The journey back to Red Pine was silent.
Not with fear.
Not even exhaustion.
But with a quiet, burning certainty.
Koda led the way, his blackened dagger sheathed at his side, the faint whispers of shadow still curling against his heels with every step.
Behind him, Clara, Emmet, Ravin, and Ty walked with heads high and eyes sharp.
They were no longer the frightened scraps of youth who had stumbled into the Scar praying for survival.
They were victors.
The first.
The founders.
And though no words were spoken, each of them recognized the truth in the space between breaths:
Koda was their leader.
Not by force.
Not by decree.
But by the bonds forged in blood, sweat, and the dozens of battles where he had stood between them and death.
Loyalty had been bought the only way that mattered—with the currency of survival.
When they reached the gates of Red Pine, the watchmen stared at them with a mixture of awe and unease.
Rumors had already spread.
Others had seen the signs—the shifting of the Scar, the collapse of the earth, the thinning of the monsters that had plagued the outskirts.
Still, when Koda and his group marched through the battered gates, the leaders of Red Pine made no move to honor them.
No banners.
No feasts.
Only wary glances.
And behind those glances—the sharp stink of fear.
The council—the old guard—met with them under the pretense of gratitude.
Thin smiles.
Empty words.
They named Koda and his group "Heroes of Red Pine" in a public gathering two nights later, standing on a crude wooden stage, the flames of hastily built torches guttering in the cold wind.
The people cheered.
Not for the council.
For the five who had dared to dive into the abyss and claw their way back.
Koda smiled.
Played the role.
But he saw the truth in the way the councilors' hands twitched toward their weapons, in the extra guards posted along the rooftops, in the way they whispered behind closed doors.
They were afraid.
They should be.
Koda didn't stay to bask in whatever thin victories the old regime offered.
Within days, he and his group left Red Pine again—this time under the banner of exploration, diplomacy, trade.
Excuses.
The real work was out there.
The other camps.
The scattered pockets of humanity still clutching at life.
Koda and the others traveled from outpost to outpost, seeing firsthand what had become of the world beyond their once-small refuge.
They found corruption blooming like mold in the cracks of civilization.
The leaders of nearby camps colluded, hoarding resources, forcing those without powers into servitude.
They whispered of alliances—to maintain their grip, to snuff out dissent before it could grow.
Koda listened.
Watched.
And began to speak.
Not loudly.
Not with fire or brimstone.
But with conviction.
With the weight of someone who had seen the Fall and survived it.
He spoke to the frightened, the angry, the hungry for change.
He spoke of something better.
A future not chained to the broken hierarchies of the old world.
A world built differently.
It began as a ripple.
One camp pledged support.
Then another.
Then another.
Each added voice magnified the call.
Within months, Koda's name was carried from settlement to settlement, whispered in bunkhouses and shouted across training fields.
The Founder, they began to call him.
He didn't ask for it.
He didn't want it.
But he accepted it—because someone had to.
The council of Red Pine, blind and desperate, made their fatal mistake.
They accused Koda and his group of treason, of plotting rebellion against the natural order.
They attempted to have them arrested.
The attempt failed spectacularly.
The guards sent to capture Koda knelt instead.
The people gathered in the streets, not in protest, but in judgment.
And it was then, with the support of a dozen camps and nearly ten thousand voices behind him, that Koda did what he had long known was necessary.
He called for a tribunal.
The old leaders were dragged into the square, chains clinking around their wrists.
There were no speeches.
No long-winded trials.
The evidence was laid bare—records of hoarded food, weapons hidden from the common defense, secret pacts with corrupt Awakened in nearby camps.
Witnesses spoke.
Survivors cried out.
And when the votes were cast, they were overwhelming.
Guilty.
The executions were swift.
Not out of cruelty.
But because the future demanded it.
Because to let them live would have been to let the disease of corruption fester once again.
The people of Red Pine, and the surrounding camps now unified in fragile alliance, watched as the old world burned away for good.
And in its ashes—
A new city was born.
The city had no king.
No dictator.
No crowned warlord.
Instead, Koda and his allies drafted the foundations of a new system:
A Senate.
Elected representatives from each camp and newly joined city, tasked with governing together.
Laws created by vote.
Leaders chosen by consensus, not inheritance or brute force.
It wasn't perfect.
Nothing ever was.
But it was better.
And sometimes, better was the only miracle you could ask for.
For a time, Koda accepted the burden of leadership.
He guided the Senate through its first chaotic months, helping weave disparate camps into a single, growing body.
He negotiated trade routes, settled disputes, personally brokered peace between would-be warlords still clinging to their old, brutal ways.
His friends stood at his side.
Clara, now a captain among the scouts, responsible for guarding the new city's borders.
Emmet, chief among the builders of infrastructure, using his magic to tame rivers and clear land.
Ravin, the general of the city's defenders, a living wall against all who threatened their fragile peace.
Ty, ever the wild flame, helping rally the younger generation, teaching them to wield their gifts with honor.
They grew.
The city grew.
Other outposts fell in line, inspired or cowed by the new order.
Where Koda and his people marched, chaos receded.
Order bloomed.
But Koda had made a promise.
A promise to himself.
A promise to the people.
He would not become a tyrant.
Corruption clung to power like rot to a wound, and even the best intentions could be twisted in time.
So, on the second anniversary of the city's founding—when the first Senate elections were ready to be held—Koda stood before the gathered assembly, thousands strong, and made his final decree.
He would not stand for re-election.
He would step aside.
He would let them choose.
Not because he was weak.
But because he was strong enough to know the truth:
No one was meant to rule forever.
The crowd roared as he stepped down from the rough-hewn dais, not with anger, but with gratitude.
The Founder.
The one who had bled with them, bled for them, and had the wisdom to know when his time had passed.
He was only twenty years old.
But he had built a nation.