NOVEL NEXT 25. Rest is Reward
Her voice carries across Haven's walls once more. "Knight?"
Strange how those single words can hold such weight. These borrowed bones, no, chosen bones now, remember Emmy fearless questioning from before.
The same voice, older but unchanged in its certainty.
I incline my skull slightly, the gesture familiar despite this titanic frame. My new form towers over Haven's walls, but purpose remains the same.
Protect. Defend. Stand guard.
Commander Ikert studies my frame from the battlements, her hand still near her sword. Three years have weathered her armor, added new scars to old steel. She remembers too, I see it in how she holds herself, how her fingers move across Haven's mark on her shield.
The same mark I once bore on lost shield, before the Duke's flames scorched.
I remain motionless, hands raised in ancient gesture.
Let them look. Let them see. This frame may have changed, but duty burns eternal in these hollow sockets.
"Lower your weapons," Emmy calls to the other guards. "Don't you remember? He protected us before!"
Some bows lower. Others remain drawn. Three years of siege have taught Haven's defenders caution.
I could speak now, scratch words in earth with Aeternus's massive blade. But actions carry more truth than borrowed words. Instead, I remain kneeled, staring up towards battlements. Close enough for them to see the same blue-white flames that once lit smaller sockets.
Emmy steps forward toward battlement walls, ignoring restraining hands. "I kept watch," she says. "Every morning. The others said you fell, but I knew. I knew you'd return."
The toy soldier at her belt catches morning light. The same one she carried when these bones were smaller, when we fled the horror's lair. Such a small thing to hold such faith.
Commander Ikert moves closer to the wall's edge. Her voice carries the weight of three years defending these stones. "If you're truly our guardian returned, prove it."
I turn my massive skeletal palms outward, mirroring the same gesture made years before beneath these walls. Though bigger now than previous form, the meaning remains unchanged, an ancient signal of peace, bones empty of weapons or ill intent.
Commander Ikert's eyes narrow, recognition flickering across her weathered features.
She witnessed this same motion before, when these bones were smaller. Now my titanic skull rises level with the battlements, yet I maintain the posture of supplication.
My palms stay raised, patient.
Let them study how the Field of Broken Banners reshaped this form. Though my height matches siege engines and my new frame could breach the walls, I hold the gesture steady.
Some of Haven's defenders lower their bows further, whispering among themselves. They remember a smaller skeleton who threw supplies over their walls, who cleared corruption from their foundations.
Emmy steps closer still, her young face showing no trace of doubt. She sees past the titanic bones to the guardian who once led her from darkness.
Recognition spreads across Captain Ikert's face. "It really came back," she mutters.
Then louder, "Stand down! Open the gates!"
"Commander?" The old guard beside her tightens his grip on his spear. "Are you certain?"
"I gave him Haven's shield myself, three years ago." She straightens. "And now he's back, changed but unchanged."
The gates groan open beneath me. I rise from my kneel, careful not to let my shadow fall too heavy across defenders who still eye this titanic frame with uncertainty.
The gates seem small now against this titanic frame. What once was entrance becomes narrow passage. Strange how perspective shifts with borrowed dragon bone and titan frame. The walls I defended before reach only to my chest where I stand.
Commander Ikert recognizes the problem. "The outer courtyard," she calls. "Let's give our guardian proper space."
Metal hinges groan as the gates spread wider, but I remain. This new form belongs outside, where threats gather. My skull lowers, bringing hollow sockets level with the wall walk.
Better to kneel here in the killing field than risk damage to what I protect. These chosen bones understand their place, between Haven and horror, not within, not sheltered by its walls.
Emmy steps closer to the wall's edge, unafraid of my massive form. An old toy soldier she holds up, its worn paint still showing traces of a warrior's colors.
"I kept this," she says, "To remember. The others forgot."
The memory surfaces like bones rising through dark soil, the Duke's flames stripping borrowed frame to ash, my scattered pieces refusing to yield while survivors fled.
The memories of that battle will never fade.
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Dragon-reinforced bones remember simpler shapes, rabbit skulls and deer ribs cobbled together, fighting even as demon fire rendered them to dust.
Something shifts in the hollow spaces where living creatures store recognition. These chosen bones scan the walls, following ancient instinct to count those protected. Many faces appear familiar, weathered by three years of siege.
But some are missing.
My skull tilts slightly, eye sockets tracking along Haven's ramparts. The herbalist should be there. Merick. Sarah, who sang to keep spirits high during darkest nights beneath Haven.
Missing.
Not just moved to different places, posts.
The absence feels deeper. More permanent.
Emmy notices the searching gesture. "Many didn't make it," she says, voice quieter now. "The herbalist fell during the first year. The fever took her and some of the others. Others, scouts. Scavengers. They never returned. Some are working the farms we recovered."
She points to the memorial wall visible beyond the gate.
New names carved in stone, hundreds where dozens stood before. The cost of three years without these bones.
Failure settles into these hollow places. These chosen bones reformed too slowly. Duty demands faster response. Better protection.
The memories fade, unsettled. Dead things do not linger on dead battles, purpose drives these bones forward, not backward.
Aeternus's tip scratches in the earth before Haven's walls, each letter massive.
THREE YEARS LOST. TELL ME OF THREATS.
Commander Ikert reads the words from the wall. "The corruption spreads differently now. The Dark Heart's destruction changed things. Instead of the shadows before, we face grander horrors."
I wipe clean previous message and start again.
THE DUKE WHO BURNED THESE BONES?
"One of five demon dukes," she explains. Her voice carries the weight of countless battles. "But they're not our greatest threat. They serve greater powers, the realm lords who reshape entire kingdoms to their will."
The ground trembles, subtly at first, then with greater intensity. Not from my movements, from something else. Something approaching beneath the surface.
Commander Ikert senses it too, her hand returning to sword hilt. "Everyone back from the edge!" she shouts, pushing Emmy behind her.
The earth at the base of Haven's walls erupts in violent spray of soil and stone. A massive shape lunges upward, all limbs and gleaming chitin.
A lurker beast, its armored carapace glistening with burrowing fluid. Eight limbs ending in barbed hooks reach for the walls, for Commander Ikert and Emmy.
The creature moves, silent, quick, deadly. Its strategy becomes clear, it waited for the gates to open, for defenders to lower weapons, for the false security that follows recognition.
These chosen bones move faster.
My titanic hand covers the distance between threat and protected. Dragon-reinforced fingers close around the lurker's midsection before it can complete its leap. Chitin plates crack beneath pressure that could shatter stone. The creature thrashes, hooks scraping against bone plates that would have been too small to resist in my previous form.
Now my grip simply tightens.
The lurker's barbed limbs flail harmlessly against ancient armor. What would have killed before cannot scratch this frame. Its mandibles click as pressure increases, its exoskeleton compressing beneath what is unyielding.
One quick clench. Chitin shatters, black ichor spraying across the killing field. The lurker's limbs spasm once, twice, then fall limp.
I open massive fingers, letting the broken remains drop to earth. Blue flame in these eye sockets never wavered.
Just duty fulfilled, threat ended.
Haven's defenders stare in silence.
What would have claimed multiple lives ended in seconds. The old guard who questioned Commander Ikert's decision to open the gates now stares with wide eyes.
The casual display of strength that makes three years of desperate defense seem fragile by comparison.
Commander Ikert studies the lurker's remains, then my undamaged frame. "You've changed more than just size," she observes.
I incline my skull slightly.
Acknowledgment, not pride.
Aeternus cuts deep in the soil to write one more.
TELL ME OF THESE REALM LORDS.
Commander Ikert studies the massive letters from the wall. "The Briar Queen's Rot creeps closer each season. The Abyssal Prince has been sending his monsters, testing mostly. Others are more dormant for now, but growing in power."
BORROWED BONES WERE NOT ENOUGH. CHOSEN BONES MUST BECOME MORE.
Emmy leans forward. "Is that why you're different now? Why you grew so large?"
The question deserves truth. Aeternus cuts deeper.
FIRST STEP ONLY. THE MONSTER'S PATH DEMANDS MORE. A DUKE REDUCED THESE BONES TO ASH. CANNOT FAIL AGAIN.
DUKES SERVE LORDS. LORDS SERVE KING. WHAT BROKE BORROWED BONES WAS MERELY FIRST TIER OF POWER.
My blade etches final words.
TO FACE WHAT HUNTS YOU, MUST BECOME MONSTER WORTH FEARING.
The great ruin of letters remains in front of me.
Commander Ikert's face hardens into the neutral mask of someone who has seen too many promises turn hollow.
"And if you do?" Her voice carries three years. "If you become a monster strong enough to kill the Demon King? What then? Replace him?"
Her hand tightens on her sword hilt. "Come back for us to finish what he started?"
The question reveals how three years have changed trust to caution.
Such questions would never have been asked before, when these bones were smaller, more fragile, less monstrous.
But in this world, power seeks power. Commander Ikert has learned this lesson.
My response forms slowly in dark soil.
PURPOSE WILL NO LONGER DRIVE THESE BONES. WILL REST.
Those simple words.
Emmy understands first, not a promise of power, but a warrior's acceptance of final peace. These chosen bones seek not to rule, but an end to follow the ending.
Rest.
Ikert reads the words again, her grip on her sword loosening. She recognizes truth there, duty that asks everything, including its own cessation. Not the answer of a monster seeking power, but a guardian marking the cost of protection.
"You'd just, stop?" Emmy's voice catches. "After becoming strong enough to kill a god?"
My skull inclines slightly. Aeternus carves new truth:
WHEN PURPOSE ENDS, SO TOO MUST THESE BONES.
"But that's not fair!" The words burst from Emmy. "You protect us! You shouldn't have to!"
Commander Ikert's hand on her shoulder stops the outburst.
The older warrior understands what the young archer cannot, that true guardians seek not eternal watch, but final rest once duty ends.
I scratch another message.
PROTECTION REQUIRES COST. THESE BONES PAY WILLINGLY.
The lurker's broken form lies forgotten at the base of Haven's walls.
A minor threat dispatched without effort. But it remains a hint of what waits beyond, creatures that burrow beneath defenses, that strike when guards lower weapons, monsters that adapt.
These chosen bones understand what other defenders cannot. The coming war demands further transformation. To face Demon Dukes and Realm Lords requires becoming something beyond both.
Haven's walls fall quiet. They see now what this frame truly is - not another monster seeking power, but necessity given form. The price of facing demon lords is not lost on them.
The lurker's ichor stains titanic fingers, a reminder of what waits in darkness. Its broken remains will join countless others , threats dispatched, horrors ended. But these chosen bones know truth that living cannot face.
For each lurker crushed, ten more will come. For each duke defeated, lords grow stronger. The corruption spreads, adapts, learns. Protection demands equal evolution.
My skull turns toward the horizon. The path forward lies not in Haven's walls but beyond, towards other threats.
A young guard mutters what others think, "Three years to return, just to promise to die once its done?"
My answer cuts deep in dark soil.
DEATH IS NOT ENEMY. REST IS REWARD.