat. Smoke clung to his armor. Behind him, three BloodSworn waited, swords drawn.
“What is it?” Koric demanded. “And don’t waste breath on titles.”
“A dragon,” Varric said flatly. “A real one. Eastern wall is gone. The harbor’s on fire. The creature is making passes on the castle itself. We have to move you. Now.”
Elsera’s fingers tightened around Talren. “A dragon? That’s…”
Another roar split the night, this one so close the windows rattled in their frames. A sliver of the ceiling above the hearth cracked and dropped a puff of dust.
Koric swallowed.
“Enemy,” Koric repeated. “So this is not a beast gone mad.”
“We saw a rider,” Varric said. “Silver mask. Identity unknown.”
Koric’s jaw tightened. “Of course.”
From outside, a chorus of alarms finally rose, horns sounding from the walls and towers, voices shouting commands, a bell tolling in the harbor. The late response shamed him; he had been sleeping while his people burned.
Elsera set Talren down just long enough to wrap him more securely in a thicker cloak. The little boy tugged at her sleeve, eyes brimming with frightened tears.
“Mother…?”
Elsera knelt, bringing her face close to his. Despite the terror pounding in her chest, she forced her voice to stay gentle.
“Talren,” she whispered, brushing hair from his brow, “you must be very brave now.”
“I’m scared.”
“I know.” She kissed his forehead. “But you’re Tyrian. You’re my little star. We don’t let fear tell us what to be.”
Koric watched them, his heart twisting. Then he straightened. “Varric. The plan.”
“We escort you to the throne room,” Varric said. “It’s the most defensible location left. The BloodSworn will hold the doors as long as necessary. Reinforcements from the inner city should reach us within the hour.”
Koric didn’t ask what would happen if reinforcements didn’t arrive.
“Very well,” he said. “Lead the way.”
The BloodSworn moved instantly, forming a tight circle around the royal family—shields outward, swords ready. Their armor, darker than the standard guard, seemed to swallow the firelight. Each man bore on his breastplate the symbol of an open hand, palm smeared crimson… A vow to give their lifeblood to protect the crown.
They moved into the corridor.
Chaos greeted them.
Servants raced back and forth, some carrying basins of water, others dragging wounded companions. Smoke thickened the air, stinging eyes and throats. The once-pristine marble floor was cracked in places, strewn with debris from fallen plaster and shattered ornaments.
A young maid nearly collided with them before skidding to a halt, eyes widening. “Your Majesties”
“Go,” Elsera urged, voice kind despite her fear. “Find somewhere safe. Help who you can.”
The girl nodded, tears already streaking through the soot on her cheeks, and dashed away.
Varric led them down the main corridor of the royal wing, past ornate tapestries and gilded niches now smeared with smoke. The air grew hotter with every step.
They passed a balcony. Koric risked a glance outside.
He wished he hadn’t.
The sky was on fire.
The dragon swept low over the city, a streak of living night amid the flames. Fire poured from its jaws, igniting rooftops, collapsing towers. The harbor was a patchwork of burning ships, masts collapsing like charred bones. The masked rider sat astride the beast as still as stone, silver face glinting in the flames.
“Gods…” Elsera whispered.
Talren saw it. He turned his face into her shoulder and screamed.
“Don’t look, little star, don’t look,” she murmured, rocking him as they walked.
The castle shuddered again, this time from a direct strike. Somewhere overhead, stone cracked with a hollow boom. Dust rained from the ceiling. Varric raised his shield instinctively, and several BloodSworn did the same.
“Move!” Varric barked. “We’re almost there!”
They pressed on.
As they turned toward the main hall leading to the throne room, the air changed.
Colder.
Heavier.
The torches here burned smaller, their flames guttering as if starved for breath. Shadows stretched longer than they had any right to, pooling unnaturally in the corners of the ceiling, clinging to the bases of the pillars.
Koric slowed. “Do you feel that?”
“I do,” Varric said, his voice low. “Magic.”
Elsera shivered. “Not ours.”
A scream tore down the corridor from behind them. High-pitched, abrupt, and then abruptly cut off. Talren clung more tightly to his mother, sobbing in hiccuping gasps.
“Don’t look back,” Koric said. “Whatever this is, we face it ahead, not behind.”
The BloodSworn tightened their circle.
At last, the massive double doors of the throne room loomed into view, ironwood reinforced with steel bands, carved with scenes of Tyrian triumphs across the ages. The silver lion reared at the top, proud and eternal.
“Inside!” Varric commanded.
The doors swung open.
They hurried the royal family in, then slammed them closed again with a thunderous boom.
“Bar it!” Varric shouted. “Everything heavy—tables, benches, stands—move!”
BloodSworn and castle guards alike leapt into motion, dragging anything with weight across the floor. Thick beams were dropped into locking brackets. A pair of ornamental armor stands were toppled and wedged under the handles. A long banquet table—the one reserved for high councils..… scraped across the floor, pushed by six men until it pressed against the doors.
The throne room filled with the racket of desperate labor.
Elsera retreated with Talren toward the twin thrones at the far end of the room, near the raised dais. Koric followed, though everything in him screamed to be at the doors instead, sword raised.
“You should stay near them,” Varric said, reading his thoughts. “If they breach, they’ll come for you first.”
“Then shouldn’t I be standing at the front to meet them?” Koric shot back.
Varric’s jaw tightened. “You should be alive. That’s what you should be.”
Koric wanted to argue. But Talren’s small hand reached blindly for him, fingers scrabbling for reassurance.
He knelt beside his son.
Talren clung to him, burying his face in his father’s chest, shaking.
“I’m scared,” the boy whispered again.
“I know.” Koric kissed the top of his head. “So am I.”
Elsera gave him a sharp look.
He shrugged faintly. “He’s Tyrian. He deserves the truth.”
Another roar shook the castle, though more distant this time. The dragon had turned its attention elsewhere…..for now.
The throne room quieted.
Men took positions behind the barricade, shields ready.
The only sound was the crackling of distant fires, the pop and hiss of torches, Talren’s muffled sobs.
And then, faintly, from beyond the door:
Footsteps.
Slow.
Measured.
Unhurried.
Growing closer.
The BloodSworn shifted uneasily.
Varric lifted his sword. “Ready yourselves.”
No one spoke.
The footsteps stopped just beyond the doors.
The air grew colder still.
And in the sudden, suffocating hush, the defenders in the throne room realized something they had not yet allowed themselves to think:
The dragon was not the only nightmare that had come to Castle Tyrian tonight.

PART III: THE HALL OF LINEAGE
Outside the throne room, beyond the barricaded doors, the corridor lay in half-darkness.
Fires elsewhere in the castle had stolen much of the air; the torches here burned low, their flames thin and struggling. Shadows ruled the hall, clinging to the high, vaulted ceiling, pooling thick around the carved bases of the pillars.
At the far end of that corridor stretched the Hall of Lineage.
Portraits lined both walls from floor to ceiling, kings and queens from generations past, princes who died in battle, princesses renowned for their wisdom or ruthlessness. Each painting was framed in gold leaf, the subjects rendered in exquisite detail: the cut of their armor, the tilt of their crowns, the stern or gentle set of their mouths.
Tonight, their painted eyes watched as something unnatural walked their hall.
The man in the black cloak walked with a slow, measured stride. His boots made soft, deliberate sounds on the stone, never hurried, never faltering. His hood was drawn low, shadows swallowing his face so completely that even the faint flicker of torchlight could not breach it.
Under the cloak, armor whispered.
Every movement betrayed control, no wasted gesture, no unnecessary turn of the head. It was the walk of someone intimately familiar with his surroundings, as though he had paced these same corridors a hundred times in dreams.
Behind him lumbered his companion.
The giant stood a head and a half taller than any ordinary man, shoulders as broad as a door. Thick plates of dark metal covered him from neck to toe, etched with symbols that caught the light in unsettling flashes. Hard, sharp lines that tugged at the eye. A massive warhammer rested across his back, the head of it large enough to crush a horse’s skull in a single blow.
Where the cloaked man moved with quiet elegance, the giant was raw weight, every footstep leaving a faint crack in the marble.
They advanced through the Hall of Lineage like an ink stain spreading across parchment.
As they approached the first portrait, a long-dead king in silver plate armor. The cloaked man slowed.
He turned his hooded head toward the painting.
Even without seeing his face, the weight of his gaze was palpable.
He reached beneath his cloak and drew a dagger.
It was not large or ornate. No jewels gleamed on its hilt, no ancestral crest marred its simplicity. It was a tool, nothing more. A thin blade of dull, dark metal that reflected almost no light.
He lifted it.
And slowly dragged it across the painted king’s face.
The canvas tore with a coarse, ripping sound.
A diagonal gash sliced through the king’s eyes.
The cloaked man continued walking.
In the next portrait, a queen whose reign had seen the building of the harbor fortifications, he did the same. The blade hissed through the canvas, cleaving her regal face in two.
Another step.
Another painting.
A prince slain in the eastern campaigns, remembered for his precise tactics and disastrous final gamble. His smile vanished under the tearing blade.
Rip.
Rip.
Rip.
One by one, the faces of the Armada line,rulers of Tyrian for centuries..were defaced. The golden frames remained intact, their brilliance mocking the destruction of the images they once held.
The giant said nothing.
His expression was hidden beneath his helm, but the tightness of his grip on the hammer’s haft and the slight forward tilt of his posture made it clear he was eager. Eager for the order that would let him swing that massive weapon.
The cloaked man gave no such order.
Not yet.
He moved at the same unhurried pace, his dagger scraping occasionally along bare stone when he encountered a gap between portraits, leaving hair-thin scratches as if marking territory.
Burnt smell in the air.
Distant roars.
Screams rising and falling like distant surf.
The dragon’s fire had not spared the outer wings of the castle,but here, deep in the heart, the damage was less visible. Cracks spidered across the ceiling. Dust fell occasionally in faint drifts. A small pile of rubble marked where some decorative sculpture had fallen.
A castle bleeding from distant wounds.
The cloaked man seemed to savor it.
He slowed before one particular portrait.
It showed a stern king from a previous era, standing before a map table, hand resting on the hilt of his sword. The resemblance to Koric was clear in the lines of the jaw, the set of the mouth, the dark hair touched with grey at the temples.
The cloaked man tilted his head, as though considering an old adversary.
Then, slowly, he pressed the dagger to the man's throat,
And cut.
The painted flesh split. The rip traveled cleanly from one side of the frame to the other. The king’s head seemed to slide slightly apart.
The cloaked man let out a soft, almost nostalgic exhale.
“If only it had been this easy the first time,” he murmured.
His voice was low and smooth, carrying an accent shaped by these very halls….Tyrian, through and through. The words slithered along the stone, too soft to travel far, but enough for the giant at his back to hear.
The giant shifted his grip on the hammer, a quiet noise of anticipation rumbling from his chest.
They passed the ruined portrait.
They passed queens, princes, generals.
The cloaked man’s dagger never paused.
By the time they neared the end of the hall, the Armada lineage was a trail of scarred, ruined faces, eyes torn out, mouths erased, throats slit in oil and pigment.
The last portrait before the throne room doors had been hung recently.
Koric Armada, High King of Tyrian.
The painter had been kind; he had downplayed the lines of worry that years of rule had etched into Koric’s face, emphasizing instead the strength of his shoulders, the steadiness of his gaze. A deep blue cloak draped over one shoulder, the silver lion gleaming on his chest.
The cloaked man stopped.
He studied the painting.
Then,unlike the others he did not immediately cut.
His gloved hand rose slowly, fingers brushing the bottom edge of the frame.
He tapped it once.
Twice.
A habit, almost.
Then he lifted the dagger.
Instead of slashing across the king’s eyes or throat, he traced the blade along the outline of Koric’s jaw, as though admiring the structure the artist had captured.
Finally, with a soft sigh, he plunged the dagger into the canvas at the center of Koric’s chest.
The tear was ragged, wider than the others, gaping like a wound.
The giant made a sound that might have been approval.
The cloaked man stepped past the painting, leaving it swaying slightly on its hook.
He had reached the end of the Hall of Lineage.
The great doors of the throne room loomed before him, framed in carved stone. Their ironwood planks were reinforced with overlapping bands of steel. Tonight, they were further burdened by barricades hastily assembled from tables, beams, and whatever heavy objects the defenders had been able to drag into place.
Behind those doors, through the enemy wood and iron and fear, he could feel them.
Koric.
Elsera.
Talren.
Their heartbeats, faint and rapid.
Their fear, thick in the air.
He could almost taste it.
The cloaked man spread his fingers and laid his palm against the center seam of the doors.
BloodSworn on the other side jolted at the impact, spears tightening in their hands.
“Someone’s there,” one of them hissed.
“No one move,” Varric snapped. “Hold the line.”
The cloaked man leaned his forehead gently against the wood, as though listening to it.
“I’m back,” he whispered.
The giant shifted behind him, the head of his hammer kissing the floor with a dull thud.
The cloaked man smiled beneath the hood.
“You’ll want to see this,” he told his towering companion, voice quiet but confident. “Family reunions are… special.”
He stepped back from the doors.
Then he extended both hands.
Red light began to bloom at his feet.

PART IV: RUNES IN THE STONE
The glow started as a faint ember beneath the edges of the cloak, barely visible against the dark floor. Then it brightened, seeping out in thin, spiderlike threads that traced their way across the stone.
Varric saw it first.
“Runes,” he breathed. “Everyone back from the doors! Now!”
The BloodSworn near the barricade obeyed instantly, stepping behind the improvised barrier, shields raised. Others rushed in to fill any gaps, forming a second row.
Koric stood from where he’d been kneeling with Talren. “What is it?”
“Magic,” Varric said. “Old magic. The kind we’re not meant to see used anymore.”
The glow intensified, lines of crimson carving themselves across the floor beyond the base of the doors, tracing intricate circles, hooks, and angles. The patterns twisted and layered over each other, forming a sigil that tugged at the eye and made the stomach lurch.
Even through the heavy wood, the red light bled into the throne room in a faint, eerie wash.
Talren clutched Elsera’s dress. “Mother…”
She pulled him tight into her side. “Don’t look, little star. Just listen to my voice. Listen to me breathe. We’re still here.”
On the other side of the doors, the cloaked man’s hands moved through the air in careful, practiced motions, trailing light. The runes responded eagerly. Lines thickened. The glow turned from ember-red to the deeper, molten hue of fresh-forged metal.
The giant behind him stepped back to avoid the encroaching circle of light, watching with a mixture of wariness and respect.
“You remember this, don’t you?” the cloaked man murmured, half to himself, half to the power he wielded. “They tried to burn the books. Break the stones. Kill everyone who knew how. But we remember, don’t we? We always remember.”
He spoke a word then.
It wasn’t a word in any living tongue.
It was older than the empire, older than the stone beneath their feet, older perhaps than human memory.
The runes flared.
Heat rolled from them in a wave that made the air shimmer.
Inside the throne room, Elsera gasped, feeling it even through the barrier. “Koric,
I feel it,” he said.
The stone directly beneath the center of the rune circle began to crack.
Hairline fissures at first, delicate and branching, like the veins of a leaf. Then larger, deeper splits, radiating outward. Dust puffed up. The faint smell of scorched earth drifted into the air.
Talren’s cries grew louder. Elsera pressed a hand over his mouth, murmuring nonsense words just to drown out the sounds.
The cracks widened.
Pieces of stone dropped away.
The floor was opening.
But it was not a collapse into some natural void.
It was a tearing.
As if reality itself were a hide stretched over a frame, now being sliced and pulled apart from beneath by clawed hands.
A red-black glow shone from the widening gap.
Not the glow of fire.
The glow of something worse.
The cloaked man watched, head bowed slightly, as the portal yawned open. Heat and cold seemed to blow from it at once, salty sweat beading along his brow even as a chill crawled down his neck.
From the depths, something moved.
Something massive.
A low, guttural rumble rolled up, vibrating the air, making the torches along the walls dance.
The giant shifted his stance, stealing a quick glance at his master.
The cloaked man smiled faintly beneath the hood.
“Come on,” he whispered. “Come say hello.”

PART V: THE BEHEMOTH
The first thing to emerge was a hand.
It was monstrous…larger than a man’s entire body, with thick, corded fingers ending in blunt claws that dug into the crumbling stone at the edge of the portal. The skin,or whatever passed for skin, was a mottled mix of obsidian and bone, runes etched across it in the same red light that pulsed from the circle below.
The hand hauled itself up.
Another followed.
Then came the tusks.
They rose slowly from the depths like the horns of some ancient beast, curving outward and upward. Each was as thick as a siege ram, their surfaces striated with grooves worn by centuries…or something worse. Drips of molten, glowing saliva slid down them, hissing where they struck the stone.
Inside the throne room, even the most hardened BloodSworn sucked in sharp breaths as they saw the shadows of those tusks through the gap widening at the base of the doors.
“What in the hells is that?” one of them whispered.
“Hold,” Varric snarled. “We stand. No matter what comes through those doors, we stand.”
The behemoth’s head emerged from the portal in a slow, cruel unveiling.
Eyes like twin furnaces scanned the hall, their deep crimson glow full of hunger and barely restrained violence. Its jaws, lined with teeth irregular and jagged as shattered glass, opened in a roar that shook dust from the ceiling and rattled the barricades.
The sound crashed into the throne room through the doors, making Talren scream into his mother’s shoulder.
The beast dragged its shoulders out next, plated with thick, uneven armor of bone and dark hide. As it rose, its sheer size defied reason; it filled the corridor, shoulders scraping along the ceiling, tusks slicing shallow furrows into the stone overhead.
The portal strained beneath it, edges cracking, runes sputtering, but the cloaked man’s hands moved again, reinforcing the circle with fresh strokes of light.
“Easy,” he murmured, as one might to a skittish horse. “You’re almost there.”
With one final, wrenching heave, the behemoth tore itself fully from the portal. The rune circle flickered and died behind it, the tear in the world knitting closed with a reluctant shudder.
The beast shook itself, like a dog shaking off water. Ash and stone fragments cascaded from its hide. Its breath steamed in the air, thick and foul, leaving faint trails of smoke where it lingered.
The giant with the hammer took an involuntary step back.
The cloaked man stepped forward.
He was dwarfed by the creature, no taller than its tusks, yet he showed no fear. He lifted a gloved hand and placed it against the behemoth’s lower jaw.
The beast rumbled, a deep, questioning sound.
“I know,” the cloaked man whispered, his voice soft as velvet. “You don’t like this world. It’s too… clean for you.”
He ran his hand along its jaw, fingers tracing rough ridges, the warmth of its flesh radiating even through his glove.
“But there are parts of it you’ll enjoy,” he continued. “Walls to break. Men to crush. Kings to devour.”
The behemoth’s eyes half-lidded in what could only be described as pleasure.
“You’ve done well,” the cloaked man said, the affection in his tone twisted but unmistakable. “And I have one more favor to ask.”
He turned slightly, pointing down the hallway toward the throne room doors.
“Do you smell them?” he asked.
The beast sniffed.
Steam gusted from its nostrils.
Under the stench of smoke and stone and old magic, there was another scent….fear. Human fear. Dozens of heartbeats thudding in terrified cadence.
The behemoth exhaled sharply, almost eagerly.
“Yes,” the cloaked man said. “That’s them. The ones on the other side of those doors. The ones who thought they could erase what I am.” His voice hardened. “Break the doors. Break them, and let me in.”
The giant at his back looked up sharply, but said nothing.
The behemoth bellowed.
It lowered its head.
And then it charged.
The impact shook the entire wing.
Inside the throne room, the barricade jumped. The doors groaned, wood splintering, iron bands warping under the force. The men closest to the barrier staggered.
“Hold!” Varric shouted. “Shields up! Brace the beams!”
They pressed their shoulders into place, straining against the shifting barricade.
Another impact.
More wood split. The carving of the silver lion fractured, one of its paws cracking clean off.
Talren screamed again.
Elsera rocked him, tears streaking silently down her face as she murmured prayers that might never be answered.
Koric wrapped an arm around both of them, holding them as if his grip alone could anchor the world in place.
Outside, the behemoth struck a third time.
The doors bowed inward.
A crack appeared down the center of the wood, faint lines of red and orange flickering through as firelight from the hallway leaked in.
One of the iron braces buckled, shrieking like a dying thing.
“Again,” the cloaked man said calmly.
The beast obliged.
This time, something gave.
The doors split along their seam with a deafening crack, one half tearing partially from its hinges. The barricade collapsed in a clatter of broken beams and overturned furniture, throwing men aside.
A rush of dust and smoke poured into the throne room, carrying with it the heat of dragonfire from elsewhere in the castle and the reek of the summoned behemoth.
In the roiling haze that followed, the defenders coughed, blinded.
They heard the scrape of claws.
The heavy, deliberate thump of enormous feet.
And beneath it, lighter, unhurried footsteps.

PART VI: “FATHER… I’M HOME.”
When the dust began to settle, the first thing the defenders saw were the tusks.
They jutted through the broken doorway like the roots of some impossibly ancient tree, scraping against the shattered remains of the barricade. The behemoth’s glowing eyes peered into the throne room, wide and gleeful, breath pouring over the defenders in hot, choking waves.
“Spears!” Varric choked out. “Front rank spears to the fore!”
A handful of BloodSworn and castle guards planted their feet and leveled their weapons, points aimed toward the beast’s eyes and mouth. They were brave, or desperate, or both.
The behemoth inhaled.
A gust of fetid air sucked loose debris toward its maw.
Then a voice spoke from behind it.
“That’s enough.”
The beast froze.
Its eyes rolled slightly, glancing back as far as its bulk allowed. It huffed, irritated, but obeyed, lowering itself just enough to clear the doorway.
From behind the great shoulders, a figure stepped into view.
The cloaked man walked forward between the beast’s tusks, placing a hand on each as he passed, almost absently, like a man sliding his fingers along the banister of a familiar staircase. The hood still shadowed his face completely, his features hidden from the flickering torchlight.
He stopped just beyond the threshold.
For a moment, no one moved.
The defenders stared at him.
He stared back.
The throne room was a tableau of fear and defiance. BloodSworn in battered armor, shields up, faces streaked with soot. Varric, standing at their head, sword raised, blood trickling from a cut on his brow. Koric, one arm around Elsera and Talren, the other gripping his sword so tightly his knuckles blanched.
Above them, the once-proud banners of the silver lion hung torn and scorched.
The cloaked man lifted his head slightly, taking it all in.
He stepped forward again, slow and measured, boot heels clicking softly on the obsidian floor now littered with rubble. The behemoth loomed behind him like a grotesque guardian.
“Stay where you are!” Varric shouted, voice raw. “One more step and”
“And what, Captain?” the cloaked man asked, his voice carrying clearly in the stunned silence. “You’ll kill me?”
The accent in that voice was unmistakable.
Tyrian.
Palace-educated.
Koric’s grip on his sword faltered.
The cloaked man walked another few paces until he stood in the center of the room’s long axis, equidistant between the broken doors and the twin thrones. For a moment, he simply breathed, the slight movement of his chest visible beneath the cloak.
Then he reached up.
His fingers caught the edge of the hood.
Time seemed to slow.
Talren sniffled, burying his face deeper into his mother’s side.
Elsera’s heart pounded so loudly she could hear nothing else.
Koric felt the weight of a dozen memories press down on him at once,boys laughing in the courtyard, sparring in the training yard, gripping his hands with small, trusting fingers.
The cloaked man pushed the hood back.
Torchlight spilled across his face.
The throne room exhaled as one.
Elsera’s knees buckled. Only Koric’s arm around her kept her from collapsing.
Varric’s sword dipped, the tip scraping the stone.
The BloodSworn who had served long enough to recognize the man beneath the hood stared in naked disbelief.
The face revealed was younger than Koric’s, yet marked with the same strong jaw, the same straight nose, the same dark hair…though now it was longer, tied back loosely, with one streak gone white at the temple.
Eyes the color of storm clouds studied the room, taking in each face with a calm, almost clinical interest.
Those eyes had once belonged to a boy who loved his father.
Those eyes had once gone lifeless on the battle field, or so he had believed.
He had been younger then, a ambitious man.
He had been Dominion Armada, firstborn son of King Koric, heir apparent to the Throne of Tyrian.
The man standing in the throne room now wore Dominion’s face.
Older.
Sharper.
Cruel
Lit from within by something cold and unnatural that made his pupils seem too small, his irises too bright.
“Dominion,” Elsera whispered, voice breaking on the name. “No… no, it can’t…”
Talren looked up, confused, eyes darting between his parents and the stranger.
Koric felt his world teeter on a precipice.
“Impossible,” he breathed. “You… you died. We burned……”
Dominion’s lips curved.
It might once have been a warm expression.
Now, it held only shadow.
“Bodies burn,” he said softly. “But not all of us burn with them.”
He took one more step forward.
The behemoth shifted behind him, waiting for a command that did not yet come.
Dominion lifted his eyes to his father’s, and for an instant, the room’s heat, the roar of distant dragonfire, the stench of sulfur,all of it seemed to fall away.
Only the two of them existed.
Koric, king of a burning empire.
Dominion, son returned from the dead with hell at his back.
The air between them was a wound waiting to be opened.
Dominion tilted his head, just slightly.
“Father…” he said.
His voice softened, the word drawn out with something like mockery and something like ache twisted together.
A slow smile spread across his face.
“…I’m home.”