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The Old Warrior regarded his son, his voice low and rasping. “So you have made up your mind?”

They stood at the edge of their holding. Autumn wind stirred dying leaves in spirals over the worn earth. The father’s hand, thick-knuckled and gnarled from a lifetime of sword and plow, rested against the leaning gate post.

“I have,” the Knight answered. He stood straighter than was his habit, attempting to step into the shadow of the man his father had been. A man whose name still passed between tavern lips, long after war had loosened its claim on him. “The Coalition needs every blade. Even untested ones.”

The Old Warrior studied him, eyes keen as winter stars. Time had taken much—his wife, his strength, the straight line of his back—but his gaze remained untouched by age. “Razrias is far. A kingdom of demi-humans. Their wars need not be ours.”

“Their enemy becomes everyone’s enemy. The messengers spoke of entire villages consumed. Of... something that cannot die.”

A night bird called across the fields, its cry long and lonesome. Silence followed, thick as the chill in the air. Finally, the Old Warrior exhaled, breath ghosting white in the twilight. He turned, uneven footsteps marking the slow toll of an old battlefield wound. When he returned, he carried their family’s blade, wrapped in oiled cloth.

The Knight felt the weight of the sword in his grasp. Not by its making—it was a blade of fine balance, tempered by hands that knew the work of war—but by the burden it carried, the souls of four generations of warriors that had held it in his family.

“May it serve you as it served me,” the Old Warrior said, voice like stone weathered by wind. “As it served my father, and his father before.”

A glow flickered in the doorway. His sister stood there, haloed by hearth light, tears carving silvery tracks down her cheeks. “When will you return?” she asked, voice thin and cracking, the question of a child forced to understand too much, too soon. Since their mother’s passing, she had become the keeper of their hearth, a burden too heavy for her twelve summers.

“After the battle is won,” the Knight promised, kneeling to meet her eyes. The sword felt foreign against his hip. “I will distinguish myself. We will hire hands for the fields. Father will rest, and you—”

“I don’t care about the fields,” she interrupted, small fists clenched at her sides. “I care that you come home.”

The Knight swallowed past the tightness in his throat. He reached out, brushed a strand of hair from her face—a gesture their mother had made countless times. “I promise.”

She swallowed hard and nodded, her jaw setting in a way that made her look older than she should have. Then, smoothing her apron like a queen adjusting her robes, she motioned toward the door. “Come inside, both of you. If you insist on leaving tomorrow, we will at least have a proper farewell meal.”

The Knight cast one last glance at the darkening horizon. The first stars glimmered awake, and overhead, Chronos, the silver moon of fate, hung full and watchful over the fields their ancestors had tilled for generations.

He did not yet understand that some promises, once spoken, fell beyond even the most honorable man’s power to keep.

---

Coalition

The Knight stood amid the gathered host—thousands who had answered the call, whether for honor or for the promise of glory. His armor felt ill-fitting among the hardened warriors surrounding him. Chainmail hung heavy across his shoulders, borrowed from a neighbor’s son who had not returned from the last conflict. Before them paced the General, a figure carved from flint and iron, whose voice carried across the field without effort.

“The kingdom of Razrias burns,” the General declared, pointing to the horizon, where the sky was choked with blackened smoke. “The Demi-Humans sent for aid, but when our scouts reached their gates, they found only cinders and bone.”

Wind gusted through the ranks, carrying the scent of distant ash. As the General spoke, the Knight glanced about, taking in the assembly. Never had he seen warriors of so many peoples stand side by side. Most were men of the neighboring human kingdoms, but among them stood Ajin survivors—remnants of a sundered land. The Asyran, High Elves of the sky islands, their faces impassive but eyes burning with the purpose of Bahamut’s children. The Sylvar, Wood Elves, moving with the whispered grace of Yuria’s guardians. Dwarven Slayers stood apart, marked with death-oaths, already laughing with battle-madness.

Most striking were the Vathren—Dark Elves, their ash-gray skin inked with silver constellations. Not of Asloth’s cruel kin, but of Celinestria’s chosen. Few in number, yet the very air trembled around them.

“The Primordial comes—a thing that devours all, that does not die,” the General continued, and a ripple of unease passed through the host.

“A Primordial?” A man beside the Knight whispered, fear making his voice crack. “Are we truly to fight such a thing? The gods themselves fear them.”

A figure stepped forward—the Sage, ancient even by the measure of the Asyran. His white hair hung past his waist, and his eyes held the cold fire of distant stars. “Primordials are the universe’s first-born—forces that shaped the world before the gods knew their names.” His voice carried through the gathered ranks, steady, unwavering. He spoke of their unpredictable nature, of the one in Razrias—its aspect was hunger, a thing that consumed without end.

Another round of murmurs spread, apprehension taking root. A grizzled veteran called out, his voice carrying above the others: “What’s to be done then? If it cannot die?”

The Sage’s face darkened. “By Bahamut’s wings, this thing will be stopped. No matter the cost.” The words fell like stones into still water, ripples of their import spreading outward through the gathered forces.

---

Later that night, the Knight sat by the fire among those he would fight beside. His unit numbered a hundred, a mix of races and creeds. Closest to him sat the Scout—a Sylvar woman with eyes the warm amber of autumn leaves, sharpening her arrows—and the Spellsword—a Vathren who sat atop supply crates, observing the camp with a dry smirk permanently etched on his gray features.

“First battle?” the Scout asked, watching the Knight’s restless hands as he adjusted and readjusted the grip on his family’s sword.

He nodded, throat dry. His fingers fidgeted with his sword’s pommel—easier to focus there than on the Scout’s eyes that seemed to glow like embers in the firelight. Her movements held a fluid grace that made even the simple act of sharpening arrowheads seem like the steps of some ancient dance.

“The first is the worst,” the Spellsword muttered, absently tracing a finger along one of the silver constellation patterns on his forearm. “After that, you’re either dead or different.”

The Scout rolled her eyes. “Such comfort you offer, Vathren. Perhaps you should write funeral verses when all this is done.”

The Spellsword’s smirk deepened, gaze landing on the Knight’s sword. “Family blade?”

“Four generations. My father sent me with it.”

“Hope it carries the same luck,” came a voice. The Captain approached, a broad-shouldered man with a beard that covered most of his face and scars that told of battles survived by narrow margins. He came up to the fire, passing a wineskin. “I knew of your father. A great man in his time.”

The Knight took a swig, then passed it to the Scout. Their fingers brushed—brief, fleeting.

“Luck is nothing. Skill matters more,” she said, tearing a strip of cloth from her pack. “Wrap your grip. The wear is wrong for your hand. Your father held it differently.”

“How did you—?”

“Sylvar eyes,” the Spellsword answered with a mocking flourish. “They count the rings in trees from leagues away.” He pulled a deck of cards from his pouch, worn at the edges. “Kingdoms? Last chance for glory before we all become footnotes in history.”

The Captain grunted. “I’ve lost more gold to that game than to any war. Deal me in.”

The Knight hesitated, but the Scout patted the ground beside her, lips curved in a faint smile. “Come, sit. The Vathren cheats, but it passes the time.”

As they played, they argued over rules, traded jests sharp enough to wound. The Knight was close enough to hear the Scout humming—a low, lilting melody.

“What song is that?”

“A Sylvar hunting song,” she replied. “It speaks of chasing prey through the dark and always finding your way home.”

He nodded, committing the melody to memory. “Teach me a word in your tongue.”

“Why?” Her amber eyes locked with his, curious rather than challenging.

“Because tomorrow we might die, and I’d like to know something I didn’t before.”

She considered, then spoke softly. “Thylmaerai. It means ‘one who stands between death and life.’”

The Knight repeated it, though the shape of it felt strange on his tongue. The Scout laughed, quiet and unguarded.

“When this is done,” she said, leaning just slightly closer, the firelight catching in her eyes, “would you like to go on a hunt? I could teach you to track in the canopy of Great Yuria. It’s... different from hunting on the ground.”

“I would like that.” The Knight smiled, feeling the tightness in his chest ease for the first time since leaving home.

The promise lingered between them, carried on the embers of the dying fire.

---

Razrias

Blood vessels burst in his eyes. The world drowned in crimson.

What had been Razrias was now twisted ruin, a city where streets folded into impossible angles. Buildings reached like grasping hands toward a sky that pulsed with colors no mortal eye was meant to perceive. The Knight fought half-blind against the creatures that had once called Razrias home, now twisted into something else as the Primordial’s powers threatened to bend reality itself. Limbs sprouted from torsos that housed too many mouths. Eyes blinked from the centers of palms. Some creatures moved sideways through reality, appearing and disappearing in spans of heartbeats.

High Elven mages hurled magic. Wood Elves fired volleys of arrows that trailed Chronos’s silver light. Human battalions advanced under Force Magic barriers. Even so, entire squads vanished with each advance, warriors falling in great number.

“Gods save us,” whispered someone nearby. Then he too was gone, collapsing into himself like paper thrown into flame.

The Knight’s unit pushed through streets that rewrote themselves between footfalls. The Scout danced ahead, finding paths that held solid long enough to cross. The Spellsword’s Shadow Magic froze distortions momentarily. The Captain drove them forward with bellowed commands that kept their fear at bay.

“Hold formation!” The Captain’s voice shattered into something primal, something raw that clawed through the screams of dying men. “Stay together or we all—”

His words cut short as the ground beneath them shuddered. Buildings liquefied. The very air split open—and there, among the host of creatures—the Primordial emerged. Silver hair long and brushing against its ankles, feathered wings rippling with colors that burned the mind. Its face held features from all races that had ever walked Arcanthea, shifting between them in ways that made the Knight’s stomach heave. Where it walked, reality peeled back like a wound, revealing something deeper, darker, hungrier.

The Primordial turned its attention. The air became poison. The Knight’s lungs seized. Oxygen transformed to something that burned his throat raw and froze his blood. Men collapsed around him, their skin bubbling with changes. Their screams became music. Their blood became light. Dwarven Slayers charged the Primordial—death-frenzy made them fearless—they laughed into the abyss, and the abyss swallowed them whole.

The Captain fell at the Knight’s side. Not with a battle cry but with quiet surprise. Eyes fixed on the perfect circle punched through his chest where his heart should have been. Time lost meaning. How long had they fought? Minutes? Hours? The Knight stumbled backward, one of the few still drawing breath. The General lay trampled somewhere behind, his face pressed into mud mixed with the offal of his own intestines. Thousands had marched at dawn. Dozens remained.

“Boy!” A voice cut through madness.

The Sage stood there—barely. Blood leaked from his ears and nose like crimson tears as the Scout held him upright. The Spellsword guarded them both, his left arm blackened from fingertips to shoulder, dead meat hanging from bone.

“One way remains,” the Sage choked, blood bubbling between his teeth. “A binding ritual. Old Aetherian magic. Forbidden.” He coughed wet and thick. “Cannot destroy it. But contain it—yes.”

“How?” The Knight’s voice sounded foreign to his own ears.

“A vessel.” The Sage’s eyes burned with terrible purpose. “A willing soul to house the entity. Sword as conduit. Body as prison.”

Understanding settled like ice in his bones. Faces of his father, his little sister, flashed in his mind. The images of her face as she ran through their fields in the spring, laughing as she called him to dinner. His father’s weathered hands showing him how to hold a plow.

“I will do it.”

“NO!” The Scout seized his arm, voice breaking into jagged pieces. “There must be another way. We retreat. Gather more forces—”

“There is no retreat from this,” the Spellsword murmured, his voice void of jest. “No army large enough. Look around you. We’re all that’s left.”

She turned, frantic. “I promised to teach you the canopy’s ways. You cannot break that promise!”

“This is the only way.” The Knight touched her face. Left a smear of blood across her cheek like war paint. “I will do what must be done.”

They gathered the survivors—less than thirty souls. The Knight positioned himself according to the Sage’s gasped instructions. Waited for an opening.

The Spellsword strengthened himself with Force Magic, darting ahead to draw the Primordial’s attention, teleporting from shadow to shadow. Each step cost pieces of himself as the Primordial watched, magic pulsing outward from its clawed hand. An ear. Three fingers. Half his face. Still he continued, buying seconds with parts of his body.

“FOR CELINESTRIA’S LIGHT!” He screamed, imbuing himself in Wind Magic, propelling himself high upward with great speed. The wind-leapt assault, Dark Elves’ specialty. The Spellsword’s great blade plunged the Primordial in its eyes. Then with its scream of agony, great magical force pulsed outward, and the Vathren’s torso simply ceased to exist. His lower half fell to the ground, legs still twitching.

The Scout’s arrow—imbued with Animus, the golden moon of life and death—struck true. Pinned one massive wing momentarily to the ground. The Primordial’s attention snapped toward her. It tilted its head, considering, then reached. Not with hands, but with force unseen, unspoken. The Knight saw her body lifted, her back arching as if grasped by something immense. She gasped—once, a choked sound—and then she was ripped through the air, flung like a broken bird against the ruins.

She hit stone, and something snapped.

Her bow had splintered beside her, fingers still curled around the grip. She turned to the Knight, catching his eyes one last time. There, in the space of a heartbeat, passed all the futures they would never share—canopy hunts, quiet nights, peace.

She exhaled sharply, tried to speak, but blood drowned the words. Only her lips formed the shape of them.

Thylmaerai.

The Knight watched her expression—not fear but triumph—as light dimmed from her eyes. Something broke inside him. Not courage. Not fear. Something deeper. With a howl that held no words, only animal grief, he charged. His father’s sword raised high, tears cut clean tracks through the filth on his face.

In that moment of focus, the Knight plunged the blade into what might have been the Primordial’s heart. The creature’s form shuddered, reality bending around the point of contact. The Sage crawled forward on shattered limbs, his lips formed Old Aetherian words that bent reality with each syllable. Light poured from the old Elf’s eyes and mouth. His life force became fuel for magic never meant for mortals.

“Hold fast,” the Sage gasped between words of power. “Don’t let go.”

The Knight screamed as the Primordial’s essence flooded into him.

Memories not his own—stars birthing, planets dying, eons witnessed from outside time—crashed through his skull like tidal waves. His scream twisted into something inhuman. His eyes burned from within, irises bleeding from brown to crimson as capillaries ruptured. His teeth elongated, sharpening to points that cut into his lips. Wings of shadow and light tore through his shoulder blades. The world shattered around him. The Sage collapsed, his body crumbling to dust that shimmered under Mystra’s light as the final syllable left his lips.

The ritual complete.

The Knight stood alone in the ruined kingdom. No longer man. Not Primordial. Something singular, stretched between states of being. His memories slipped away like water through cupped hands. New ones filled the spaces they left behind—ancient, hungry, vast.

He tried to speak the Scout’s name. Found he could not remember it. Tried to recall his father’s face. Found only fragments—weathered hands, a voice like stone. Even his own name eluded him completely.

The being that had been the Knight surveyed the destruction around him. Nothing lived in what had once been Razrias. No witnesses to what had happened here. No one to record his sacrifice or remember his existence.

The hunger stirred within him, a new and terrible thirst blooming in his throat. He lifted a hand to his mouth, tasting his own blood from where his new fangs had pierced his lip. It wasn’t enough. Would never be enough.

In the oral traditions of the few Ajin who had fled before the battle, whispered around fires for generations to come, this day would be remembered for the terrible monster that had destroyed the first and only Demi-Human kingdom in history.

The monster that took on the name of the kingdom. The monster that had become one and the same with the unknown hero who bound it inside his own soul.

The Dread of Razrias.