CHAPTER 93: FORGOTTEN TRIBUTE

The forest still held the weight of dusk, silver mist threading between the trees like smoke. The Hydra Knights moved through it in formation, hooves muffled against damp earth, their breath rising in thin clouds that vanished as quickly as they came. No one spoke; the only sounds were the soft creak of leather and the faint chime of bridles.

Levan rode ahead. His cloak trailed faintly behind him. There was no sign of the earlier warmth on his face, only the familiar distant composure he always wore. Yet every few moments, his hand brushed the cuff of his sleeve, as though to reassure himself of something unseen.

He could feel her, almost hearing her breathing. The resonance pulsed faintly against his skin like a quiet rhythm that was not his own. But it steadied him more than any command or oath ever could. He left Harken and the rest to guard the tent, he only brought a few for the patrol.

Behind him, one knight yawned from his saddle. "So this is what ’just a quick patrol’ looks like," he muttered.

"Quiet," hissed another knight. "You’ll wake the commander’s bad mood."

"Please," he shot back under his breath. "We’re halfway through the Expanse. His Highness’ mood’s already bad."

A few nervous chuckles rippled through the group, quickly swallowed by the quiet hum of the night. The terrain had changed hours ago, the forest no longer looked like the forests of home. The trees here grew too tall, their trunks pale and smooth as bone, their leaves whispering in a language that made the air prickle faintly against the skin.

"I thought the Expanse was supposed to be cursed," one of the younger knights whispered, eyes darting to the shifting fog that hugged the roots. "They say people vanish here without a trace."

"That’s superstition," another scoffed, though his hand did not leave the hilt of his sword. "The mist only plays tricks on your sight."

"Right," said another dryly. "And the glowing deer we passed an hour ago was what, a trick of the light?"

"That wasn’t a deer," Maelon murmured from the back, shifting uneasily. "It didn’t have eyes."

The group fell into brief silence, each man glancing toward the endless white mist curling between the trees.

Levan’s gaze was fixed forward as he listened to the knights endless chatter. The faint shimmer of his sigil pulsed faintly at his wrist, a silent ward keeping the haze from creeping too close.

"The Expanse wasn’t always like this," he said suddenly, his voice calm but carrying easily. "It was once a passage, old roads to old kingdoms. The mist came later."

The knights straightened, their attention drawn despite themselves.

"What brought it, Your Highness?" one asked hesitantly.

Levan’s expression barely shifted. "The soil here is high in volatile minerals. Underground caverns trap heat and moisture. When temperature and pressure shift, condensation forms, that’s your mist," he said, as if discussing the weather.

"It looks eerie, yes. But it’s just chemistry and atmospheric dynamics. Nothing supernatural. Don’t make assumptions about nature, it doesn’t care about you."

Oh...

The knights blinked at him, caught somewhere between awe and relief.

Maelon whispered, "Right. Nature doesn’t care... we’re just... walking through a foggy forest that happens to look haunted."

Another muttered, "Glad the prince is here to explain before we start assuming ghosts."

"But ghosts aren’t a joke," snapped one of the younger knights, eyes darting to the swirling mist. "I swear I saw something move in there earlier."

"That’s just lingering spirits," countered another, looking around him. "They’re... echoes of the dead. Harmless, usually."

"...Isn’t that the same thing?" Maelon muttered, squinting at them.

"It’s not the same!" the first knight shot back. "One’s dead, the other’s—"

"Both are dead things moving around us," Maelon interrupted dryly. "Exactly the same."

Another shook his head, voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper. "No, no, the spirits aren’t random. These are the ones who offered themselves to the First Dragon generations ago. They linger here like... echoes of their devotion, maybe regret. The old texts, my uncle swore he read it, said they wander the Expanse forever and waiting."

"...Waiting for what?" Someone asked, eyebrows raised.

"For the First Dragon," the first knight said solemnly. "Or for someone foolish enough to think they can cross this land alive."

A few of the others shivered as the other huffed. "Or maybe it’s just the wind and your imagination. There’s no history records that say that was accurate."

Levan was quiet the whole time, entertaining their banter is like listening to children trying to one up another. And then... he felt it first, subtle and almost imperceptible, like a ripple in the air that did not belong. Something in the Expanse shifted, faint but deliberate, brushing at the edges of his awareness.

He slowed his horse, hand lifting in a silent gesture. The others noticed immediately and the casual chatter died mid-sentence. The crunch of hooves and the whisper of wind seemed suddenly louder and sharper as all eyes darted toward him.

Slowly and almost reluctantly, the knights straightened in their saddles, the tension coiling tight in their shoulders as they noticed the prince’s alertness. Their hands hovered near hilts and reins, the earlier arguments forgotten.

"Quiet," Levan said, voice low but carrying authority that did not need to shout. The words barely disturbed the air, but it was enough. The group went still, listening not to him, but to the silence that had just arrived.

The mist ahead swirled in slow, deliberate eddies, and the knights felt, for the first time since the beginning of the patrol, that this place was watching.

Levan’s eyes narrowed slightly, scanning the pale, shifting shapes in the fog.

The mist parted like a curtain, revealing the heart of The Deyliric Expanse. It stretched beyond comprehension like a vast, ink-dark sea that seemed to swallow the horizon. The waters were unnaturally still, reflecting the pale glow of the moon in fragmented shards as if the Expanse itself refused to mirror the world above.

Some of the knights unconsciously drew their cloaks tighter and edged their horses closer together. Some whispered prayers while others could barely breathe, caught between fear and fascination all at once.

"By the Gods..." one of them muttered. "It’s... endless."

They fussed over the landscape, but Levan’s attention has long drifted to the movement and strange energy near the edge of the dark waters.

There...

The beasts had gathered, not in chaotic flailing or aimless hunger but in a pattern that could make the stomach curl. They moved with purpose, circling one another in careful arcs, pausing as if acknowledging some invisible mark on the ground.

Occasionally, a low, guttural hum that was too deliberate for any natural growl slipped from one of them, a sound that rippled across the mist like a pulse when suddenly, they began to pile rocks, driftwood, and twisted shapes of debris into strange, angular formations.

Some of the formations were low, jagged triangles; others were broken rings that seemed designed to trap light or shadow. Every so often, one of the beasts would press its long claws into the sand and let its body quiver, sending vibrations through the place as if marking its tribute.

Levan’s eyes caught something.

There were fragments of white scattered within the sand... long, brittle, unmistakably human. A rib jutting from one of the rings, a skull half-buried near a jagged triangle. The creatures moved around them with reverence, almost tenderly, yet the scene was grotesque, ritualistic, and suffused with something older and crueler than memory.

Even Levan, usually unshakable, felt the chill creep through his chest that the carefully measured calm in his mind frayed at the edges. Because the behaviour was not instinct, it was ceremonial and horrifyingly precise.

Each movement suggested knowledge passed down through generations, like a memory older than the First Dragon itself, like the world itself had carved this sorrow into the sand.

He did not speak, did not make a sound. There was no heroic charge, no reckless attempt to disrupt the scene. Instead, he raised a hand, his voice quiet but commanding, cutting through the mist with calm urgency, "Return to the camp. Quietly."

The knights, sensing the tension in their prince, obeyed immediately, some with wide eyes, some with faces pale enough to make the mist itself seem warm. They glanced back once but said nothing. Levan’s jaw was tight, his golden eyes lingering on the twisted patterns of bone and sand until the shapes were swallowed again by the mist.

He exhaled slowly, letting the scene sink fully into memory. His eyes lingered on the jagged rings and triangles, on the bones half-buried in the sand, and a chill ran through him again. His hand brushed his wrist instinctively, her steady breathing in the tent reached him through the ward like a grounding tether.

He almost cursed out loud.

Because he knew this ritual. He had read of it in the oldest chronicles, dismissed by scholars as myth, yet here it was: a grotesque offering to something long dead, carried out with precision by something that should have no understanding of such things.

For the first time after years of facing these barbaric creatures, Levan chose caution over fury. He turned his horse only after the knights had moved, letting the silence of the Expanse swallow the patterns of sand and bone behind him as they return to the camp without another word.