The quiet that followed the Monarch’s passing did not feel like victory. It felt like peace and it settled over the Coliseum like dust, soft and heavy, clinging to the skin and sinking into the bones.

  Rowan stood now, with most of his weight leaning against Lukas, his breath shallow but steady, as if each inhale was a reminder that he was still here—still alive, still himself and no longer a vessel for a soul that had carried centuries of grief. The marks that had once burned across the beastman’s arms and shoulders, carved into him by the Monarch’s fury, were already fading and fading fast.

  Lukas said nothing at first. He didn’t need to.

  The King of the Dragons simply held Rowan up as the beastman accepted that Maelys Drakos was truly gone. Even though the Monarch’s anger had been the force that twisted Rowan into something evil, even though it had driven him to the brink of ruin, that old dragon had been Rowan’s closest companion. The one they once called the Monarch had not just been an ally born of convenience to Rowan, not a warrior tied to him by fate. He had been someone who had seen Rowan at his best and at his worst and had stood with the beastman no matter what stood in his way.

  There were bonds that lived deeper than blood. This was one of those bonds.

  A smile tugged at Rowan’s lips. A tired one. “He’s at peace,” the beastman whispered, but the words were meant more for himself than for Lukas. A quiet tremor ran through Rowan, something equal parts relief and sorrow. He had carried the Monarch's rage, felt the Monarch’s anger as if it were his own, but in the end, Maelys Drakos had found rest. That alone was enough to pull a brief, fragile joy from Rowan's heart that had been through more than its fair share of torment.

  But peace was not a luxury he could claim for himself. Not yet. Rowan lifted his head, meeting Lukas’ gaze. The beastman's time would come just as it had come for Maelys, for all those who walked close to death's doors.

  But Rowan did not fear the embrace of he Underworld. How could he be scared of it when he knew that Asha would be waiting for him on the other side? Yet the Kingdom of Khaitish still needed him. His people needed him.

  They needed a ruler who stood for them, not over them. They needed a King, not a Conqueror, just like Lukas had said.

  The King of the Dragons finally spoke then. “We will fight together, Rowan. I promise you this.”

  The beastman’s smile grew into a grin that was sharp and worn, carved from renewed purpose. Rowan straightened just slightly, drawing strength from Lukas’ words.

  But this moment between the two Kings did not last forever.

  From the tunnels beneath the Coliseum came the sound of boots, synchronized and unmistakably military. Soldiers spilled into the arena in waves, their armor catching the light of the Khaitishi sun. The dark blue naval sigils emblazoned on their chests glinted with cold authority.

  Rowan’s grin faded instantly, his expression hardening as he watched the Nozari marines surround them both.

  They formed a perimeter around the two, blades unsheathed and pointed directly at them. Spellcasters stepped forward behind the front line, prepared to strike at them with lethal precision.

  The peace, as somber as it was, had not lasted long.

  That was the reality of this world.

  The Coliseum erupted once more with power, not from enemies on opposing sides, but from allies fighting together for the sake of liberation. The Divinity of the Seas came to life first, a roar of intense energy that rolled across the arena like a rising tide. Its presence and its strength was unrivaled, as though the sea itself had drawn breath and chosen to stand beside Lukas. At the same time, the Eyes of the Morning ignited, the radiant brilliance of dawn shimmering, as the beastman prepared himself for battle. The two Divinities clashed not against each other but together, filling the air with a duality of power that was both overwhelming and strangely harmonious.

  The battles that had taken place today during the Tournament of Khaitish had certainly done a number on both Rowan and Lukas. But that did not mean that they were done fighting. Whoever the Nozari forces believed they had cornered, it did not matter how many men surrounded them. These were powers beyond their understanding and Lukas knew with absolute certainty that the two of them alone could tear through the marines that had now surrounded them.

  A shift of wind drew Lukas’ attention upward.

  There, suspended against the sky, was the Dragon Lord of the Skies himself.

  Jesse Sterling descended slowly, winds spiraling around him as though the atmosphere recognized its master. His gaze—sharp and now carrying the confidence of one who carved storms with his bare hands—fell upon the soldiers who had surrounded Rowan and Lukas.

  Beside him hovered another figure, one that Lukas had not been expecting to see. It was Anriette Vale—former Vice Admiral of the Nozari Navy—who now floated at his side, carried by Jesse's Divinity. Any sign of the loyalty she once had to the admiralty was gone and she made it clear with silent, unequivocal clarity. Anriette had chosen her side, and it was certainly not with the Nozari chain of command that now cowered behind their own soldiers.

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  Together, the four of them made for a force that could erase every single marine that now flooded the Coliseum and the nobles knew it. Those same nobles, the ones Daerion had placed so carefully within the Kingdom of Khaitish, stood behind their trembling soldiers with expressions drained of color.

  Their nervous glances darted from the warriors above to the two Kings they had surrounded.

  Fear made their authority hollow, leaving behind only desperation.

  “Stand down!” one of the nobles called out, his voice cracking with the strain of forced command. “This Tournament is over. There is no need for a fight. We are simply ensuring the safety of the innocent.”

  Lukas barely spared him a glance. The noble’s fear was palpable, but that was not what captured Lukas’ attention.

  Because suddenly, he felt that sudden pulse.

  A pulse, not of mana, not of elemental power, not something anyone present here was capable of; not even him. It was nothing like the magic of the Skies that surrounded Jesse, nothing like the oceanic force of Lukas' own Divnity or the blaze that came from the Eyes of the Morning.

  It was a magic not of this world.

  A single voice swept through the Coliseum, resonating like an echo layered over itself a thousandfold. It did not come from a single direction; it came from everywhere all at once. “You are right. This Tournament is over. We have a new Champion of the Coliseum. And it is time to allow him to collect his prize.”

  And then the world froze.

  Time did not slow. It did not waver. It simply stopped.

  Soldiers stood suspended mid-breath while the nobility froze in fear, midway through their attempts to retreat. Jesse hung motionless in the air, wings of wind halted. Anriette’s expression remained fixed as though carved into stone. Even Rowan, the King of Khaitish, remained frozen where he stood—all of them locked in absolute stillness.

  All except Lukas. But he did not feel fear. He did not panic. Because Lukas recognized that voice.

  It belonged to one of the most elusive figures in all of Hiraeth, respected and feared in equal measure.

  It was none other than the High Septon of the Church.

  Green light detonated across Lukas’ vision, not like a spell, not like mana, but like reality itself had been struck with a hammer. Cracks formed in the air before him—thin at first, like fractures in glass—then they widened with a groaning, cosmic pressure that made the hairs along his arms rise. Each breath of expanding light peeled apart the fabric of the world, revealing a space beyond Hiraeth, beyond mortal planes, where Lukas himself had only able to see glimpses of in the Highest Floor of the Magic Tower. The world knew the figure emerging through the rupture to be the High Septon of the Church, an untouchable mystery draped in sanctity and power.

  But Lukas knew that she was more than just some priest.

  She was Pythia of Delphi

  The only other soul chosen by the same master who commanded Lukas’ loyalty. For she served the Man in Green. She, too, served Kronos, the God of Time.

  Pythia stepped through the rift with unhurried grace, the green glow swirling around her like a mantle woven from moments themselves. As she entered the Coliseum, her presence rippled across the frozen world, her footsteps echoing against sand that no longer shifted, air that no longer moved.

  She wore neither ceremonial robes nor the silk veil that had shielded her identity for decades.

  Instead, she stood uncovered, unveiled and unmasked, and had not aged a single day. Her skin held no mark of time’s passage, no wrinkle or flaw to betray mortality’s slow erosion. Her hair, jet black and impossibly smooth, fell in a silken cascade down her back. But it was her eyes that still startled Lukas. Too green and impossibly vivid, lit from within as if Time’s essence burned behind her irises. Those eyes were filled with Kronos’ magic, not borrowed but bestowed.

  She was no mere messenger, no conduit like Myrren Hollowark had been. If Lukas was Kronos’ Champion, forged to act, to fight, to bend fate with his strength…then Pythia was his Oracle, forged to speak the truths that shaped worlds. And now, as the crackling light of the temporal rift receded and the Coliseum hung suspended in frozen stillness, Lukas knew what this moment meant. It was time—truly Time—to learn what had bound Hiraeth’s destiny, what purpose had drawn him into this world, what reason Kronos had seen fit to turn back the clock on a dead man’s existence.

  Pythia smiled softly, a gesture both kind and unsettling, as though she already knew every heartbeat within him. She extended an open palm toward him.

  “You stand victorious as the Champion of this Tournament, Lukas Drakos,” she said, her voice resonant in the unmoving air. “Or would you rather me call you Pallas now? Either way, you may now claim your prize.”

  Her hand lowered, but her gaze did not waver.

  “You may me a single question—any question you wish. And I swear on the River Styx that I will answer it to the best of my abilities.”

  Lukas smiled when he heard her name. No one swore on Styx lightly. Not even Pythia of Delphi.

  The King of the Dragons lowered his head, the respect natural and even instinctive. Pythia was not above him, but she was something ancient, something deserving of reverence. He did not doubt that she was perhaps even older than Hiraeth itself.

  When Lukas raised his eyes again, they locked onto hers without hesitation. His voice carried the weight of years of searching, of battles fought, of lives uncountable.

  “Tell me the words of Prophecy.”

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