A silence fell over the battlefield, so terrifying and suffocating that even the wind sweeping off the cliffs seemed to hold its breath.
Across the wide-open clearing, thousands of eyes… Coalition warlords, traitorous Veynar warriors, and broken loyalists almost kneeling in the dirt… were glued to the center of the crater.
The white limestone dust, stirred by an invisible pressure wave, hung suspended in the stagnant air like a shroud of pulverized bone.
There, in the center of the dark pool of spilled blood, the black-armored form of Sol began to move.
It was not some fluid, athletic motion of a warrior rising to his feet, but was terrifying like an unnatural reanimation.
He rose languidly, his limbs dragging against the gravel like a puppet pulled by frayed, invisible strings.
His spine was bent at a sickening angle, his left shoulder hanging limp and dislocated, his head drooping forward as if his neck had been utterly snapped.
