That night, Arin dreamed of the mountains.

  He stood before the Black Spine Peaks as they split apart. Beneath them, a cavern vast as the sky revealed a colossal horned shape bound in fading chains.

  Kael’Zareth opened one burning eye.

  “You feel it now,” the demon rumbled.

  If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.

  “I don’t belong to you,” Arin said.

  “No,” the demon agreed.

  “You belong to the fracture.”

  The chains trembled.

  One shattered completely.

  Arin woke screaming.

  Across the capital, windows shattered from the force of a distant explosion.

  In the northern mountains, stone collapsed as something ancient shifted in its prison.

  The second chain had begun to fail.