Page 168 of Haunted Crowns
The Dragov warriors had already decided what history would remember.
Across the field, as Stephan’s command rolled through the storm, Gavriel Morayne grinned. His blood surged like wildfire. His pulse pounded with the rhythm of battle. Before him, the mercenaries hesitated. He did not.
Gavriel bared his teeth in a grin that bordered on a snarl. Blood dripped from his blade, dark and heavy, trailing behind him like ink across parchment.
He raised his voice, not to taunt, but to condemn. "Look at you. Fighting in a war you don’t even believe in. You think you can stand against men who have already decided they cannot lose?"
One soldier wavered, another looked for a way out. Gavriel’s eyes lit with madness. He loved this moment—the breaking point.
He lifted his sword, blood-soaked and ready, and shouted, "FOR THE QUEEN! FOR DRAGOV! FOR WAR!"
Then he charged.
He crashed into the enemy like a storm unbound. His blade flashed. Blood sprayed. Laughter tore from his chest and echoed across the valley like a prophecy fulfilled.
With every strike, every shout, and every kill, Gavriel Morayne wrote himself into legend.
The Obsidian Order had expected victory. They had seen the Dragov legions stagger and the Lycans falter. But when the sky split open, everything changed.
The warriors of Dragov did not fall. They stood.
The Lycans did not retreat. They howled.
Mercenaries had been raised to believe that gods did not walk among men and that power came only from coin and steel. Now they saw warriors rising with eyes burning not just with rage, but with conviction. Doubt began to spread among them.
Their hands trembled. Their steps faltered. Their blades hesitated. Doubt created fear, and fear led to death.
A captain turned to call for support, only to see his men stepping back with dread in their eyes. A mercenary watched as the storm split apart, revealing Eris Dragov standing at its center, wrapped in divine fury. He stumbled backward, his voice hoarse and broken.
"We can’t win this."
The words passed from one soldier to the next. One whispered them, another repeated them, and dozens more heard. Panic took hold, and they ran. Weapons clattered onto frozen ground. Shields fell from hands gone slack. Discipline crumbled. Commanders shouted, but their voices were drowned by the sound of collapse. They had come to conquer. Now they were prey.
A commander seized one of his men and shouted above the chaos. "We are the Obsidian Order. Hold the line!"
The soldier broke free. "Then die in it."
He disappeared into the storm.
The line fell.
Mercenaries stumbled over their dead, scrambling to flee.
From the high walls of his citadel, Avaristo watched it all. The sky had split. The battlefield was chaos. His soldiers scattered like rats before a flood. There was no loyalty, only survival.
His hands gripped the railing as his breath caught. He had spent a lifetime conquering, believing power belonged to those with blades or gold. Now he stood on the wrong side of history.
He had mocked the Firstbloods and Lycans, calling them relics and zealots. But faith—what he had scorned—was winning. He could not deny it.
"We leave." His voice was clipped and hollow.
Miloseva moved without hesitation. She understood—the Obsidian Order was collapsing.
Avaristo turned his back on it. As long as he had gold, he could rebuild elsewhere. The Skyrer waited, its engines screaming against the wind.
Miloseva boarded the craft, Avaristo close behind. Rurik was already inside, waiting.
The doors closed, and the storm swallowed them. The vessel rose, fighting the sky as if it would ever let them pass.
