Between the two steep mountains, a massive palace with dark, brooding architecture clung to the rock, as if it were a span of masonry bridging two natural fortresses.

Lights burned bright in rows of windows and along the balconies, steady and clean against the night. From afar, they seemed like watchful eyes, making it plain-even at the deepest hour-that the residents within had not yet. surrendered to sleep.

Inside the vast throne room, Practitioners filled the space in disciplined lines. Most were Rank 3, their presence steady but contained; yet the eye was drawn to the three figures at the front, whose auras breathed around them like heat over black metal, the signature of Rank 4 strength too clear to miss.

All knelt on a mirror-dark floor of obsidian, aligned toward a single point. Heads bowed, hands still, they offered wordless respect to the high throne. The chamber's air held the dry scent of extinguished incense and warmed oil; the only sound was the soft crackle of flame along the walls.

"327 years..." The figure on the throne of metal and bone parted his blood-red lips, and his abyss-dark eyes swept over the kneeling ranks.

"Can anyone tell me what that number means?" Sevrak's posture stayed loose, his temple leaned into his fist, the calm in his voice at odds with the weight of the hall.

The answer rose before the echo of his question faded into the dark granite walls.

"The number of years you, Great Dragon Rider, have ruled these lands and this kingdom."

The answer was correct, yet Sevrak's face tightened, the corners of his mouth drawing down as a faint anger edged his voice. "And it is the first time in all that time that I find myself shamed like this."

The kneeling ranks trembled as killing intent washed over them, a pressure that seemed to thicken the air against their skin.

"My Lord..." The three Rank 4 Practitioners tried to soothe their sovereign with acceptable excuses, but their mouths closed almost at once.

"Silence." Sevrak straightened on the throne, his voice thundering through the chamber, and the torches along the walls flickered in the breath of it.

"You have walked these lands under my name for 327 years, your heads high and your chests full of pride." He descended the steps, graceful and unhurried, each bootfall clicking lightly on stone.

"I gave you power. I gave you honor. I permitted you to rule." He moved through the rows, disappointment set deep across his face like a shadow that would not lift.

"You used my name to frighten your enemies. You leaned on my authority whenever you needed to settle a personal score." His words grew harsher as his killing intent pressed down like a weight, grinding against bone and breath.

It was not only the menace of his intent that made their hearts shiver. It was the truth in every word.

The Umbraen Kingdom was strong. Its people were strong. Its Practitioners were strong. Yet all of it stood upon the shoulders of a single man.

One name had been enough to govern a region for centuries.

"And what have I gotten in return?" Sevrak's voice slipped into a tired exhale.

"I lost my grandson, the only heir to my throne. I lost the honor I built with my own hands from nothing." He halted, and his gaze swept the chamber again, lingering on every bowed head.

Sorrow settled over his features; the earlier anger burned down to a cold ember. He raised his hand and murmured, not as speech but as decree, "And now I am losing all my kingdom."

The words settled like a seal, and at once the kneeling Practitioners felt an unseen force clamp down on their bodies, pressing them to the dark floor. The pressure flattened them where they knelt. Even the Rank 4s felt a shock rise from deep within, a panic that their strength could not answer. "M-My Lord, this..." Questions tried to form, but the floor drank the sound. Voices dulled and vanished, as if the stone itself had swallowed them.

Slowly, the chamber filled with the brittle music of bone under strain, Blood welled and slipped from eyes, mouths, and noses, tracing red lines across the black stone.

They struggled at last, calling on Sparks and skills to resist, but the power that blossomed died the instant it appeared, drawn into a current that seemed to pull everything down its throat.

Sevrak watched without moving, sorrow steady in his eyes as life left them one by one.

"We Umbraens are born with the deserved arrogance bestowed upon us by the Goddess Aetheris. We are born strong. We rule without regret. We die only to be reborn."

The pooled blood began to creep with a metallic smell, forming thin streams that sought the center of the hall until a dark mirror spread across the floor.

When the last Practitioner, even the Rank 4s, had given up a final breath and the last drop of blood had fled their bodies, the floor began to hum-a low, iron note-while faint, distant shrieks seemed to rise from beneath the stone, a

chorus greater than the number who had fallen today.

When all the blood gathered to a single point, thick and wide as a pond, Sevrak lifted his hand, and a vast shape rose into being in the heart of the room.

The Black Dragon lifted its massive head, scales scraping the ceiling with a grinding rasp. It unfurled two leathery wings to fit its bulk within the hall, and its four legs came down on brittle corpses, crushing them to husks and flinging blood in dark fans across its armor of scales.

GRRAAARRGH!

The Dragon loosed a high, rending roar. The sound shook not only the room but the entire kingdom.

Meanwhile, the blood at its feet climbed its limbs in branching threads, curling and binding like veins over the whole body.

"Today I lost my people and my kingdom, but do not despair. I will see you reborn stronger than before." Sevrak's sorrow thinned into grim satisfaction as he watched the Dragon drink the power from the blood.

***

A/N: Yo. Only three hours left in the month and we're just 100 tickets short of the Top 10 in the Golden Ticket rankings. Maybe, just maybe... a miracle?