CHAPTER 20: THE HUNGER BENEATH

The engine churned with life, growing brighter, stronger.

Its rustlight dazzle flickered not only across the ancient chamber in which it had slumbered for untold ages, but now across the entire city of Dawnhaven itself.

As if, after receiving the faintest morsel in an incalculable span of time, its hunger now threatened to consume the world.

The words whispered again in the back of Caedrion’s mind.

"Hungry... Hungry... Hungry! More! More! MORE!"

Louder. More violent. Each repetition rising like a tide, deafening... and then finally overwhelming.

Caedrion clutched his head and fell to his knees, eyes shut tight, brow furrowed as the echoing words threatened to tear through the very marrow of his mind.

He could not possibly have foreseen what came next.

A being of pure, ethereal rustlight reached out from the Engine, a hand stretching through the veil, grasping toward him.

Yet with each passing moment, the glow of Caedrion’s leylines did not fade. They surged. His mind cleared. The pain receded.

He gripped the wrist of the spectral hand reaching for his soul, and stared into the heart of the Engine, activating the mark on the back of his hand as he spoke with iron resolve:

"Yield. Or you will starve."

The incorporeal arm vanished in an instant.

A moment passed... then a voice replied, no longer thundering, but quiet. Fragile. Defeated.

"Sorry... hunger... feed me..."

Caedrion had no idea what kind of entity he was dealing with, whether it was a forgotten spirit possessing the Engine or the very source of its power itself.

But one thing was certain:

It had nearly consumed him.

Breathing heavily, he steadied himself, adjusted the collar of his tunic, and spoke with measured command.

"You will be rewarded with food if you obey my commands. I am the last Heir of the Architect. Whatever put you in that cage was my ancestor. Follow me, and you will starve no longer."

A pause.

Then a reply, curious, infantile, and innocent in its tone:

"I obey, Master..."

The mark on the back of Caedrion’s hand flared.A searing flash of pain, like a hot brand striking flesh.

The shape changed, its design more intricate, elevated in form and radiance.

Caedrion looked at it only once before understanding instinctively what it meant:

He had been promoted from administrator to owner, not merely of the castle, but of the Engine itself, and the city it powered beneath the barrier.

Judging by the fact that the additional light had yet to fade, Caedrion glanced around the chamber briefly before issuing his first command.

"If possible... expand the barrier. Encompasses the outer farms, just beyond its current boundary. Though turned to ash, we can rebuild."

For a moment... nothing.

Then came the quake.

But it wasn’t the ground that shook.

It was the air itself constrained by the barrier’s edge.

Caedrion leaned against the wall, struggling to keep his footing, until the pressure suddenly vanished.

"The barrier has been expanded.The land reclaimed within parameters. There was more than enough power to restore the devastation to its previous state. Does Master have another request?"

Silence lingered... longer than it should have.

Even the voice seemed puzzled by the lack of reply.

Caedrion took a breath, processing the implications of what he’d just heard.

"When you say the devastation has been restored to its previous state... do you mean—?"

He didn’t even finish the question.

"Yes," the voice confirmed." The damage caused by flame has been purged. The fields resown. The buildings repaired. As for the offenders... I have taken the liberty of displacing them beyond the current boundary. They will not be able to return with their current numbers for approximately... one thousand years. If they return with reinforcements, the duration may vary depending on the threat scale. Should I have eliminated them?"

A thousand years?

Caedrion’s breath caught.

How much power had that single battery held?

No... it wasn’t just the battery.

It couldn’t have produced such a monumental leap in power on its own.

His eyes lit with a sudden epiphany as he turned to the Engine.

No, to the being within the cage.

"You were sleeping... dormant... And now, after what I’ve done... after feeding you.... You’ve awakened once more."

"For eons," he whispered, "my family ruled these lands, never knowing the engine that powered their way of life... was operating at minimal capacity."

The silence that followed lingered too long to be natural.

And then—

"Are you...? No... I hunger... Reward me. Please..."

It felt like the Engine, or whatever it truly was, had been on the cusp of asking something important.

But it refused to continue.

A pity.

Caedrion didn’t have time to dwell on the complexities of whatever the ancient Eidolon had buried and hidden within this cage of metal and light.

He had other concerns now.

"I’m sorry. That was the only one I had. But more are in production. Give me time and I’ll return with more."

The voice, now aggrieved, childlike, replied as Caedrion turned to leave.

"Okay... I will be here... Waiting..."

---

Veltharion’s forces arrived outside Dawnhaven, only to find that the punitive vanguard they had dispatched had accomplished... nothing.

As punishment for instigating the conflict, Valerius had been sent as an attaché to the army. A position both ceremonial and humiliating.

Now, he sat atop an armored steed, glowering at the soldiers around him. Many were staring dumbly at the sky, eyes fixed on the newly shimmering barrier overhead.

They looked less like warriors returning from a raid and more like villagers dazed after a long night of mushroom foraging.

"You absolute wastrels!" Valerius roared.

"You sat here, consuming alchemical ingredients for your own amusement instead of ravaging the fields as ordered? I should reduce you all to ashes for this treasonous indolence!"

The leader of the advance force, the very man entrusted with striking a surprise blow against House Ferrondel by burning the lands outside their barrier, snapped from his trance.

He turned sharply toward Valerius, his eyes bloodshot, jaw clenched.

"Are you blind, boy?"

"Look around you! Where are the fields? The livestock? The farmhouses?"

He gestured wildly at the open plain before them, lush, whole, alive.

"We burned everything. We salted the fields until nothing would ever grow again. And yet.. while we were still hammering the barrier outside the city something changed. We were displaced. We could only stand and watch as all our work was undone before our eyes!"

Valerius’s fury caught in his throat.

He turned his gaze slowly toward the skyline of Dawnhaven.

And there it was, unmistakable now.

The barrier.

It extended beyond the city’s ancient stone walls.

Far beyond.

Into the countryside.

Over the farmland.

Enveloping the once-exposed outer lands that had been reduced to cinders.

And they were no longer cinders.

The grass was green. The farmhouses stood. The livestock grazed.

Valerius felt a cold knot form in his chest.

The barrier had grown.

What had once been a static dome of defense, immutable for millennia, had shifted.

Expanded.

And if that was true... then there would be no way to starve Dawnhaven into submission.

"Crucible preserve us..." he muttered under his breath.

If the barrier could grow, then Dawnhaven no longer needed walls.

It had just become a fortress that walked as if it were its own god.