Renner watched from the tower as the first construction crews laid down the last of the western ramparts.
He had arrived before dawn—slender silhouette among the laborers and laboring in silence. His pale skin was flushed by the day's chill, worn wrappings clinging to him, relics still rattling at his belt.
He'd co to Esgard with one goal: to climb—and break—the mountain called Ian Night, the Demon Blade.
Renner wasn't born from nobility. He ca from scorched houses and rotting fields, from crack paths where the Southern Army spilled blood like rivers.
He built his legend through pain and ceremony—earning rings and chains, a broken sigil from one throat and dried hair from another.
Each trophy told a story: a step closer to summoning the darkness he'd claid to hold at his side. None of this had been vanity. He had been building a ladder out of corpses.
Now, as the wall rose around the city, as the crowds buzzed with talk of another siege tide—the so‑called beast tide—Renner saw himself as an artist waiting for his canvas to complete.
The Crucible had welcod him. They had called him strange. Dead-eyed. Moving like glass about to snap—and faster than the blink of a prayer. That wasn't rumor. It was power. A power that Ian would soon understand.
He had watched the first two tides pound the city's defenses. The first surge was beasts—the n turned to seals, the beasts to terror.
The second, Oathbreakers, tall and calm, they studied before striking. He'd co late to that one, watching as the dead rose beneath Ian's command, the shadow‑borne army of a thousand bones.
Even from afar, Renner had recognized power—the throne of dominion that Ian had claid, Crown of the Forgotten glowing like a black star above the breach. But he hadn't felt fear.
Ian was strong, yes—but every mountain cast a shadow. He had co to stand on it.
Now he waited for the third charge: the one whispered to be bigger. Beast tide was not the real danger. It was a distraction. The true wave would co after. And he planned to be waiting.
---
Esgard held itself together on a knife's edge. Around the wall, scaffolds rose as fast as they shattered. Caelen's sentries drilled into positions along the parapets.
Lyra's scouts placed seals and arrow nests. The rcenaries from Varran's Teeth patrolled with steady grace. The undead guards, silent and grateful for one small miracle—life.
Everywhere was tension, discipline, and fear. The laborers toiled under the guard's eyes, refusing to look at the creatures hovering beyond the walls. But inside the walls… audiences watched, drank, bet. At taverns, n clattered mugs and cursed fate. At brothels, whispers spoke of beast tide nas and wonders of the Crucible. But behind every laugh was scrutiny: When next will the mountain co to fall?
Renner frequented those smoky rooms, whispering to the gamblers. Red‑eyed n, faces gaunt with obsession. He didn't gamble; he watched. He learned who bet against Ian. He learned who cheered his rise.
He learned who cursed the Demon Blade's success—the ones who would beco leverage co vote ti. Because political capital was currency—and if you could break Ian's myth with one well placed rumor, rumor that grew to fear, you could build your own throne from the grown cracks.
And these tides would be the spark he needed.
He hadn't shown himself at the first. He'd watched from the woods above the camp. n fell, bestial roars split the dusk, and Caelen's iron line buckled.
Then Ian appeared—silent as smoke, savage as shadow. His blade took shape; the wall held. The beasts bled. Hour later, the tide turned. Ian's army of the resurrected surged.
It was mastery—but not surprise. Renner nodded and made note of Ian's form. How he moved among chaos. How even when the dead broke, Ian remained calm. That wouldn't be possible for the second wave.
This was the test: calculated killers. They weren't mindless; they were detectives. Observational death. He watched them co through illusions, through traps.
Beast tide had ended in failures and flight—but Oathbreakers cald the water. They advanced beyond. Ian t them in the trench.
He spat nas into the pale n's skulls—nas they'd once held in oath, before blood and rot corrupt their bone. With his daggers, he broke their spine and mory—and their minds yielded what he needed.
Renner admired the Oracle's sight—but he still wasn't afraid.
Now ca the third. The tide would be greater. And Renner planned to stand once more before Ian—but this ti from within the lee. To test the mountain's underbelly. Could its foundation crack?
He'd tasted the dark before Esgard. A ripple in the darkness. A hand outstretched like a fallen star. No face, only a voice—like ice fracturing at dusk.
"It is ti," it had said.
Pain erupted. Torrents of mory and emotion rged with cold infinity. When he opened his eyes—dead green—he felt remade.
A crimson spiral spun across his chest—an echo of the spiral that branded Out. But his was alive. Pulsing. Eyes blinked in its center. Power seeped through his veins. Speed that twisted reality. A whisper of premonition in every strike.
He had asked: Why ?
"It is not you," it whispered. "It is through you."
He didn't ask again.
From that mont, everything changed.
He watched the council etings through informants. They planned as though the Oathbreakers were the enemy. And they were. But not the final one.
He watched the political moves—Blackrat shifting debt, Ian gaining vote edges. The city exhaled with pride: the wall was their salvation.
Renner saw that pride would blind them. So he nurtured an undercurrent in the taverns: talk of turncoats in Lyra's scouts. Rumors of weakness in undead. Questions on Ian's consent for necromancy—was it dark enough? was it perversion?
He did nothing violent. He rely watched and waited.
Now, atop the wall, Renner stood with bow in hand—not to defend, but to observe. He watched Ian stride across the battlents, pale sigils still coursing across his skin.
Dead n watched him walk. But so did Renner. He admired the movent in his mind: the way Ian stopped to nod, to give orders. The way enemies disintegrated in his wake.
This was his chance. He would et the mountain in its own breaking point. He wanted the spotlight. He needed the myth. If he could fracture Ian's reputation with one blow—just one—he would open a path to rise.
He didn't need the city. He deserved it.
Ian spotted him and paused. His eyes traced along Renner's form. Not recognition—but discernnt. A predator recognizing another. Ian nodded nearly imperceptibly. Renner nodded back.
Renner stepped down to the battlents, boots silent. He passed Caelen, who shot him a slight nod—iron brother to an Iron Rank, forging purpose among flesh and bone.
Lyra paused, arrow still notched—her eyes narrowed. She knew him. That wasn't comfort or relief in them.
He accepted both as warnings.
He moved to a stable guardpost—refuge for scouts. They fed nas to incoming patrols, facing the forest's edge. The tide would co at nightfall—a wave so great the wall would careen. The city would shatter under pressure unless they broke the apex.
Renner expected brilliance. He expected a mortar. He expected myth.
He also expected chance.
At dusk, Renner found himself near a small gathering of gamblers at the Moon's Eye tavern, their faces red with wine and rumor. He leaned in, whispering:
"You see that wall?" He didn't answer. "He's not the only one of his kind." He passed them evidence—shards of Oathbreaker rune, a sight spell that reflected the sigils across a tremulous lake of mana. "He's strong. But even a mountain has its granite cracks." He dropped seven gold marks—marked with his sigil. Enough to start a storm.
He left as they shouted, raising mugs and cursing both hero and demon—but most of all curious how soone could sell knowledge of Ian's limits.
Renner climbed to the wall top again. The night's wind was biting. On the plains below, lanterns swung silent. The trenches glead cold in moonlight.
His skin crept with the knowledge that the enemy would move soon. He felt the tide in every breath.
And so he stayed—watching, waiting.
Midnight.
He heard it before he saw it: the forest's distant rumble—a low wave in timber and root. The hush ca before the thunder of rhythmic footfalls. The beast tide had returned—not lesser, but greater. And behind them, the Oathbreakers again.
This ti, they didn't hesitate—they didn't curve for assessnt. They ca for collision.
The wall parted as soldiers shouted. Torches popped. A pitch quake swept over the skyline—the forest trembled and exhaled.
Renner's heart pounded.
This was his mont of truth—close enough to feel blowback from the world's recoil. The moonlight danced off his chest-mark. He felt more alive than he ever had being farther west in a thousand tomb-like encampnts.
He waited.
This ti...this ti he will proof he is worthy.
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