The room didn’t clap when the last thing fell.
It just… listened.
Funny thing about that place—every time we solved one of its little riddles, the monsters thanked us. Polite, even. Like we’d done them a favor by proving we were smart enough to die properly. Then we killed them anyway. Gratitude doesn’t stop a blade.
When the dust settled for good, a voice crawled out of the heart of the place. Low. Calm. Certain. The kind of voice that already knows how this ends and is curious whether you do.
Lori heard it too. So did I. We didn’t talk about it—we just went up.
Avenger carried us like judgment with wings, the camp shrinking below us until it felt small enough to forget. I hauled the rest of the crew up after, one by one. Nobody complained. The guides stayed behind. Smart move. Some doors don’t need witnesses.
At the top, we found the voice wearing a lab coat.
Dr. Onell Caladin. Scientist. Scholar. Smile sharp enough to cut glass. She said she’d saved us—claimed the protection ray was hers. I believed her. I shouldn’t have. But when someone pulls you back from the brink, you listen. Even if the math doesn’t add up.
Her cave wasn’t a cave. It was a laboratory pretending to be one. Crystals humming. Notes everywhere. The kind of place where ideas go to die young so the world can keep spinning.
She talked about the Draconic Prophecy like it was a bomb she’d disarmed halfway. Said she was trying to stop it from coming true. Overlords. Ancient things with names you don’t whisper unless you want the ground to remember you. She said if they came back, the land would burn again.
She wasn’t wrong. Thrane proved that. Almost released an overlord once. Almost was enough to erase a country.
Then she told us the prophecy.
My name was in it.
Not “Zaps.” Never is. Something worse. The Fallen Comrade. Like I’d already failed and the ink was just catching up. Bowmore got The Tragic Star. Figures. Balgus was Cursed the Cursing. MODMOS—The Betrayed. And Lori… Lori was The Death Matron.
Grandmotherly hands. Cookies in her pockets. Death following her like a loyal dog.
I could read it. Draconic. Clean. Precise. No wiggle room. The kind of truth that doesn’t care if you like it.
We showed her our dragonmarks. Laid them out like cards on a bad table. She didn’t flinch. Just nodded. Confirmation, not surprise.
Then came the city. Omu. Ruins of giants. A place where an overlord named Acererak had set up shop. A heartache with a throne. We weren’t just in the prophecy anymore—we were part of its next draft.
Prophecies change, she said. Adapt. Rewrite themselves around new variables.
We were the variables.
She told us about Mephokahn Daragalesh. Top disciple. First in line to end the world properly.
Then she told us her solution.
Stay away, she said. Let the prophecy starve.
And if that didn’t work?
She’d arranged for us to die.
Von Zeclin. Old friend. New knife. All those close calls? All that bad luck? Not fate. Planning.
She didn’t even sound sorry.
Something in me snapped. Not loud. Not clean. Just a quiet click like a revolver finally lining up.
I didn’t swing at the prophecy. I didn’t swing at the future. I swung at her.
Because some things don’t get to decide who lives by pretending it’s for the greater good.
Lightning crawled up my arm. Rage did the rest.
If I’m the Fallen Comrade, then fine.
But I’ll choose where I fall.
