Drienasas, the city of which only the echo of screams remains...
The sorting square in the heart of the city was a living ruin, ruled by strict orders and iron fists. The imperial soldiers dragged the remaining civilians amid the rubble: trembling children, elders carried on shoulders, wounded who could not lift their heads from the ground. A long line of pale eyes, dust-covered faces, and barely breathing bodies.
Amid this harsh scene, there was one standout child...
Covered in dust and ash, half his face stained with dried blood, his eyes half-closed, but he was alive. Azamir, the child who was buried under a collapsed tower, rose from the debris, not knowing how or why... but he survived.
His steps were unsteady, his body exhausted, but he moved forward.
While the crowds gathered in the square, the imperial officers examined the civilians like butchers do with lambs. Some were sorted to be sent to forced labor camps, others taken to board the ships heading to the empire — children, boys, little girls who didn't even know how to read.
And in a dark alley behind the square, horror was happening.
Two imperial soldiers, huge, dragging a young girl toward the shadows. She screamed, trembled, tried to defend herself, but hunger and fear had worn her down. No one heard. Or maybe they heard... but silence was the language of the new life.
But Azamir, who had strayed from the square, passed by. He heard the screams, stopped. Hesitated for a moment, then bent down and picked up a large stone, making his way silently through the rubble.
He approached.
Then — without a word, without warning — he struck one soldier's head with all his strength using the stone.
The skull shattered.
The other soldier stepped back, stunned, finding himself face to face with a child stripped of everything... except anger.
But before he could shout, a horn sounded. Other soldiers saw him. They screamed and rushed forward.
Then the spark of rebellion ignited.
From the ranks of the oppressed in the square, some women and men came out, holding broken kitchen knives, wooden clubs, stones from the ground. It was no plan, just a collective scream of pain. They attacked the soldiers, shouted in their faces, tried to snatch their children from death's grip.
But this hope was quickly cut down.
A unit of Draughtborns arrived.
Black masks, curved swords like fangs, bodies covered in armor. They did not ask. They did not hesitate.
The slaughter began.
Everyone who held a knife was beaten to death.
Anyone who tried to scream was crushed underfoot.
The girl Azamir tried to save was stabbed from behind while trying to escape, by a Draughtborn who lost control after being pierced by a hunter's spear. She fell to the ground, bleeding, her eyes begging, but life slowly left her.
Azamir stood frozen, stone in hand, his body trembling. His eyes were not looking at the soldier, but at the new truth:
Women in wars are not just defeated... they are erased.
From the highest balcony overlooking the square, the imperial duke — Custodis Ma'a — with his white beard and cold blue eyes, watched the massacre with terrifying coldness, and said quietly:
"Women are the greatest losers in wars... but no one writes about their tears."
Naran
In the city of Naran, Nuh was searching for his parents. Tired eyes scanning every face, every stretched-out body. But he found nothing.
An old man approached him, his face burnt, walking with a broken cane, whispered softly:
"Nuh... your parents... I saw them at the river, at the time of the ship's explosion. They were returning from a fishing trip. The explosion consumed them... no one came back from there."
Nuh said nothing. Did not fall. Did not scream.
But something in his face changed, tears flowed in silence. Silence for the reality, silence for the tragedy.
He turned and walked toward a man standing near a half-ruined wooden gate, wearing old leather armor, carrying a rusty sword. Tir, the last of the Arkaniss clan, former rulers of the sultanate tribes.
Nuh stood before him and said in a voice not of a boy:
"Teach me how to kill them. Teach me how to take revenge." He said it crying.
Tir looked at him long... said nothing. Just nodded.
"You will learn. But you will not remain who you are."
After the Ashes
At that moment, Naran was a city recreating itself.
Workshops pulsed with life behind the walls, sounds resounded — iron striking, training screams, preparing medical bags, drawing defense maps.
Azar wrote a handwritten, encrypted letter to the sultanate, begging for reinforcements:
"The city will not stand alone... we must ask for support before the last embers of our fire are erased."
Qays shouted: "We must attack them! We must honor our dead by burying them! Azamir died and you want us to hide behind our forts!"
At that moment Azar slapped his face and said: "You must be an example to the soldiers, don't let your emotions control you."
Qays shouted, his cheek red: "But he is my brother!"
Azar replied: "And he is my son."
"You and Tir will lead a small force to fortify the city of Conilmadran."
Qays said: "But..." then fell silent and left.
Azar stood tall and muttered: "I just want you to survive."
As Tir prepared to leave, Nuh came to him.
He stood confidently, his eyes dark:
"I told you, teach me. And now... I will come with you."
Tir looked at him one last time like a child.
Then said:
"So... say goodbye to who you were."
Imperial soldiers roamed the alleys and ruins, gathering the remaining children. There was no mercy in their eyes, only strict orders to carry out instructions:
"Anyone under fifteen years old... is transferred."
Amid mothers' screams forbidden to come close, and the silence of collapsing elders, children were dragged one by one toward the square where covered carts awaited to take them to the port.
Azamir, with a dusty chest and a face still bearing traces of dried blood, was among them.
He did not resist.
His eyes, once innocent, had become empty. Since he saw the girl killed before him, unable to save her, something inside him changed. He no longer expected anything from this world.
He boarded the ship without a cry, without a tear. Sat among the children, as if he was not one of them.
Everyone was silent. On the ship was only a faint moan, the smell of fear, and lost glances toward the sea.
The waters around them seemed endless, but Azamir's gaze was not focused on the sea, but on what was behind it. On a city burned down, dreams extinguished, and childhood killed slowly.
A child beside him began crying with a trembling voice, a soldier harshly said to him:
"Shut up or I'll throw you into the sea."
The child froze in fear, Azamir gently grabbed his shoulder and whispered:
"Don't cry. Don't give them anything else to take from you."
This was the first thing he said since the fall of the city.
Hours passed slowly, the sun began to descend, casting red shadows on the water's surface.
And deep inside, something in Azamir began to change.
He no longer saw the world as it was:
He no longer trusted the soldiers, nor justice, nor even honor.
In a world of injustice, only power will protect you.
But he did not fill his heart with blind hatred.
But with a calm... cold... steady desire.
A desire to live, a desire for revenge.
A desire to stay alive, to understand, to learn, to become stronger then... to change something, even if small.
On the ship's deck, Azamir sat stiff, his eyelid trembling silently.
He touched a piece of stone still in his pocket — the same stone he killed the soldier with.
He gripped it tightly, as if it were his first weapon in this new world.