Lastlight's Revenant #32

Garran closed his eyes.

The pain was a distant thing now, a slow, creeping tide that had long since numbed his limbs. His body was ruined—shattered ribs, torn flesh, blood pooling beneath him like a sacrifice laid at the altar of his own failure. He was already dead. He had known it the moment he fell.

And yet, here he lingered, caught between the last embers of his defiance and the yawning dark.

Tyrrax’s offer hung in the air, thick with unspoken promise. The dragon wanted his body. His corpse. What did it matter? He had no use for it now. A few more minutes of agony, a few more shuddering breaths—what were they worth? Nothing. Less than nothing.

But the dragon… the dragon had everything to gain.

Garran’s thoughts sharpened, cutting through the haze.

Revenge.

It was obvious. The Hollow King had stolen Tyrrax’s freedom, harvested his blood, made a mockery of his suffering. Of course the dragon would turn its fury on him first.

Garran could almost see it—the Hollow King’s blindfolded face contorted in shock as the storm of a dead dragon’s wrath descended upon him.

But what then?

If Tyrrax won… if he drove back the Hollow King and shattered his demons… what came after?

Garran’s jaw tightened.

The histories painted Vaeldrith the Unbroken as a hero, a liberator, a man chosen by the gods to lead humanity from darkness. But Tyrrax’s words had peeled back the lie.

This land had not been settled. It had been taken. Conquered. And the dragon, its rightful ruler, had been butchered, its soul caged, its corpse enslaved.

Would such a creature forgive?

Garran doubted it.

Grievances did not fade with time. Not for beings who measured their lives in centuries. Not for kings who had watched their wings rot while their conquerors built cities atop their bones.

If Tyrrax claimed his body, if he wielded Garran’s sword arm to break his chains and reclaim his vengeance… what would stop him from turning that fury on the descendants of those who had wronged him?

The thought settled like a stone in Garran’s gut.

He had seen the Hollow King’s cruelty firsthand—the way he toyed with lives, the way he savored suffering. But a dragon’s wrath would be no less terrible. It would be fire and storm, an annihilation without mercy.

And if Tyrrax proved stronger than the Hollow King, if he was even more cruel...

Humanity would face a reckoning.

Garran’s fingers twitched, his last defiance stirring.

He had spent his life fighting monsters. He would not become the weapon that unleashed one.

His eyes opened.

The blue light pulsed before him, impatient, hungry.

Garran exhaled—a slow, ragged breath—and spoke aloud for the first time since his fall. His voice was a ruin, barely more than a whisper, but it carried the weight of a decision carved in stone.

“No.”

The cavern stilled.

“I will not let you turn my body into a vessel for your vengeance against the innocent.”

Tyrrax’s light flared, then contracted, coiling in on itself like a serpent ready to strike.

“You dare—” the dragon’s voice was a thunderclap, shaking the walls, “—to refuse me?”

Garran did not flinch. He met the light with the last of his strength, his gaze unwavering.

“I dare,” he rasped. “Because I know what comes after.”

The silence that followed was heavier than the earth above them, pressing down like the weight of a buried kingdom. It lasted only moments.

Then—

"I could do unto you what your ancestors have done unto me."

Tyrrax's voice crashed into Garran's skull like a landslide, each word a tremor that sent fresh agony spiderwebbing through his broken bones. The blue light pulsed violently, its glow turning searing, hungry.

"An eon in this cage has taught me the wickedness of their magics," the dragon snarled.

A roar—not sound, but something deeper, something that bypassed Garran's ears and tore directly into his mind—scattered his thoughts like leaves in a storm.

Only defiance remained, a single stubborn ember in the dark.

Tyrrax's voice coiled around it, venomous. "I could rip your soul from its flesh. Wear you like a rotting husk. I do not need your permission."

Garran's vision swam, but his gaze sharpened. He forced his lips to move, his voice a ragged whisper.

"Then you'd be no better than them."

A beat. The light flickered.

"If you were willing to resort to that," Garran continued, each word a labor, "you wouldn’t have waited for me to wake before making your offer."

Tyrrax's growl was the sound of mountains grinding together. "You overestimate my patience. My virtue." The last word dripped with contempt.

"I am as gracious as this prison allows me to be. And I am… running out of time."

Garran exhaled, a wet, broken sound. "Then do what you will. But at least when you turn your fire on my kind, I can say I didn’t help you willingly."

The dragon roared—not in his mind this time, but through the cavern itself, shaking loose dust and bone fragments from the ceiling. The blue light flared blindingly, its glow deepening, darkening, like the heart of a storm just before the lightning strikes.

"I did not wish it to come to this, human." Tyrrax's voice was no longer thunder. It was the low, deadly hiss of a blade being drawn. "But you leave me no choice."

The light intensified, its edges turning jagged, sinister.

"This will be… unpleasant."

A pause. The light pulsed once, almost regretfully.

"For both of us."

Garran gasped.

Something was pulling at him—not his body, not his flesh, but something deeper. Something hidden in the marrow of his being, in a place he hadn’t known existed until now. It was like a hook sinking into his ribs from the inside, dragging him forward, toward the light.

Toward the cage.

His vision fractured. Shadows writhed at the edges of his sight, clawing at him, whispering in tongues older than language. He tried to scream, but his throat was no longer his own.

Tyrrax’s voice slithered through the chaos, final as a tomb sealing shut:

"Let us see how stubborn you are… once I sink my teeth into your soul."

Garran tried to resist—every instinct screamed at him to fight, to claw back against the invisible force dragging him toward the light. But his will was smoke in a storm. His soul peeled away from his broken body like a scab ripped from flesh, and suddenly—

He was looking down at himself.

His own ruined form lay crumpled against the cavern wall, limbs twisted, blood blackening in the dim glow. A corpse. A husk.

And before him, where the blue light had pulsed, stood Tyrrax in his true form.

Not a flickering specter. Not the hollowed-out corpse-dragon that had circled Vaeldrith.

The Stormborn.

Scales like beaten gold, each one etched with the scars of forgotten battles. Wings vast enough to blot out the sun, their edges tattered but still thrumming with latent power. A crown of jagged horns arcing back from a skull built to crush fortresses between its jaws.

And those eyes—pools of molten fury, fixed on Garran as he drifted closer, helpless as a leaf in a gale.

Tyrrax’s maw opened, not to roar, but to receive.

Garran felt the pull intensify, his very essence unraveling toward those waiting teeth—

—when gold erupted between them.

A flash, then a shape: a knight in radiant armor, his greatsword plunging into the ground with a thunderous crack. The impact sent a shockwave of light rippling outward, and Garran’s soul slammed back into his body with the force of a hammer striking an anvil.

"In Ardun’s name," the knight boomed, his voice layered with something deeper than mortal defiance, "you shall not have him, wyrm."

Garran gasped.

Warmth flooded his veins. The agony in his ribs dulled. His vision, once bleary, sharpened just enough to make out the figure standing between him and the dragon—

"Lord Commander…? Didn't you... fall... with Lastlight?"

The words left his lips in a disbelieving rasp.

The man turned, and Garran saw the face beneath the gilded helm: salt-and-pepper beard, a nose broken one too many times, eyes that had once bored into him across a dozen disciplinary hearings.

Dain Holloway.

Commander of the Repentants. The man who should have led the last stand at Lastlight. The man who should have died there.

Holloway smirked, the expression worn but familiar. "Aye. That I did." He adjusted his grip on the greatsword, its blade humming with golden light. "Apparently, dying isn’t enough to earn retirement in the eyes of the gods." 

A dry chuckle. "And so here I am… doing their bidding again."

Behind him, Tyrrax hissed, the sound like a thousand swords dragged across stone.

Tyrrax’s molten gaze burned into Holloway, his voice a low, venomous rumble.

"A familiar spirit." The dragon’s words dripped with recognition, edged with something darker—contempt. "How many did you butcher to earn your god's favor, human?"

Holloway didn’t flinch. He shifted his weight, resting the glowing greatsword over his shoulder with the ease of a man who had carried its weight for lifetimes.

"Too many demons to count," he said, voice rough as gravel. "And not much else." A pause. "But I’m not here to share old stories."

He turned to Garran, the golden light of his armor casting long shadows across the cavern floor.

"I’m here for you, boy."

Garran’s breath hitched.

"Ardun wishes to take you to his side."

A dry, brittle laugh escaped Garran’s lips. "And what would he do with an Oathbreaker?"

Holloway chuckled, the sound warm despite the cold press of the cavern around them. "‘Oathbreaker’ is a stigma bestowed upon you by men." He leaned forward slightly, the light in his eyes flickering like distant campfires. 

"As far as the gods are concerned? Your oaths are kept. From the moment you took them, when you broke them to cut down that mad king, and even now—fighting, bleeding for those who spat on your name—you are a knight in their eyes."

Garran exhaled—a long, weary sound. The weight of years, of battles, of guilt, pressed down on him all at once.

"So I can finally… rest?"

Holloway shook his head.

"Not exactly."

He tilted his sword toward the ceiling of the cavern—beyond it, past stone and soil, past the dying world above.

"There’s still a lot of fighting to do up there."

A beat. The golden light pulsed, humming with something older than war.

"Too much fighting in fact... to the point where it's endless..."