Chapter Two: The Lion Prince and the Moth
Kazai Zharokh stood on the high ridge above the Daggerbound Wastes, arms folded, tail still. The wind carried dust like ash, and the land below writhed faintly—alive in the way a corpse might twitch after death. The Choir's presence here was recent, but undeniable.
And bold.
Behind him, his honor guard of Therian scouts—lithe warriors clad in ceremonial bone-steel—waited in uneasy silence. Even they, hardened by the wilderness, showed restraint here.
Kazai exhaled slowly, golden eyes scanning the horizon. "How deep does their corruption run, Xethren?"
A voice, soft and layered, answered without rush. "Farther than even the Wastes admit, Prince Zharokh."
Xethren hovered just behind him, wings barely fluttering. The Concord diplomat resembled a moth woven of glass and shadow—elegant, unsettling. Six eyes blinked in alternating rhythm, their gaze serene. Where Kazai was iron, Xethren was mist.
"We warned the Guilds," the moth-like being continued. "When the Vein twitched in three places at once, they blamed coincidence. When the glyphs burned blue, they called it weather."
Kazai snorted. "Humans love to name their ignorance."
"And beasts love to charge into it."
They shared a moment's stillness, not quite kin, not quite friends—but bound by recognition. The Choir wasn't a Virelian problem. It was a world wound. It pulsed beneath Therios, beneath Xir'Zath's hives, beneath even the Hollow Isles.
The Choir was old.
"Your scouts found another node," Xethren said. "One not touched by flame. A sleeping one."
Kazai turned.
"Where?"
Xethren's antennae twitched. "The Bone Temple of Hesh-Kar. Beneath the Salt Pillars."
Kazai blinked. "That's sacred ground."
"All ground is sacred until bled dry," Xethren said. "The Choir is bleeding the world."
Kazai's fists clenched.
He'd fought twice against their spawn. The first time, he'd lost four warriors and an arm—though the bonesingers had rebuilt it stronger. The second time, he had led a hunt through the shifting sands and personally ripped the mask from the Daggerborn's face.
It had whispered his name with a thousand voices as it died.
And now they were spreading.
Kazai turned to his scouts. "Ready the Rhinar. We ride south by nightfall."
One of them, younger, stepped forward. "Into Hesh-Kar's tombs? My Prince, the shamans—"
"Will wait," Kazai growled. "This world doesn't need prayers. It needs blades."
He looked at Xethren again, more serious now.
"Send word to your hive. If this is real—if they've breached the temple—then your Concord will want eyes on it."
"They already have them," Xethren said gently. "Yours."
The Lion Prince looked down at the Wastes, the veins of corruption spiraling slowly, sickly beneath the sand like dark arteries. It would not stop here. The Choir never did.
He thought of Jalen Caedra—idealistic, clever, too bound by codes. And Mara Park, half-mad and brilliant, cursed with knowledge even beasts feared. He hadn't seen them since the summit at Vaelwyn's Spire.
But if the Choir was awakening nodes across the continents, then war was no longer coming.
It was already here.
Kazai bared his fangs.
"Let them come."