Foreword

This is a story I’ve carried with me for a long time.

Before there were names or timelines, before I knew what shape the world would take, I felt the need to build something rooted in memory, resilience, and the quiet strength of those who refuse to be forgotten. Chronicles of Durajan began as notes and fragments written in the spaces between everything else. Over time, they grew into a story I could no longer keep to myself.

This book is a love letter to the kinds of tales that shaped me, and a reflection of the ideas I hold close: that strength can be quiet, that identity can be reclaimed, and that even in isolation, there is power in remembering who you are.

I didn’t set out to write a fantasy novel that follows a trend or fits neatly into a genre. I wrote to explore something deeper and something personal. Durajan is a world built from questions I’ve asked my whole life. About belonging, faith, and about what survives when everything else is taken from you.

And maybe most of all, this book is a way of honoring the creative spark that’s been with me since childhood, the one that never left, even when time, love, and responsibility set it aside. It’s the fulfillment of a promise I made to myself.

If you’ve picked this up, I hope you feel what I felt while writing it: that there’s meaning in the attempt, that story matters, that imagination, when given space, can shape something lasting.— A. H. Lewis

Introduction

What was lost.
‍The world has lingered in silence. The world has forgotten. The world has awakened.
‍
‍What has risen.
‍Nine nations, shards of memory and faith, where border wars are common, trust is rare, and peace is a pause, not a promise.

‍What is feared.
‍The forgotten lands beyond the Nine, that none dare enter, lest they be claimed by silence, weakness, and forgetting.

The Land Between Nations

In the space between conflict and war, faith and fear, gods and creed, lies the land between nations, The Durajan.

None come to the Durajan of free will. They are sent. Every nation touches its borders: Càrnoth, Skarn, Tharios, Marukh, and Shadura to the west, Khadar and Xeyath to the south, and to the east, Jhandai, and Vordos.

It was born as the result of a truce between the Nine, where oath breakers, rebels, dissidents, and criminals were sent to be forgotten by their people as punishment.

It was where thanes, warlords, kings, and emperors buried their mistakes and discarded their unwanted. A place to dispose of political rivals, silence revolutionaries, and remove those who stood in the way of power. The Durajan is erasure. A land of the banished, where the condemned are not merely sent to die, but to be unwritten.

Prologue

Beneath the setting wolfsun, mirewings soar above a blood-soaked battlefield, circling, waiting, and descending only once the cries of the wounded and dying fade and the smoke rises. But it is not a battlefield that lies at the borders of nations. It is within the heart of one. 

Tharios. North and south. Aguran and Agustus. Brothers and kings, locked in a years-long civil war. 

At the field’s edge, soldiers light pitch-soaked torches one against another, flames leaping from hand to hand. They stand spent, their victory a weight, not a relief. Spears are pulled from racks as they set out to seek those who remain. Some survivors will be kept for convergence, others for servitude; the fortunate will be slain. 

With the battle won, the weary spearmen watch as their commander takes his leave and rides south, carried swiftly by his steed. But there is no pride in him, only purpose. The battle was won, and Aguran, their king, has more pressing matters to tend to. 

A long tree-lined road leads to a hilltop manor, where, beneath aged arches and worn pillars, house guards watch their king approach. A stable hand takes his reins, a servant, his gloves and cloak. Both leave in silence. 

Inside, Aguran walks through halls and past walls upon which rest weapons, shields, book-lined shelves, and scrolls of all nations. 

His path continues up to a chamber where a woman rises from a long table attended by servants. She is fair, calm and statuesque. Her silver hair is worn high and bound, and she is dressed in a gray gown, adorned with simple bands of gold about her arms. 

She is Laevina, wife of Aguran.

“How went the battle?” she asks.

“We won,” he responds and steps past. “Another victory.”

“Does he still resist?” Laevina probes.

“He will always resist. He is no different than the rest. They fell, and so will he.”

Aguran sits at the long table. Laevina joins opposite him. Between them, the space is filled by far more than distance. 

They share a meal in silence, and while the food is cleared, she watches him, seeking his eyes, admiring his dark hair, his youth, his strength. But he is elsewhere. 

Breaking the silence, Laevina asks. “Are there survivors worthy of convergence?”

“I will know by morning.” 

She knows that is all she will be given.

Her silence softens him. Rising from his place, Aguran walks to stand behind her, placing his hands on her shoulders. Laevina’s jeweled hand, aged and frail, touches his. She begins to look away, but Aguran lifts her chin. 

When their eyes meet, she hopes that he still sees what rests within her, but he studies her like one seeking to remember but only seeing something that is no longer there. 

He bends, and their lips meet briefly before he steps away, leaving the chamber.

Past a grand hall, a girl sits reading within a temple lined with scrolls and books. Priests and scribes work in quiet diligence, transcribing texts from the lands and languages of the Nine. 

Under their tutelage, the child studies, her every need tended to, and awaits her daily lesson in the sacred scriptures of the Hollow as written by the First Ones. 

The rhythmic echo and rising volume of boots striking stone mark King Aguran’s arrival. Holy men and scholars rise as their king enters. As he approaches, the girl smiles at him and he at her, warmth rising in his expression. 

Aguran sits alongside her and takes her in. Her skin is dark, warm and rich, with hair as black as night and storm gray eyes that are as beautiful as they are intelligent. For a moment, he is captivated. 

“You are beautiful, my dear.” His voice is fatherly, yet there is more between his words. 

“Are you ready for your studies?” He asks with a soft smile. 

She nods and sits closer, alongside him. 

The highscribe retrieves a leather-bound tome, accented with umbrasteel and gold. He brings it to their table and sets it before them with reverence. With precise and ceremonial movements, he positions it before his king and the girl, opens it to a specific page, and steps away. Within the book, its sacred scriptures are written in a single language woven of many, the Alltongue.

Aguran’s fingers brush the cover as he admires all that has gone into its creation. The king and child share a smile. After a moment, he begins to read the chapters and verses that guide the path upon which he and his house walk in faith. As he begins, his voice is clear and calm. Beside him, her eyes follow the words written.

THE BOOK OF AWAKENING
Chapter 1

1. No one knows how long the Silence lingered but all know what it left behind. Memory was stolen, gods and their monuments lost their meaning, cities collapsed into ruin, language splintered, and knowledge of the very world itself was lost. But life finds a way. 

2. The Awakened wandered, discovering places of safety and lands that must not and could not be crossed, for many who went into these lands did not return. Those who did spoke of whispered rituals that could be heard in the ruins of the world before. Fear settled in the hearts of the Awakened, until fear gave way to the sounds of prayer. 

3. Belief began to take form as faith reemerged, giving rise to the remembrance of the last of the false gods - Mother, Mountain, Wolf, and Maw. 

4. Tribes were formed, led by the faithful and strong. The believers, shamans, and priests, and those who possessed a connection to the gods and the spirits of a world wishing to be remembered. 

5. Whether by the hearts of their followers, or by the unseen hands of the false gods, those of deepest belief were rewarded, bringing about the rise of those capable of miracles; sorcerers, sorcerer-priests, and the rare few who carried the authority of the gods themselves: The god speakers. 

6. Tribes claimed territories, territories became nations, each one named after their first leaders. Nations became wary and fell into conflict and war. 

7. Amidst the conflict, there rose one who began to see its futility. One who believed the only path to peace was a return to silence. One remembered only by the name, Nakarra.

The child listened as she had done many times before. And as he had done each time, he paused here, kissing the top of her head before continuing. 
‍
THE BOOK OF NAKARRA
Chapter 1

1. Nakarra walked in places both feared and forbidden, and dreamt of a time before time and thought, beneath hunger and life, and beyond the conflicts that ravaged the Awakened Lands. 

2. Emptied of all things, Nakarra found not revelation, but something more profound: a perfect stillness and peace. A place that Nakarra named the Hollow. 

3. Nakarra saw that life always ended in sorrow and death. Beasts preyed upon man, and man preyed upon their own kind in an endless cycle of both hunger and savagery.

4. Nations rose with pride and resistance to others. A pride that would lead to bloodshed. There was only peace in the stillness Before. Peace in letting go of what drove all to such senseless cruelty. 

5. And so Nakarra wandered, shared, and sought to unite people in the abandonment of these things and to seek stillness in forgetting and surrendering. In time, across the Nine, he found those of like minds. 

6. Followers grew, as the Path of Nakarra found fertile soil within the silent places at the edge of nations.

‍Chapter 2

‍1. But all things pass. Nakarra died, leaving behind those who felt his work was not yet complete, for change had not yet come to the Nine.  

2. These new disciples sought to achieve more than those who walked before. They looked past the teachings of Nakarra and sought to not just observe but to reach into the Hollow itself. 

3. And so the Hollow stirred, offered, and waited. 

4. Within the silence and stillness, they surrendered themselves wholly. In sacrifice, the disciples sank into the Hollow and like empty vessels, allowed themselves to be filled. 

5. Through their sacrifice, the First Ones rose and among them, the first of the Hollowborn, blessed with the power to humble the proud, weaken the strong, cleanse the Awakened World of arrogance, passion, pride and greed, and allow all to be filled with the stillness and silence of the Hollow.

6. From this, the path to the Before became clear. If the Awakened World could not see for themselves, they would be made to. And so the Nakarran Crusade was born and the Hollow Creed was written. 

‍Aguran paused once again and flipped through the book, stopping at a passage.

“The First Ones wrote this, Samike,” he said to the child. Then he asked, “Can you read it for me?”

He touched her hair as she sat beside him. She tilted her head, her gray eyes scanning the page, and read the passage before her.

“Pride is pestilence.
Love is loss.‍

‍Voice is vanity.
Borders are barriers.‍

‍The path has become our purpose,
and from the forgotten to the awakened,
our reach will extend. ‍

‍We walk forward to the time Before,
where silence is sacred,
where many are made one,
and where the Hollow is holy.”

Samike’s voice was sweet, and her mind was sharp. Aguran could see she was not merely repeating, but thinking, and he was sure never to interrupt her thoughts. After a moment, she looked at him, and then he pressed his lips to her forehead.

“Well done,” he said with warmth and love as the highscribe approached and waited. “Sleep well, dear child.”

Laevina stood nearby, watching beneath the doorway. Aguran noticed his wife, tensing momentarily, but Samike made him smile once again. As she was led away, hand in hand by the highscribe, she waved to Aguran. He smiled and waved in return. 

Scribe and child passed by Laevina, who watched her husband for a moment longer before stepping away, leaving her footfalls to echo through the silence.

She who remembers

‍When the first prayers were whispered in the Time After, she lived and believed. 

As wife, shield maiden, warrior, and priest of the Mountain, she rose to stand against the Hollow Creed when it was still forming, and had just begun its spread at the dawn of its crusade. 

But she would fall. 

She watched her kin surrender their names.

She watched their temples crumble.

She fought against the ruin.

When her people fell, she wandered. 
The world forgot her. 
She forgot the world. 
But she never forgot the Hollow One.

And she never forgot the Mountain, the one God who did not move, even as all things unraveled.

She died with no name.
But something remained.
A breath. A vow. A divine love. 

And memory that could not be silenced.

He who endures

‍“I was born Russom Balewa of the nation of Marukh in the southwest of the Awakened Lands, north of Shadur and south of Tharios. There, the air was warm and the land fertile. My father was a man of declining wealth and waning influence, and I was the firstborn of his three wives, living my days cleaning a shop with too few customers or hawking their wares to passersby. 

Marukh and Shadur had suffered enough bloodshed on their borders and had settled into a fragile peace for some time. War would come again, but the truce had held for now. As for Khadar, theirs was a nation of many tribes spread across the southern sands, each led by a Khandar. As a people, they lived in harmony with the land and were peaceful toward neighboring nations and one another—unless provoked.

But to the north, Tharios was not so fortunate, for north of Tharios was Skarnvald, and the Skarn knew little of peace. They were a warrior nation in constant conflict with Càrnoth, along their northern borders, and were forced to endlessly face the never-ending cycle of the Càrnothi Tide. 

To the Càrnothi, war was breath, and blood was proof of strength, so as a result, Tharios suffered the wrath of the Skarn, who raided them in the hopes of balancing the losses to their northern foes.

And so it went, on the western ridge of the Awakened World. Conflict and its ripples echoed and flowed southward, affecting all within its wake, but weakening as it ebbed. Càrnothi bled Skarn, and Skarn raided Tharios, but Tharios did not seek outright war with Marukh. 

It was common to see Thariosian lords ride through the streets astride steeds born of the savannah herds, clad in their gleaming breastplates, layered battle skirts, and armored sandals. Thariosians considered themselves above the brutality of their northern neighbors and didn’t wish to bring blood to Marukh, directly. Instead, they offered gold. Primarily for goods and supplies, but in desperate times, they asked for more. 

When I was thirteen years old, one such lord visited my father. His guards’ eyes lingered on me as they spoke in hushed words. In the end, a coin-filled coffer was placed on the table. My mother cried, and my father comforted, but both carried on their faces a look of mourning.

On that day, I was sold to Thariosian hands, my body given to King Agustus. All houses of Tharios, loyal to him, had a quota to fill for their wars against the Skarnvald. 

My father told me to be strong. He told me I was strong. I was angry, but something within me couldn’t blame them, for that coin meant life for those my father loved and cared for, so I left without struggle or protest. 

Over the years that followed, and in lands far from home, I was made to train, to fight, and to serve, but my will remained my own. Blood and battle became my new mother and father, and I quickly realized the brutal balance of life and death on fields I felt I would not long survive. But I also learned what I could of the languages, peoples, and cultures I encountered. 

The Steppelands between Tharios and Skarn were a land of warcamps, fortifications, and fragile peace. There, I rested alongside other warriors, weary of the fighting and grateful for the brief respite that the talks provided, as together we all watched as commanders of our opposing forces held negotiations that decided our fates. 

Here, the drawing of blades was forbidden, and to defy meant the brand, so we all obeyed. Oftentimes, in these peace talks, amidst seas of tents and campfires, slavers entered to trade their wares. 

It was surprising how many made their living in this manner, hunting down and capturing defectors, escaped slaves and those who had managed to slip free of the grasp of one of the Nine, before receiving the brand and being left to the Durajan. 

The most well-known of the slavers were the Xeyathi of the south. They were known for their ability to capture anyone, and hunted like sand hounds. Skarn brought slaves of their own. Those won in conflicts with Càrnoth and Tharios often discussed the release of Skarn slaves as part of negotiations. 

As I sat, I watched, listened, and learned. 

As the years came and went, I rose, fighting for survival in wars that I wished to have no part of. I was meant to die, but I fought to prove, even if only to myself, that I was more than a piece of flesh to be bartered for, broken, and abandoned on some distant battlefield.

I was good and became more than just a survivor. Lord Agustus’s little boy gave me a name, Dothemides. It meant He who has proven mighty in the tongue of the Thariosians. To please his son, Agustus ordered that I be referred to by this name, from that day forward.

In time, my birth name no longer felt like it was mine. The thunder of the charge, the roar of the battlefield, and the clash of sword on shield became my breath and heartbeat. I did not revel in victory, but taking the lives of those who sought to take mine was preferable to brutal death. So as I rose and my reputation grew, I learned that with victory came privilege. 

King Agustus and his wife, Queen Photini, told me plainly that I would never see my home again. I was a warrior of too much value to their house and the morale of their soldiers. Aside from that, their son liked me and wanted me to stay. And when King Agustus was called to council with allied Thariosian houses, I was brought to his Queen. The darkness of my skin, the strength of my body, she found them pleasing, and I was made to serve in whatever ways she deemed necessary. 

It went this way for years, until at twenty-five, I fell. 

The battle did not go our way. Legatus Gaius, whose banner I fought under, was slain. The Antonian line had fallen, and the Skarn descended like a storm upon those of us who remained.

The chaos of the field became quiet, and my focus was on survival as battle cries bellowed and blood spilled amidst the collision of opposing forces. In the chaos, I emerged into a clearing and checked to see if I was whole. I thanked the gods, but the space closed in quickly.  

To my right, my hammer turned the knee of a warrior inward, cracking it from the side like a broken branch. To my left, it caved in the helm of a shieldmaiden whose face I never saw. Above me, the haft rose to deflect the blow of an axe aimed for my head. My shoulder met his chest, and he stumbled, tripped, and fell over backwards. Beneath me, I saw his face, eyes wide beneath a mask of filth, and then I felt the spray as his head ruptured beneath my hammer. 

The strike that nearly took my life was sudden. 

Breath left my body, air rushed from my lungs, my strength followed, and my weapon fell. Looking down, a bloody spearhead had suddenly appeared, as if it had somehow grown out from my chest like a thorn from the stem of a rose. For a moment, it was part of me. Then the glinting steel vanished as it was pulled free. I collapsed beneath a haze of pain and the copper taste of blood. As she ran past, spear in hand, axe tucked in her belt, she paused as I lay staring at the sky. 

She retrieved my hammer and placed it in my hands. 

“The Mountain will judge you,” she said.

“And the Far Sky will embrace you.” 

As the battle ebbed, the field grew still, and I waited. 

The soldiers of Skarn roamed, checking the fallen, sinking spears and swords into Thariosian soldiers that I imagined were too far gone, or not of any worth. A soldier found me and glanced down at my wound. He raised his spear, pressed it to my chest, but someone called for him to stop.

With a gesture, my life was spared. The world went dark. 

I was taken to the home of a woman and learned that her name was Friela—a priestess of the Mother. Friela and others of her faith lived apart from their clan. The Skarnvald prayed to the Mountain and Wolf, but in times of war, the Mother’s blessings were looked to, for none knew the ways of life, loss, pleasure, and pain as they did. 

I recovered under her care, and she took me before her Thane. Others who were fortunate enough to have survived were gathered as well, each of us bound for a life of servitude. But Friela requested to keep me, stating to her leader that she saw the Mountain's spirit in me: enduring, immovable, and defiant. But more importantly, to her, she saw the Mother’s in me as well. 

She was granted her wish, and under her touch and teaching, I learned of the Mother’s wisdom through devotion and ritual. Where war had taught me pain and loss, the Mother taught me pleasure and life. I abandoned the ways of the blade for the ways of the divine.

For years, I lived and learned with her on the eastern border of Skarn, where the forests gave way to the Durajan, and it was the first time in a long time that I felt the joy and hope of peace and freedom. 

In my seventh year by her side, Friela fell ill. A slow, creeping sickness that caused her mind, grace, and beauty to wither and fade. I was allowed to stay by her, to help keep her comfortable, but nothing could be done. 

I stood near as the shamans and priests placed her dagger in her hands and prayed for her before she took her last breath. When she died, I watched the flames of her pyre rise and listened to hymns of the Mother, Mountain, and Far Sky. 

And as the weeks passed, I realized that I no longer had a place among them. I left and traveled for weeks, making the long journey south to Marukh. When I arrived at the Bulwark of Tharios, the great wall that encircled the nation, I didn’t enter. Instead, I followed the wall west, then turned south towards Marukh, all the while wondering what I would do when I arrived.

Soon the Bulwark was behind me and the beauty of Lake Anrhema stretched ahead, the lands of my people. But I didn’t continue. Marukh no longer felt like home. The Season of the Mother had come and gone nineteen times since I was sold. Part of me was afraid of seeing my family. Part of me didn’t want to. I wondered, were they alive? Were they dead? Had they forgotten about me? I didn’t want to face the answers to any of those questions. So I traveled to Tharios and made my way to the southern side ruled by King Aguran where I found peace and purpose working as a woodwright—building homes, and fixing carts and wagon wheels. 

My shop was small and simple, and I convinced myself that I could live this way. That I could be content. But I came to understand that the gods move mortals the way winds sweep sand. 

I lived a quiet life. But at forty years old, in a market square, I witnessed an injustice.

I don’t remember the name of the man who suffered that day, beaten and left to bleed for the amusement of those who held power. I do remember how his eyes pleaded and searched for someone to care.

I was that someone. 

Beneath my hand and simple hammer, his three attackers fell. For a brief moment, I reveled in their broken bones and bludgeoned bodies. They weren’t soldiers forced to war; they were cruel and corrupt. It was justice, and it was deserved. 

Then Aguran guards overwhelmed me. Shackles, beatings, and mock trials followed. My sentence was absolute, and with hot steel, I was branded with the mark that would bar me from all nations.

I was thrown into a cage meant to be my end, and like rotted refuse, I was carted miles southeast into the lands of the Durajan, where I‘ve been left to be scorched by the Wolfsun and die of thirst.

It has been days. So many days. Waiting to die. 

They left me with my journal. 

But the well has run dry. 

The quill is worn and dulled. 

These are my last words. 

I will perish here on these sands…”

Book of Dothemides, Wolf’s Blood 57

CHAPTER 1
Year 1: Threads
STILLNESS AND DECISION
The Khadari Desert, Wolf’s Blood 59
‍
She had heard the story many times. A story described as fate and purpose. A story defined as destiny. The Nakarrans and their promise of peace, silence, and unity. Between study and duty, King Aguran always spoke of how, without the Nakarrans, he would never have found her. The story was always the same.

Visitors from the forgotten lands to the west, the Nakarrans came bearing no banner. They rode in, seeking an audience with the rival houses of King Aguran and King Agustus, promising a path that would lead to the end of the pride that separated them.

They felt that Tharios had suffered too long and promised a path to unify them beneath one way, one path, one creed. Aguran welcomed the idea. Agustus wished nothing of it.That was how it began, when Samike was just a child.

To prove his loyalty, worth, and devotion, Aguran was sent to raid one of the Marukhan merchant houses along the shore of Lake Anrhema to the south. It was an unprovoked attack against unsuspecting people.

With their victory came a prize. Slaves were taken, goods seized, and among those found was a girl, one who caught the eye of King Aguran. Considered a blessing, she would remain his until she came of age to serve. Her name was Samike.

Born of Shaduran and Marukhan blood, Samike grew into a stunning beauty. Rich dark skin, pale gray eyes, black hair that fell in waves about her face and shoulders.

By the time she reached eighteen, Samike had become a priceless treasure to Aguran. She possessed a form as alluring as it was elegant, and a mind that was keen and observant. She was raised in the ways of the Creed and taught to please and pleasure the mind and body of her King.

In return, Aguran lavished her with gifts, provided for her every need, granting a life of comfort and education within his palace. She was his obsession. A jewel that Laevina, his wife of many years, tolerated. But when Samike gave birth to twins born of her union with Aguran, it was her end.

Not days after their births, while Aguran was out on another raid, Samike was torn from her quarters and dragged into the depths of the palace. There, she was met by the amber glow of the brand of banishment. Then followed the sting and stench of seared flesh, and the merciless glare of a vengeful wife.

Now, within the tight confines of a sweltering iron cage, Samike sat bent, burned, and bruised. For days, she had been taken southeast, through the Valley of Tharioc, and further east into the Khadari desert region known as Sifur’s Breath. As the journey stretched on, her memories ebbed and flowed with the slow sway of the wagon beneath her, dreams of a life now lost.

The wagon stopped, stirring her awake. Her hands reached for the bars and she peered out past the edge of the open cart at the lines left in the sand by its passing. They stretched on for miles. Her eyes lowered. Her heart sank. She would not survive this.

Voices. Discussion. Laughter. Footsteps and the clatter and clink of armor. The doors creaked open. If she could shrink back into the cage, she would have. If she felt there was any use to begging, she would have, but she knew the hearts of these soldiers.

The guards of House Aguran seized her. Rough hands dragged her forward, the heat rising from the pale sand bit into her skin as she stumbled. A satchel and waterskin were thrown at her feet, and a horse, days from death, was left for her.

The soldiers mounted the wagon without another glance. The remaining horse pulled and the wagon wheeled, turned, and rumbled away, growing smaller and smaller until it disappeared beyond the distant dunes.

Samike was left alone, with nothing but wind and horizon.

She wandered for days. Her radiant beauty was dulled by the grime of suffering, yet her spirit remained as unbroken as it had always been.

Samike soon came upon a man who clung to life within the cramped confines of a cruel cage, meant to be his tomb. Studying him, she saw that his body bore the scars of a life spent fighting. His strength was evident, and even in torment, his presence was undeniable, and so she approached with caution.

To free him would be a risk. To let him die would be a cruelty. He was beaten, branded, injured, and dying. If she aided him, she stood the chance of gaining a protector. But what would his expectations be? What would it cost? Her mind filled with both hope and fear, but she was alone. She needed him to survive.

Ignoring the risks, she dismounted, searched and found a stone. From within the cage, she saw his eyes open. Cracked lips parted, his throat too dry to speak. His arm raised, daring to hope.

Samike stood with the stone held above her head. Arms trembling beneath its weight. Their eyes met, and she could see in him both a plea and a promise. She nearly faltered at the sight of him in that moment.

Doubt filled him as she paused. His fate was held in her hands. A tear rolled down his cheek, and in his silence, his eyes revealed acceptance and understanding. Nodding, he rasped.

“I... understand... It’s alright.”

The sight of him broke something within her. Here was this man, facing his end. Yet he did not beg, he did not rage.

He nodded again, and his eyes closed, freeing her from the fear she held of him. His head fell forward, his body slumped, and he pitched. Samike felt her tears fall as her fears left her.

As his body fell, so too did her heart. She brought down the stone, her chest heaving. She brought it down again, her arms weakening. She brought it down a third time, her voice screaming.

The stone split. The lock shattered. His near lifeless form fell forward, the cage swinging open beneath his weight. She sank by him and brought her waterskin to his lips, pouring what little remained, and prayed.

Dreams. Dreams of the Mother. Her hands raised. Her thunder. Her cry. Her tears. Her touch.

As he opened his eyes, she was there. Not the Mother but his savior. Sitting. Watching him in the light of the morning.

He knew that fate had both found and freed him. He could not speak, he could barely move, but from that moment, he vowed to never let harm come to her.

She reached next to him and placed something on his chest. It was his journal. Left in his cage as a cruelty so that he might write his last words and die without hope of being found. Upon seeing it, he held it and closed his eyes, gripping it tightly.

She watched as he moved to speak, but she calmed him and encouraged him to rest.

By day, Samike searched for water, and by night she sat by his side. As his strength began to return, their bond deepened with each passing moment.

His eyes followed her, and she felt the gentle, welcome weight of his stare. She knew the hearts of men, but he was unlike any she had met, for never once had he asked anything of her. Never once expecting. All she saw and all she felt was his gratitude.

Each day, he watched her and thanked her. She could have left him to die. Yet she risked everything to free him. She was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen and carried about her a gentle mystery that lured him. She was silence, grace, and peace.

One day, when his strength had finally fully returned, he spoke.

“Please know…” She felt his words fall as if he were frightened that she would flee, “…that I will never harm you,” he continued.

She stopped and turned. He was sitting up. His black locks fell about his dark shoulders, and his amber eyes shimmered like embers beneath his brow.

“All I will ever do…is protect you.”

Samike knew he spoke the truth. She bowed and smiled. She didn’t know what to say. She almost felt as if she were held in place by his gaze.

“Thank you...” her voice was soft, serene, and beautiful to him.

He studied her for a moment more. “My name is Dothemides,”

With the campfire between them, she responded. “Samike.”

That evening, she returned from finding liferoot and sourgrass and saw that he was gone. She searched, eyes scanning, then heard him return. He stepped into their small camp bearing tinder and scraps of wood and approached. Each movement made to instill trust. She watched him kneel by the fire, offer his finds to its flame, and move back away from her, watchful and respectful.

That night as he slept, Samike crept close and watched him for a time, trying not to make a sound, listening to his breath. Then, there, alongside the crackling fire, she lay alongside him and rested her head and palm against his chest.

Her presence stirred him awake, and upon feeling her weight against him, he did nothing but hold her.

She listened to the rhythm of his breath, slow and deep, and felt the quiet thrum of his heart beneath her cheek. In that stillness, she wondered what kind of man he had been before the cage, and what kind of man he would become now. He hadn’t asked for her body and hadn’t asked for her name. He had given her no reason to fear him, only reasons to remain.

‍“I will never harm you…All I will ever do…is protect you.”

‍His words echoed in her mind as she felt his arm wrap around her, and for the first time in years, she let herself be still. Not as a servant. Not as a prize. Just as herself.

Something passed between them in the hush of that night. It wasn’t a promise, nor was it love, but something akin to it. Something that asked to be built.

Together, they left their camp. Samike’s steed had grown too weak to ride, and fell to sickness and thirst. They continued north towards the hopeful shade of the canyonlands, and in that time, they fought for one another and survived together.

Both had heard and now were experiencing the perils of the Durajan firsthand. It was a brutal, unforgiving land filled with grim scenes. The corpses of branded soldiers who had fallen against one another's blades. Huddled forms of husbands and wives, having succumbed to poisons cloaked in tempting fruit. Half-eaten nobles, their bloated bodies exposing gnawed bones and ravaged limbs. Each of them dying and knowing that no one would remember them.

The Nations banished people from all walks of life. Many of the branded were unfit to survive and many perished. Respect was paid to the dead. But to survive, Dothemides and Samike claimed and put to use the possessions of the fallen—weapons, armor and whatever they could find and put to use, to aid them. Predators were killed, small prey, trapped and hunted, and on the darkest of days, others who were banished were slain.

They were not enemies. Many were not soldiers. They were people who once had families. Sons and daughters, fathers and mothers, each one made wild and feral, driven by fear and famine. Dothemides was no stranger to taking the lives of enemies, but the Durajani were not enemies; they were merely people who were lost, abandoned, frightened, and alone. Samike accepted this as something that must be, in order for them to survive, but for Dothemides, each life taken took its toll.

One morning, Samike chose to share her story. She spoke of the fall of her parents, her captivity as a slave, and the education and luxuries that had shaped her life before banishment. When Dothemides asked about her captors, she said only that she had served in a Thariosian noble house—never daring to speak of Aguran and Laevina, their names, their influence, or their devotion to the Hollow Creed.

She spoke of an initial loathing, however, and the eventual understanding of a master who lived in a loveless home and was married to a bitter and vengeful woman.

She went on to say that she grew to even accept her master’s care and eventual love for her. A love that led to the birth of two children, the promise of a place of permanence, and her eventual banishment by his embittered wife.

Dothemides listened not with pity, but with respect. When he told her of the lives he had lived, his age, and the path that led him to the cage, it only reinforced all she had felt for him. Their shared tales brought them closer.

But as they traveled, Dothemides remained plagued by the fate of those left to the Durajan. He began to wonder, to hope, and dream of a way to bring others together, as they had been, and a way to turn the lives of the forgotten into something greater.

Their journey led them to the lush lands further east along the river, where the canyons gave way to jungle and the air was thick with the scent of life. In that fertile riverbed, the seeds of hope were sown, and as their humble camp grew into a home, their struggles shaped their bond and became the cornerstone of their love for one another.

Dothemides soon confided in Samike his dream of forging a sanctuary of order amidst the chaos of the Durajan. She listened and committed, but only did so with half of her heart. She had her protector, friend, and lover, and wasn’t sure they needed more. But as the weeks passed, his dream lingered.

It began with her waking to see him gone, only for him to return with word of camps spotted, or torches shimmering in the darkness before sunrise. He was loving, kind, gentle, and passionate, but he was also determined.

It wasn’t until he returned one evening, calling out from the forest's edge, that things began to change.

She knew his tone and call. The subtle shifts in pitch and cadence—distant to assure safety, higher to signal danger, quick when he was eager, and low when he desired her.

But this evening was different, and when she opened the gates of the small walls that surrounded their home, she saw that he wasn’t alone. He returned with two men and a woman. Each was thin, hungry, skittish, and as she watched, he encouraged them to follow.

Upon seeing Samike, he paused as if awaiting judgment, a look of hope behind his eyes. Samike hesitated, smiled, and stepped forward, pushing the gate open in welcome. Relieved and overjoyed, he smiled in return.

From that day, he channeled his efforts towards convincing the weary, and while some came willingly and others refused, Samike watched with a veiled weariness as the simple life of silence and peace she sought began to change.

And far from the river where dreams took root, fate stirred in the hearts of two children, each bound to the threads of the Durajan’s fate.

To the southwest, amidst the Sands of Sifur’s Breath,a two-year-old girl named Umaru toddled through her village. Born the daughter of parents banished from the nation of Khadar, her small tribe lived as wanderers of the deserts and canyonlands within the Durajani borders, and were attuned to the rhythms of survival, and the traditions of The Maw.

Even at such a young age, Umaru’s fiery nature shone through as she fearlessly mimicked both the hunters and beasts that she observed each day. She was quick, perceptive, and possessed a will that defied her slight frame and few years. The elders of her tribe watched with knowing eyes, sensing that the child who played among the shifting dunes would one day carve a path unlike any before her.

Far to the north, a new life was beginning. On the icy cliffs and shores of Càrn Valloch, a child was born amidst the rising tide and crashing waves of the Sea of Souls. Svirva came into the world on a night when winds howled and storms split the skies. Arican clutched her newborn daughter with silent pride as the firelight flickered upon the infant’s black hair and amethyst eyes, rare among her people.

The days that followed saw whispers spread through the Càrn that the Mountain had marked her for something greater. Some called her a blessing, others a curse. But her father merely grunted, calling her a raven born beneath the storm.