The night was heavy with fog, thick as breath against the blackened ruins. The wind carried whispers—soft and eerie, slipping through the charred bones of what was once a kingdom.

Ezran Blackthorn stood at the heart of it all, wrapped in the weight of his title. The Bone King. Shadows curled at his heels, shifting like living things, their whispers slithering through the dark fabric of his robes. He carried the scent of old magic, the taste of power that had been torn from the world itself.

But he was not alone.

She stood opposite him, bare feet pressing into the damp earth, silvered veins of magic flickering under her skin. Fae. Ancient and untamed. His opposite in every way. While his magic was made of decay and stolen souls, hers was alive, thrumming with something wild and untouchable.

The ruins were silent. A battlefield before the first clash.

Ezran watched her, head tilting just slightly. She did not flinch beneath his gaze, did not shudder like the mortals who whispered his name in fear. A slow amusement curled at the corner of his lips, but there was no mirth in it.

She had come here with purpose, and he had let her.

He stepped forward. The bones beneath his feet did not break—they obeyed, shifting as though he were more god than man. Shadows coiled around his wrists, drawn to him like starving things.

She did not step back.

A mistake.

Or perhaps, a challenge.

Ezran lifted a hand, a flick of fingers calling forth a curl of dark mist, and the ruins pulsed with the echoes of those who had died here. Their whispers wrapped around her, clawing for a weakness, but fae were not so easily broken. She merely narrowed her gaze, a flick of her own power sending the voices skittering back.