Reality bent to Kaladin’s whims as he activated his abilities.

  Rahn attacked, blades of shadow coming from all directions at Kaladin, who jumped to avoid, only to be met with a column of darkness forcing him down. But in a second, Rahn found him standing perfectly fine. Rahn tried again, this time going for a physical attack. He was sure he managed to hit Kaladin, but as if he had jumped into an alternate reality, Kaladin managed to block.

  This feeling occurred again and again, and Rahn could not understand just why his strikes felt like they failed at the last minute.

  Rahn felt it in his bones—a sense of déjà vu creeping through his every strike, every movement. He lunged, shadows curling around his limbs like dark flames, and for a split second, a shadow blade slashed through Kaladin, only to find him unharmed a heartbeat later. Kaladin stood as if untouched, and he counterattacked successfully, forcing Rahn back.

  Rahn grit his teeth, confusion flickering over his face. It felt like Kaladin could see through his every move, predicting his attacks before they even took shape. Rahn snarled, shadows exploding around him as he launched another attack, pouring his full power into a devastating strike. The shadows roared, surging forward, and for a fleeting instant, they cut through Kaladin’s chest, splitting him in half— but yet again, he was unharmed, standing a step back as if Rahn’s strike had never connected.

  “Impressive,” Kaladin said, his voice a low murmur. He twirled his staff lazily, his gaze locked on Rahn’s. “But futile.”

  Kaladin seemed invincible.

  Was it foresight?

  A sixth sense?

  Again and again, Rahn tried, pouring his power into increasingly complex attacks. Each time, he felt the satisfying impact, the rush of certainty that he’d struck true—only to find Kaladin unscathed, standing just out of reach, as if reality itself had twisted to protect him.

  Every time he attacked, Kaladin’s stance was just a little different, the angle of his grip subtly altered, his position a little bit off, the distance miscalculated, his eyes flickering in the briefest of hesitations. It wasn’t that he was predicting Rahn’s moves. No, he was adapting, shifting his position slightly each time, as if he had already experienced the strike and knew exactly where Rahn’s attacks would land.

  A realisation crept through Rahn’s mind like a cold chill. This was his first time meeting someone who could bend reality; even if it was just for a moment, a moment was enough to turn the tide in battle.

  With that understanding, Rahn felt the pressure ease from his shoulders. He could beat Kaladin if he was smart enough. If Kaladin was rewinding time, then Rahn had an opportunity. He had to mislead him.

  Instead of launching forward, Rahn kept his stance, his shadows coiling defensively. He prepared his strike mentally, imagining the exact steps he would take. But at the last moment, just as Kaladin shifted, Rahn changed direction, spinning low and slicing from a new angle. His shadows lashed out, unpredictable, jagged tendrils that whipped around the side Kaladin had left unprotected.

  Kaladin’s eyes widened in the briefest flicker of surprise, a millisecond too late as the shadows bit into his shoulder, ripping through flesh. He stumbled back, blood staining his sleeve, and Rahn pressed his advantage, adjusting his stance again at the last second.

  Time bent and rewound, but Rahn’s unpredictable shifts started to bypass Kaladin’s adjustments. Each reversal cost Kaladin a precious fraction of a second, a crack in the rhythm of his power that Rahn exploited relentlessly. Rahn’s shadows tore through Kaladin’s defences, bruising, battering, and finally breaking his momentum.

  With one last, fierce surge, Rahn’s shadows enveloped Kaladin, forcing him down with a thud. Kaladin’s staff slipped from his fingers as the weight of Rahn’s shadows pinned him to the ground, his breaths ragged, his eyes wide with the shock of a rare defeat. Rahn stood over him, his gaze steady, his voice a harsh whisper.

  “You can’t rewind forever.”

  Kaladin stayed down for a second, then he smiled, as if he were satisfied. ‘At least this way, you can protect her.’

  Kaladin had no interest in fighting Rahn to his death, but he had to push him; if he could not fight him with this meagre strength, there was no point letting him take her away from here.

  Rahn did not care what he was doing; he made sure to pick up his sword as his shadows held Kaladin down. “I hope to see you in the abyss,” and he put his sword through Kaladin’s skull. The sound of a crack satisfied Rahn as Kaladin’s skull split in two and blood poured out.

  Rahn dropped his sword on the floor, and before he could recover, he noticed something odd.

  But then, below them, the glowing inscriptions stopped moving. Rahn’s gaze dropped, confusion sparking as he furrowed his brows. Then, suddenly, he felt it—a sharp, searing pain piercing his torso, as though he were being stabbed. The agony twisted deep into his gut, visceral and unrelenting, leaving him breathless and alarmed. And then he understood.

  ‘Hadassah.’

  The sphere of shadows he’d cast around himself and Kaladin dissipated instantly as he lost focus. His pulse hammered with a frantic beat, and panic seized him as he scanned the throne room, seeking her desperately.

  All around him, the chaos continued. His vision caught Zarek, locked in a brutal struggle with Drucilla, her strikes overpowering him as he fought to defend himself.

  Rahn moved to bolt, but before he could get far, a cold, unforgiving metal pierced through his chest, the force of the blow pinning him firmly against the wall. Drucilla’s glaive held him fast, its jagged edge digging deeper with every breath he took. Pain flooded his body, but the surge of desperation to reach Hadassah overwhelmed even the agony in his chest. He struggled, only to find himself momentarily blinded by the pain, his vision clouding as he wavered against the wall.

  Drucilla showed no mercy, yanking Zarek’s battered form across the floor to Rahn’s side. His face was bloodied, and two jagged horns had sprouted from his head, his half beast form barely holding under the toll of the fight. He could hardly lift his head, his breaths shallow and strained. Drucilla cast a cold, triumphant glance over them both, savouring her dominance.

  She was the dragon princess; losing was not something she was capable of.

  Turning her gaze towards Kaladin, who was still on the floor, she narrowed her eyes. “Get up, Kaladin,” she commanded, her voice deadly. “Kill Hadassah.”

  Kaladin’s body remained still for a moment, and Rahn watched, certain he had ended Kaladin’s life. But, to his horror, the body stirred, rising as if it had never been struck down. His head, which Rahn had split open only moments before, knit itself together seamlessly, as though nothing had ever happened.

  This was not mere regeneration.

  Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

  Drucilla noticed Rahn’s horrified expression and laughed, a sharp, merciless sound.

  “What? Did you think you could kill Kaladin?” Her tone dripped with disdain. “Do you not understand what it means to be the Dragon Queen’s Harbinger?”

  Kaladin’s body moved with an eerie calm, his staff levitating back into his grip, its weight resting firmly in his hand as he tapped it twice.

  “He is the General of Blasphemy, the Harbinger of Time,” Drucilla declared, her voice filled with dark pride. “The one who cheats death.”

  There was no escape for Hadassah, she would die today.

  Or she should have.

  Hadassah’s body felt cold; she was left lying on the stone floors. She reached into her robes and spread it open before her, the scroll she had hidden. She had no strength to read, but she forced her face to lift from the ground. She was nauseous; her eyesight was blurred, but she read what she could.

  Rahn was not coming, nor was Zarek; the only way out was this inheritance.

  She coughed up a mouth full of blood; the floors painted red in the grim darkness of the castle.

  Her voice shook, as she tried to read.

  “And I-” she coughed, trying to breathe, her body trembling; she forced herself to continue despite the pain. “I sought for a man among them.” She took a deep breath, the pain consuming her senses for a moment. “That should make up the hedge and stand in the gap before Me for the land, that I should not destroy it; so I made you.”

  Her voice was hoarse, and she saw a line underneath for her name; she needed to write her name.

  So she did, in Emerian, Esther.

  Then she heard it—in her ears, a loud sound as if a deity was speaking, booming and consuming making her wince and groan.

  “What is it you want?”

  It was a simple question.

  A question she knew the answer to.

  “The power to destroy the world.”

  There was silence, and for a moment she wondered if she would actually die there, until whatever deity talking to her responded.

  “…finally.”

  ˋ?-?-?ˊ

  Verena entered the throne room, her steps slow and deliberate, her grip tight on the metal tube. Drucilla, catching sight of her, tensed, her eyes narrowing with suspicion. She waited, her gaze sharp and guarded, clearly expecting another betrayal. But Verena’s movements dispelled her fears as she approached, her face unreadable, before lowering herself to her knees at Drucilla’s feet. She held out the tube, eyes fixed on the ground.

  “Hadassah is dead,” she said, voice flat, almost hollow. “I stole the inheritance.”

  A cold silence settled over the room.

  Drucilla’s expression flickered with a mixture of satisfaction and contempt. Her lips curled into a smirk as she took the tube from Verena’s outstretched hands. She looked down at her, pride mingling with disdain, savouring her submission she found.

  Across the room, Kaladin stiffened, his gaze trained on Verena’s face. A flicker of disbelief flashed in his eyes; he knew Hadassah was not dead; if she was dead, his compulsion to kill her would have resided. But it was still there, like a boulder hanging over his head.

  ‘Kill Hadassah.’

  His hands clenched, the knuckles white against the grip of his staff; he did not speak; he forced himself to remain still and not move. He would not give away her survival; even when his insides twisted and his organs burst, he held himself steady, standing tall like he was not disobeying his master, as if he were not in grave physical pain. He prayed she would run—that she would leave this place and go as far as she could before they found out.

  Rahn’s entire body trembled, the weight of Verena’s words crushing him from within. Despair twisted into fury, a torrent of emotions he could no longer contain. His face contorted as a guttural scream tore from his throat, a sound that echoed through the chamber, raw and visceral. Tears streamed down his face as his voice fractured, breaking with every sob that wracked his body.

  He strained against Drucilla’s glaive, the blade wedged deep into his chest, pinning him to the wall. But he was beyond caring. With a desperate, shuddering gasp, he summoned every ounce of his strength and forced his body against the blade, feeling it tear through flesh and muscle as he dragged himself free. Blood poured from the wound, his vision blurring, yet he did not falter. He dropped to the floor with a painful thud, clutching his torso as he began to crawl, inch by inch, towards the door.

  Each pull of his body left a smear of blood in his wake; his breaths were shallow and ragged, but his focus was relentless. Shadows flickered around him, a feeble attempt to protect him as they twisted and trembled with his pain. His hands shook, his fingernails peeling as they scraped the cold stone.

  Drucilla watched him and simply took the tube in hand and walked to Rahn, and her foot forced his head down, smashing it into the floor. His hands did not stop trying to grasp for the door.

  “Your master is dead; how long can you last in this world?” She said with a scoff.

  Zarek forced himself up, and Drucilla turned to look at him. His body could barely move, and he was in great pain.

  “What are you going to do? Just behave yourself, and we will spare your life on behalf of Kaladin.”

  Zarek did not reply; his eyes were dark, and suddenly a gold glow came through them, the look of a beast.

  She was dead.

  He considered it—destroying this place, letting his beast form emerge, and taking down this whole damned ravine with him. And he almost did it, his resolve building like a storm within. He did not care for the consequences or the destruction it would cause; he did not care if he lost his mind or if he was unable to turn back to his human form. He merely wanted to destroy everything.

  And he would have done so, if not for the sound of footsteps echoing through the hall.

  Everyone turned towards the doors of the throne room, wondering if a corpse had awakened as if some twisted spell had brought back the dead.

  And in a way, the dead had risen.

  “Rahn.”

  That voice—it was Hadassah’s voice. Her figure stood silhouetted in the light, her face hidden by shadows. Drucilla felt her skin prickle, every instinct screaming for her to run, yet she remained rooted, unwilling to give in to fear.

  Hadassah walked forward, her gaze solely on Rahn. She knelt beside him, reaching out to touch his face, lifting it gently so she could see him through the blood that streaked his eyes. He belonged to her, no one had the right to touch him, much less make his eyes water with those beautiful gold tears. She said nothing, letting her fingers trace the bruises and cuts on his face. As she did, the air around her wailed, as if recoiling in horror at what she had become. A strange and formidable power seeming to pulse from her very presence. The inscriptions on the floor glowed an ominous red, as if responding to the birth of a new queen in Veres.

  Drucilla, stunned and feeling a flicker of dread, quickly opened the metal tube. Finding it empty, she shot Verena a furious look. But Verena, just as spellbound, had her gaze fixed on Hadassah, barely comprehending what she saw: a human wielding power far beyond reason.

  A familiar emotion bubbled inside Verena, rage.

  Suddenly, thunder cracked violently through the castle, tearing through the roof, splintering the rafters and tiles, as lightning struck Hadassah with the fury of a tempest. The wind roared and spun around her, lifting her body into the air as if she were weightless. Her hair whipped around, her eyes glowing a monstrous red.

  The Scroll of Wrath, once left by Arcadia as a gift to the heir of Emeris, had found its rightful owner. That power was hers to claim. It surged through her like a birthright, igniting a madness that had waited for decades.

  This was her birthright.

  And with it, she would destroy this world.

  A blinding light enveloped the ruins of Veres, it was silent and it was utterly devastating.

  ˋ?-?-?ˊ

  The Veres Expedition and the Destruction of Veres.

  In the 538th year of Queen Harley I of Nephel, an expedition of reconquest was proposed by the first Lord of the Vortigern Tree. The mission, known as the third Veres Expedition, aimed to uncover a scroll potentially hidden by the late Princess Arcadia. The formidable Princess Drucilla led a focused operation to retrieve this inheritance said to lie dormant within the forsaken castle.

  According to the surviving expedition members, a human of the Emeris lineage had infiltrated the party, ultimately seizing Arcadia’s Scroll and binding her soul to it. Accounts claim that as the scroll ignited within this human, the earth itself trembled, marking her as its rightful bearer. In that instant, the great ruin began. A thunderous storm tore through the skies, and the castle walls crumbled under the unleashed celestial force. For three hours, the sun blackened, plunging the continent into an unnatural darkness, and Veres was destroyed in a massive explosion.

  In the wake of the devastation, the Five Tribes dispatched reinforcements to clear the ravine, recover the bodies of the fallen, and gather any remaining artefacts. The landscape, altered beyond human recognition, now lies in ruin. The Dragon Queen has demanded that the human responsible be found and brought before her.

  In an unprecedented move, the Five Tribes convened their first joint council meeting in two decades as unrest spread across major beast cities. Insurrections have erupted, and enlistment in the Bloodhound Forces has accelerated to protect beastmen from rebel forces.

  While some speak of the descent of a deity, it is well known that humans can create beings close to gods but can not possibly become gods themselves.