Darren was no longer drifting upon the Ferry of the Dead, suspended in the endless dark of the cosmos searching for the nearest signs of life.

  He was kneeling in dirt.

  Around him stood what had once been a coastal town that had been transformed into a battlefield. The salt air remained, but it was tainted by smoke and ruin. Buildings that had once faced the sea stood shattered, their wooden frames splintered and broken. Giant warships of the Admiralty lay overturned near the shore, hulls cracked open as if they had been crushed by an unseen hand. The tide surged violently, waves striking the coastline with a force that felt deliberate, almost sentient.

  This was not merely a recollection of battle.

  It was a memory of defeat.

  Because even asleep, this man was never allowed to truly rest.

  The New Hero of Nozar, they had called him, remained knelt at the center of it all.

  His lips had felt dry, so dry that they split when he tried to move them. His tongue clung uselessly to the roof of his mouth. When he attempted to swallow, there was nothing and his throat burned with a hollow ache that no breath could soothe. His arms had grown heavy and distant, as though they no longer belonged to him. His fingers refused to close. His legs, which had carried him through countless battles, offered no strength.

  That was because every single drop of moisture had been drawn from his body.

  The water that had allowed him to breathe, to live, to move was gone. It had been taken from his blood, from his lungs, from the very cells that sustained him.

  Such was the power of the Dragon King.

  His Divinity of the Seas had not been limited to oceans and storms. It had governed water in all its forms. Even the water within mortal flesh answered his command. When the Dragon King willed it, that life-giving element abandoned Darren without hesitation.

  In the face of such power, the greatest swordsman alive had nearly won.

  Victory was in reach, so close…yet so painfully far.

  The System had been correct to question the stories of this battle that circulated over generations. Accounts of his feats had been embellished, misremembered and reshaped by time. The legends that immortalized him had exaggerated many things. Except for Darren Ittriki's strength. That part had always been true.

  His power had never been the inaccurate part.

  What the legends had misunderstood entirely had been his relationship with the Dragon King.

  The world knew him as the Titan Pallas.

  Darren had known him as Lukas.

  He had hated the draconic kind. He still hated them for what they had done to his family, for the destruction that had taken his wife and his daughter from him. That hatred had allowed him to continue living after Aurelia and Andrea had died. It had driven him forward.

  It had given his sword purpose.

  But he had never hated Lukas.

  Even now, after so much time had passed, that truth had remained unchanged.

  Once, they had been friends.

  Before titles and before both of them were forced to fight for the sake of their nations' honour, Darren had seen past Lukas’s draconic heritage. He had seen the man beneath it. The Dragon King had not been defined solely by the blood in his veins.

  He had been a good man.

  That was what the stories had gotten wrong. They had painted their conflict as inevitable hatred between dragonslayer and Dragon King. They had spoken of rivalry and destiny, of sworn enemies fated to clash.

  But Darren had never viewed Lukas as a monster.

  Kneeling in the ruined coastal town, body emptied and strength spent, Darren had faced the end of that battle without anger. Even in death, even after being stripped of life by the Divinity of the Seas, he had not been able to bring himself to hate him.

  But now, he was no longer certain what he felt towards Lukas.

  The memory of the Dragon King’s face burned into his mind with complete clarity. Long black hair framed features that had always seemed carved from something sturdier than flesh. Lukas had been huge in stature, far taller than Darren, his frame layered with muscle upon muscle until he almost appeared to be an exaggerated caricature. In battle, that size had been overwhelming, as though no ordinary man could have stood that broad.

  Yet what lingered now was not the image of strength, but the expression Lukas had worn in those final moments.

  It was guilt.

  Darren had seen it clearly, remembered it as he knelt in the ruined coastal town, his body reduced to a dry husk by the Divinity of the Seas. As he had drawn upon the last fragments of strength left within him, refusing to collapse even when every drop of moisture had abandoned him, Lukas had too dropped down to his knees.

  There had been no triumph in the Dragon King's gaze.

  Not even a single trace of satisfaction.

  When Darren had finally allowed the chains of death to claim him—when he had felt his soul dragged from the Land of the Living—he had felt relieved. He had been so sure he would see his family again. And when he was to cross into whatever awaited beyond, then perhaps he would see Lukas again. Not as enemies. Not as King and Hero.

  The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

  Just as they once had been.

  Friends.

  He had never blamed Lukas for taking his life.

  Not once.

  They had both been victims of something far larger than themselves. Their clash had not been born from a cruel design that had been decided long before either of them had been born into the world of Hiraeth. Paths had been drawn. Roles had been assigned. They had merely walked where they were forced to tread.

  But the ones who had written that fate had been the gods.

  And Lukas had become one of them.

  That was where Darren’s certainty began to fracture.

  “So why didn’t you do anything?” He whispered, though he knew this was only a dream.

  The words left his lips dry and hollow, swallowed by the distorted air of memory. Lukas—Pallas, as history had come to know him—had ascended beyond mortality. He had become one of the Titans, an immortal being whose power was said to be unimaginable. They could reshape reality as mortals understood it, standing above the natural order.

  “Why didn’t you help me?” Darren asked, shaking his head faintly.

  That was the question that had begun to haunt him.

  What was the purpose of granting such beings immeasurable power if they did not use it to aid those who needed it the most?

  "Why didn't you bring me back to my family?"

  To his utter surprise, Lukas' eyes softened.

  He was looking straight at him.

  Not the Darren Ittriki stuck in this memory but the one who now lived once more in the present.

  The Dragon King's expression changed before Darren’s eyes. This was not how the memory had unfolded.

  “You will see your family again.”

  Darren’s eyes widened.

  Those words had never been spoken, not on that battlefield and especially not by the one who had brought an end to his life.

  Lukas had never offered him such a promise.

  Which meant this was no simple memory.

  Was he here?

  Could he really be here in this dream with him?

  Darren wanted to say something, anything but he had too many to contain. Accusations, pleas, things left unsaid across the divide of life and death.

  By then, it was already too late.

  The ruined coastal town blurred, its edges peeling away into streaks of pale light. The sea lost its color. The sky fractured into brilliance. Lukas’s towering form began to fade, as though pulled backward through layers of reality. Just before the world all around him began to dissolve, Darren saw the dragon smile.

  It was not the smile of a King or a Titan.

  It was the smile of an old friend.

  "I will see you again, Darren."

  That was the last thing he heard before he awoke.

  Darren jolted back into consciousness, his body lurching forward as if he had been dragged upward from deep water. His brow was drenched in sweat, strands of hair clinging to his skin. He dragged in a sharp breath, chest rising and falling unevenly as his mind struggled to separate dream from reality. The fading image of Lukas’ words lingered at the edge of his thoughts, but it slipped further away with every second he remained awake.

  He did not have time to dwell on it.

  Because he now heard what had awoken him.

  The noise of retching was abrupt, echoing faintly through the enclosed chamber. Darren immediately pushed himself upright from where he had been seated against the door to Charon’s quarters. When Merlyn had activated Autopilot and took on the strain of guiding and holding together the Ferry of the Dead, Darren had taken the rare opportunity to rest; just like the System had suggested he do. Sleep would not come easily on the journey ahead, he knew that. So he had taken what little reprieve was offered.

  The bed had been given to the Wicked Witch while Darren had rested with his back against the door so that he would be close enough to respond if anything went wrong.

  Now, it seemed that decision had been justified.

  The retching came again.

  He was on his feet in an instant, hand already on the door as he pushed it open and stepped inside. Marianne was no longer in the bed. The sheets were disturbed, abandoned in haste.

  Another strained sound came from the wash closet.

  Darren crossed the room quickly and threw the wash closet doors open without hesitation. His body tensed, prepared for the possibility of an attack, of some unseen force breaching their sanctuary.

  But there was no enemy.

  Marianne was hunched forward, bracing herself against the edge of the basin.

  She was throwing up.

  Or at least, she was trying to.

  Her shoulders trembled with the effort. Harsh retching sounds tore from her throat, but there was nothing to show for it. Darren did not recoil in disgust though he did cringe slightly, bracing himself before immediately bending down, catching her gently but firmly by the shoulders to keep her steady.

  Her skin felt warm beneath his hands.

  “Are you alright?” he asked, forcing his voice to remain level.

  Panic would help no one.

  By the look of it, it seemed more like nausea than anything else. Her face was pale, the color drained from her cheeks, but there were no visible wounds, no signs of external harm that was causing this.

  She nodded faintly, still leaning forward.

  “Just… a little bit dizzy,” Marianne murmured.

  Another dry heave followed, her body convulsing slightly with the effort.

  Darren’s eyes flicked to the basin again.

  Still nothing.

  She was dry-retching.

  The realization formed slowly at first, as though his mind refused to believe it.

  Then the System spoke.

  “Darren. Marianne seems to be experiencing common symptoms of—”

  “I know,” he answered aloud, cutting Merlyn off before it could finish his sentence.

  He rose to his full height, though he did not move far from her. His gaze lowered to where she sat on the wash closet floor, one hand braced weakly against the porcelain edge. She looked up at him, confusion lingering in her pale expression.

  Then, the recognition in his face dawned on her.

  Because Darren had seen these symptoms before.

  The paleness in her face. The nausea. The dry-retching.

  This...was morning sickness.

  Darren stared at her, the revelation pressing down on him far more heavily than the remnants of any dream.

  Marianne Elarion—the Wicked Witch of Humanity—was with child.