Before – Homeworld, Millenia Ago, After the Burn
A dream.
She hurtled through the dark.
There was no horizon, no sky, no gravity, only endless space.
Every inch of her burned. Not like fire—fire would’ve been kinder. This was deeper. It raked through sinew and marrow, peeled nerves raw, gnawed through the fragile spaces thought and memory should’ve lived.
Movement was agony, but she kept moving.
Her limbs dragged through the void, each pull forward a war fought in silence. No light. No gravity. Just pain, everywhere, from all sides, smothering, choking thought.
The dark broke. And Earth hung below, deceptively whole. Green still clung to its continents. Blue shimmered in its oceans. But something stirred on its surface, subtle at first, like veins of decay stringing through fruit.
A sound thumped through the upper atmosphere, and the clouds shuddered.
Under her, a battlefield rose. Smoke drifted from newly lit fires. Bodies moved like insects over charred hills and shattered roads. Creatures—too many legs, too many mouths—rushed the front lines. Human and Elvish soldiers screamed into death, already losing.
Her chest burned.
At the heart of the chaos, the dragon waited.
Massive. Black. Wings stretched wide as a hurricane. Its scales gleamed with a sickly sheen, blood and flame already slicking its claws. When it roared, the sound carried like a death knell across continents.
She hovered above it all, muscles straining against invisible tension, the air vibrating around her. Fury quaked through her, and then the world spun.
When she looked down, golden talons, long and bright as blades, dripped black blood. It hissed where it landed, and the earth recoiled as fire ignited in her wake.
Buildings blackened. Trees fell in seconds, reduced to glowing embers before they even hit the ground. Ash spiraled into the air, the whole world consumed.
Time shifted.
The battle fell silent. Still, everything burned.
And then—life, crawling back from the dark.
Humans emerged from cracks and caves, gaunt and blinking, dragging their grief with them. They rebuilt in the rubble, not knowing what had come before.
An idea cried from within her. A way to end the agony and finally die.
A new scene flashed.
A primitive dwelling—nothing but a hollow in the rock wall, half-covered with woven grass and dried hide. The floor was packed dirt, scattered with bones. Smoke coiled sluggishly under the low ceiling, staining everything it touched.
Inside, a woman mounted a man. Their bodies crashed together in mindless cadence, hips driving, nails raking skin. Their faces were wild, teeth bared and eyes shut, movements violent with desperation.
Rynna watched.
The firelight flickered, and the world split again.
She screamed.
New lungs. New skin.
Blood soaked her, sticky and hot. The air stung. Voices blurred into meaningless sound.
And a tiny hand floated into view—her own—fingers grasping.
She screamed with small lungs. The ache hadn’t vanished when she shed her scales, only burrowed further within her. Another cry built within her. It chewed its way up her spine, pressing against her skull like it would crack her open.
The figures around her blurred at the edges, silent as ghosts, until one stepped close and crushed her voice beneath a calloused palm.
The sun hung low in the sky, casting a foreboding wash of crimson on the distant horizon. Rynna jerked upright on the horse’s back, thighs aching from the long ride. Below, the river wound like a serpent, its surface reflecting the blood-colored light as it flowed through the valley.
“Pleasant dreams?”
Kaelric rode beside her, his frame towering in the saddle, broad shoulders wrapped in worn leather that creaked with each movement. The sun caught in his beard, painting it with copper.
“Fuck off, tiny.” Rynna didn’t look at him. Didn’t need to.
She had zero intention of sharing anything about the recurring nightmare that had plagued her for as long as she could remember.
He huffed a laugh. “Someone’s in a mood.”
At the top of the rise, she eased Empty Night to a stop.
Below them, the town spilled out over the valley. Sun-bleached stone crumbled around small clay structures, laundry lines stretching between rooftops. Everything was still and stupidly vulnerable.
An easy target.
Her four companions fell silent. Their eyes swept the landscape with practiced focus, noting the townsfolk laboring in the fields, the laughable earthen walls circling the square, and the glaring lack of guards along the perimeter.
A boy chased a dog through an alley, his laughter echoing faintly up the hill.
He had no idea his world was about to end.
Kaelric scoffed. “Hardly worth the time.”
This place had grown complacent. The homes were huddled too close together, livestock penned without caution. Chimneys puffed lazy plumes of smoke into the darkening sky.
“This so-called Queen doesn’t give a damn about her people.
” Vorian’s voice rasped from the damaged windpipe he’d earned before his first death.
Then, without warning, he struck his chest with the heel of his hand, the hilt of his broadsword thudding against bone.
“A good day! None shall live by the time the sun slips behind the hills!”
Daziel and Kaelric took up the cry, striking their shoulders with clenched fists, the motion sharp with ritual fire.
She rolled her eyes.
Men. Forever announcing their wrath to the world, like battle-stallions scenting a mare in heat, desperate for recognition.
“For blood and riches!” they bellowed, as if the wind, the trees, and the very soil hadn’t heard the same chant a hundred times over.
“Let’s just get on with it.” One corner of her mouth pulled up. “I’m bored.”
Malekar spoke then. “We agreed to leave one alive.”
The reminder snapped through the gathering like a whip, and silence followed.
The tension changed. It was denser now, charged. Not just the kind that came before violence, but the slow-burning kind, forged in old power and older grudges. The air between Malekar and Vorian hissed—volatile, waiting to combust on a single word.
Each time they prepared for battle, the same question hovered: would this be the day Vorian stepped too far, challenged what he was never meant to claim?
She hoped so. Let it be today. Let this farce of a competition end, once and for all.
“We are the Four Horsemen.” The words came soft, in that silk-smooth tone Malekar used when he was ready to ruin something.
Fire prickled beneath her skin, sinking deeper with every syllable, closer to hunger than anything holy.
“With each step and every stride,” he continued, “we usher the apocalypse in our wake. They dread us before they ever see us. Terrified just knowing we exist.”
His gaze never wavered from the sleeping valley below, the quiet town sprawled out like an offering.
“The survivor becomes our herald.”
Kaelric let out a low whistle, barely audible. His eyes showed the same fever driving her hand to her blade.
“They carry the memory,” Malekar went on, “running until their feet split open and their screams break their throats. And when they can no longer speak, their silence carries more horror than any sound.”
He exhaled through his nose.
“Onlookers will pity them, believing they’ve been spared. But our mercy is worse than death.”
Rynna’s palm met the leather armor protecting her chest with a dull thud.
This, she thought. This is why he’s Death.
Even now, something pulled inside her, eager for what havoc she might unleash tonight—what bloody delight might unfold between the carnage and Malekar’s command.
And what came after. In their tent.
“They’ll keep their limbs. Their minds, barely.
But their eyes will never stop seeing red.
They will hear only the howling of the shades we leave behind.
” He spoke with finality. “Love will be beyond them. Gentle touch forgotten. They will speak no words save the shrieks of what we have done to their world.”
Her body moved without permission, a slow press of hips against the horse’s spine as tension seeped between her thighs, wet and impossible to ignore.
Daziel and Kaelric let out primal grunts—"urrrrahhh, urrrrahhh, urrahhh"—matching each beat of their fists.
Malekar looked to Vorian. His eyes were cold, devoid of warmth or doubt.
And Vorian, for all his bluster and earlier boasting, did not step forward. War merged back into the fold, thumping his chest in measured rhythm. Steel rang against steel, leather creaked, and beneath it all, the dull roar of advancing bodies swelled.
There were perhaps fifty of them—raiders, both men and a handful of women, who had fallen into step with the Horsemen at various points during their endless march across continents.
They were the discarded and the damned. Thieves.
Murderers. Violators. The lowest dregs of humanity, drawn as if by instinct to the scent of blood.
Like mangy, half-starved dogs trailing a warband, they moved with a wild hunger. Drawn by the oppressive miasma of death and darkness, the Horsemen spread, clinging to that aura as if it were salvation.
Malekar dipped his chin to Vorian, who responded with one final, brutal thump to his chest—so forceful it would have shattered the ribcage of any ordinary man. Then he released them, the shockwave of his battle cry rolling out in all directions, crashing over their gathered raiders.
Horses reared, screaming in tandem with their riders, and the vicious horde erupted, brandishing weapons and howling in response as they surged forward.
Hooves churned the earth. Blades gleamed.
Shouts rose to the sky like thunder chasing lightning.
They stormed down the slope, descending upon the peaceful farms and the vulnerable town like a plague given form.
Rynna watched them go.