Everlyn didn't tell me gently.
She didn't sit me down. Didn't ease into it. She stood there in the lantern light, arms wrapped around herself like she was trying to stop something inside her from spilling out. Her tent felt smaller the longer she waited to speak. Like the air itself knew what was coming.
"Oma, I hate to tell you this on first day back but they've returned," she said.
I frowned. "Who's returned?"
She didn't answer immediately. Her eyes dropped to the floor. Then lifted again—harder this time.
"The Tyrant families," she said. "All of them. The ones the Kingdom of Oma overthrew."
I felt a strange pressure behind my eyes. Not pain. Not yet.
"That's not possible," I said. "They were dismantled. Broken. Their power—"
"—was never destroyed," she cut in. "Just displaced."
She began to pace, short steps, restless. The lantern flickered as she passed.
"They returned quietly at first. Influence. Coin. Marriages. Councils bought instead of conquered. Then came fear. Stories twisted. Lies repeated until they sounded like history."
She looked at me then.
"They taught their people to hate us."
My jaw clenched.
"They called Oma a mistake," she continued. "A rebellion that should have never succeeded. They blamed your people for famine. For instability. For every war that followed liberation."
"And when hatred was ripe," she said, voice hollow now, "they moved."
She described it clinically. Violent but coordinated coups across the continent. Kingdoms falling in the same week. Thrones overturned overnight. Loyalists slaughtered before dawn. Anyone who resisted vanished.
I shook my head slowly. "What about our land?"
Her mouth tightened.
"Oma doesn't exist anymore."
The words landed like a blade slid between my ribs and left there.
She told me how it happened.
When Zefar and his Summoned Slayers erased the physical Kingdom of Oma in blood and flame, he left us homeless.
When the Sons of Oma, the only standing army, were annihilated to the last man, we became defenseless.
And, when the women and children fled, carrying nothing but names and memories , the families of every tyrant our kingdom took down seized power with terrifying speed.
Afterward, the Tyrants moved in.
They seized the lands of our kingdom.
Declared it restricted territory.
Anyone from Oma who returned—anyone who tried to resettle, even to mourn—was executed without trial.
I stared at the dirt floor, my fists trembling.
"And the people?" I asked.
Everlyn exhaled shakily. "Refugees. Stateless. Living in tents hidden near the stone mountains. They use the cave networks to survive. They're not hunted for rebellion anymore."
"For revenge," she whispered. "The Tyrants want to punish them. Make an example. Destroy the idea that Oma ever stood for anything."
Something inside me went quiet then.
Not calm.
Empty.
"And the forest?" I asked.
She froze.
"The Forest of Predators," she said. "They're killing it."
She told me the truth behind it—the gold and diamonds buried beneath the roots. Our people had always known and chosen wisdom over wealth.
Another reason was how, the forest earned its name honestly: Forest Of Predators.
Man-eating predators. Territorial. Intelligent. Lethal.
Any miner or soldier who tried to exploit the land never returned.
"The forest itself was the obstacle," she said. "Not law. Not armies. Nature."
I already knew what came next.
"They burned it," I said.
She nodded.
Wildfires. Planned. Calculated. Flames set to scatter predator packs. Smoke to strip the forest of concealment. Once the animals fled, armed men waited.
"They hunt them down," Everlyn said, tears finally breaking free. "Kill everything. Dump the bodies in heaps. When the forest is empty… they mine it. Gold. Diamonds."
"For profit," I murmured.
"They don't care if it all turns to ash."
I stood.
Everlyn grabbed my wrist. "Oma—don't."
"I have to see it," I said.
"No," she pleaded. "Not like this."
I pointed outside the tent. "Look."
She turned.
I fell into my shadow and disappeared before she realized I was gone.
The forest smelled wrong.
Smoke clung to everything. Trees groaned as fire consumed them. Men moved through the haze, laughing, feeding the flames like children burning ants.
I followed the sound of flies.
The clearing was stripped bare. Animals piled together—burned, gutted, broken. Life discarded like waste.
Then I saw them.
George lay on top of the heap, feathers dull with ash, one wing bent the wrong way. His eye was open. Sharp. Accusing.
"George…" My voice cracked.
Trevor lay beside him.
The wolf's chest was torn open, fur scorched, teeth bared in a snarl frozen in time.
"You didn't run," I whispered. "You stayed."
These weren't beasts.
They were companions.
My father's closest allies. Guardians of the forest while I was gone.
They died fighting.
Sunset was slowly creeping in. Sunlight barely touched the ground.
I opened the sea of darkness, the shadows of the nearing night becoming one.
It swallowed sound first. Then shape. Then weight.
I gathered every animal corpse—every witness—and sent them into it gently.
Then I turned to the men.
They never saw me coming.
No threats.
No questions.
Daggers flashed.
Slow cuts. Deliberate pain. I made sure they felt every second. Tendons severed. Throats opened just enough to beg.
No survivors.
When the last body fell, I dropped to my knees and screamed until my voice tore itself apart.
Then I remembered my parents.
I shadow jumped.
The clearing where their graves should have been was gone.
No flowers.
No markers.
Just ash. Fallen trees. More dead animals.
I searched.
Once.
Twice.
Then I stopped.
I stopped because if I kept digging, I would have torn the earth apart with my hands.
That's when I heard it.
Far in the distance, on the lands of my people, music rang out from the base of the men sent by the Tyrant families.
I fell into my shadow and emerged at the outskirt of their camp.
One man spotted me and walked up to me.
"Who the hell are you?" he asked.
I stayed silent.
He pulled out his blade ready to strike," Are you one of those Oma pests. I thought we made it clear what would happen if you entered our territory again."
I slit his throat instantly at a speed he couldn't react to.
I couldn't listen to his slander anymore.
Their territory?
Their territory!
My hands were shaking, my heart beating beyond normal. My rage threatened to blow me up if I held it back any longer.
Another man spotted me standing over his friend's coprse and screamed, " Intruder."
They all came out of their tents, each holding weapons.
They were about a fifty but sadly they wouldn't be enough.
I finally had victims to unleash my anger on.
I exhaled loudly before the massacre began.
They didn't get to strike first.
They didn't even know what was happening as fell and emerged from their shadows slitting throats and stabbing backs.
By the time I got behind the last man standing, the other 49 were on the ground dying drenched in their own blood.
Once I cut down the last guy, I heard someone shout,"De...demon stay away!"
I turned to see a young royal . He was obviously scared and he trembled with every step I made towards him.
He fell on the ground by the time I reached him.
He began to rant, " Don't touch me. Do you know who I am? Did you know who my father is? He will have you hanged if you lay a hand on me."
I replied," No I don't. Tell me fool, who is your dad."
He declared, " King Crutch, leader of the Council Of Kings. He heads the union of all the royal families ruling this continent."
I let out a wicked smile as I said, "You want to live don't you? Listen carefully, I will take you to your father and you quote exactly what I tell you."
He didn't understand what I was about to do to him because he agreed with a smile on his face even thanking me, "I can't do that. Oh thank you, I will pass your message on."
Far off in the kingdom of King Crutch, he was resting on his throne when the terrified face of his son suddenly emerged from his own shadow.
Crutch was shook as he screamed, " What in God's name."