The sky above Highwarden stretched wide and gray — a sea of clouds rolling over jagged cliffs and iron spires.
Wind howled across the heights, carrying the cry of birds that circled far above.
Black wings cut through mist and rain, crows gliding in lazy spirals before vanishing into the storm.
Professor Draeven Crowholt stood at the balcony rail, a cigarette burning between his fingers.
The smoke rose thin and straight before the wind tore it apart.
His red eyes followed the birds for a while — silent, thoughtful, almost bored.
"Two months left," he murmured.
His voice was calm, low — like a man talking to himself, not the sky."The children's progress isn't bad. Not good either… but enough."
Below, the courtyards of the Highwarden Academy spread like a stone maze — cadets moving in formation, the echo of training steel ringing faintly through the mist.
"Professor Crowholt," said a voice, flat and commanding. "Madam Crow requests your immediate return to the homeland."
The cigarette dropped, hissing against the wet stone. Draeven's gaze didn't waver. "So… she calls again," he said, voice almost bored.
He headed back to his office and opened a Brown drawer.
Inside, he changed in silence. Black gloves, tailored suit, polished shoes, long dark coat. A wide-brimmed hat shadowed his face.
The final touch was a pair of round, black sunglasses. Behind them, his crimson eyes glimmered faintly.
He picked up a brown suitcase from the desk, paused only to glance once more at the academy halls—the quiet where so many young voices once filled the air.
Then he stepped outside, waving lazily at the principal who stood watching from the gate.
"Heading home, Professor?" the man called.
Draeven smiled faintly, almost kind. "Something like that."
He walked through the long corridor that led toward the academy's main courtyard.
The walls were still lined with banners bearing Highwarden's crest — the rising dawn over a blade — though most had faded under years of smoke and wind.
The massive hall for the first-years stood open and empty, echoing with ghosts of lectures and laughter.
Dust drifted through shafts of light, settling over the rows of untouched desks.
Draeven lingered only for a moment before moving on, his polished shoes tapping softly against the floor.
In the next wing, the second and third years were still at work — sparring, studying, arguing in corners.
A few of them stopped and bowed slightly as he passed. He only nodded, eyes hidden behind glass, expression unreadable.
Soon, the school's polished stone gave way to the commoners' former abandoned sector. — Small houses of old brick, uneven roofs, and narrow roads where students no longer live.
From afar, past the rising walls, he could see the noble sector — silver towers catching light, banners rippling like pride itself.
He walked past it all without a word.
The outer forest waited beyond the academy walls — tall pines standing like silent guards.
The path wound through mist and root, the air rich with the smell of rain and earth.
Somewhere ahead, water glimmered — a lake, smooth as glass. Draeven paused at its edge.
For a while, he just stood there, staring at his reflection in the still water. The dark coat, the hat, the glasses — and beneath all that, those faintly glowing red eyes.
A Crowholt through and through.
He adjusted his hat and continued on.
By the time he reached the edge of the forest, the banners of Draemond City were visible through the haze — deep black silk marked with the crimson crow sigil.
The closer he got, the louder the city became: shouts, wheels, metal, life.
He entered through the side alleys first — narrow, twisting veins of brick and smoke where old merchants whispered and the air smelled of oil and rust.
Then the alley widened, opening into the great train hall of Draemond.
The ceiling arched high above, glass and iron streaked with soot. Trains hissed and rumbled, passengers moved like currents of shadow and color.
Draeven stopped by the platform, suitcase in hand, the noise of the city humming around him. He didn't move. He didn't need to.
The station's iron arches loomed above like ribs of a sleeping giant, steam curling through the air as the hiss of engines filled the hall.
Draeven stood among the crowd, suitcase in hand, his coat faintly stirring with each passing gust from the departing trains.
Behind him, two travelers — young merchants by their speech — spoke in hushed awe.
"Did you hear?" one said. "They say this whole railway system — the steam line veils, the engines, the pulse coils — all of it came from House Dawneir."
"Of course it did," the other replied, eyes bright with admiration. "The Dawneirs built the first solar core before the century turned. They say their light never fades, even underground."
"Their motto fits," the first murmured. "'Our Light Remembers.' My mother said the sun itself listens to their family."
The voices carried over the noise — fragments of worship mixed with wonder.
"Have you ever seen Lumiris?" another voice joined in, older, gruffer.
"The City of Dreams. The city of the noble family Drawnier. They say its streets glow at dusk — white stone that hums like glass, rivers that shimmer with light, towers kissed by dawn even at night."
"Too perfect, though," someone else whispered. "A place where the light never fades is a place that never sleeps. I heard... some say the air there hums with something unnatural — the work of the Dawn Engine."
"That's just myth," came the dismissive reply. "The Dawneirs are the saviors of the realm, not its ghosts."
"Maybe," said the first voice softly. "But when something shines that bright, it's because it's hiding a shadow."
Draeven Crowholt said nothing. He only listened — to their reverence, their awe, their fear. Lumiris. The Dawneirs. The gilded makers of light.
He looked toward the distant end of the station, where the banners of House Dawneir hung high above the platforms — gold and silver threads woven into the shape of a radiant sun, half divine, half machine.
Steam rose around him, the world briefly fading white.
Then he exhaled — a long, weary sigh that cut through the hiss of the engines.
"Light remembers," he muttered quietly, almost to himself. "But so do crows."
Draeven stepped onto the platform as the train groaned into life, steam curling like living smoke around the blackened iron.
The crowd surged around him, but he moved through it with the calm inevitability of a shadow, suitcase in hand.
The car doors hissed open, and he stepped inside, the polished wood and brass gleaming under flickering lamps.
He settled near a window, the city rushing past in a blur of black roofs and crimson banners.
The scent of coal and oil clung to the air, mingling with the faint tang of rain. Outside, Draemond shrank behind him, its alleys and towers receding beneath the lattice of iron rails.
As the train picked up speed, voices and clatter faded into a distant hum.
Draeven's eyes, still red behind dark lenses, traced the passing forests, rivers, and hills.
He noted the meticulous construction of bridges, the gleam of distant canals, the way light caught the edges of the clouds — everything precise, deliberate, purposeful.
Hours passed. The sky changed, pale gray melting into a colder silver. The air smelled sharper, pine and frost carried on the wind.
Mist began to crawl along the ground, clinging to the trees like spectral hands.
The train entered the northern region. A vast expanse of fog swallowed the tracks, only the rails and the occasional twisted tree visible.
The mountains rose jagged and distant, their peaks disappearing into the low-hanging clouds.
Here, the world felt ancient, silent, as though it had been waiting for centuries.
Through the mist, Draeven glimpsed the first signs of Crowcity — towers of black stone, crowned with spires that pierced the gray heavens.
Smoke spiraled from chimneys, curling and fading into the fog.
Crimson banners flapped weakly in the cold wind, each bearing the unmistakable sigil of a crow — sharp wings stretched wide, eyes like burning coals.
He exhaled slowly, the faint ghost of smoke from his cigarette now long forgotten.
The city was enormous, sprawling beyond what maps would show, built in layers like a crown of shadow and iron.
Narrow streets twisted between towering keeps, bridges arched over chasms, and the faint sound of clanging metal echoed even from this distance.
"Crowcity," Draeven murmured, voice low, reverent — almost a prayer. His reflection caught briefly in the glass of the train window, red eyes glowing faintly. "Home."
The train slowed, the hiss of brakes cutting through the fog.
Draeven stood, suitcase in hand, coat brushing against the polished floor.
The doors opened, revealing the blackened stone platforms and shadowed arches. Figures moved in the mist — servants, guards, and the occasional noble, faces obscured beneath hoods.
Every detail whispered power. Every corner promised calculation.
Every shadow seemed alive. Draeven's red eyes scanned it all, slow, measured.
He stepped off the train, suitcase in hand, and let the cold northern wind wash over him.
Crows called from the towers above, answering the sigil that marked his house.
Somewhere deep in the city, he knew, Madam Crow waited.
And Draeven Crowholt — Crowholt, through and through — was finally home.
The wind bit sharper as Draeven stepped off the train, the fog curling around his coat like dark smoke.
Crow City stretched before him — a vast sprawl of black stone towers, iron bridges, and twisted streets that climbed in tiers like the ribs of some colossal beast.
Crimson banners of crows flapped weakly from every spire, eyes gleaming like fire.
Carriages clattered along the cobblestones, their wheels dragging over uneven stone.
Servants scurried between them, faces hidden beneath hoods. Beyond the carriage lanes, fields of dark, tilled earth spread like veins into the outskirts of the city.
Here and there, beggars huddled in the cold, their eyes reflecting the same deep red as Draeven's.
Children with sigils stamped on their foreheads ran past, laughing nervously, shadows of the church watching them from distant towers.
Draeven's gaze swept the city with measured disdain. "All the noble families of Sion… proud, shiny, polite," he muttered under his breath, voice low, sharp as broken glass.
"But the Crowholts… corrupted to the bone. Evil. Openly, brazenly. Slaves in the streets, fear masquerading as law. Their justice is a lie. Their truth is chains."
The city seemed alive, whispering around him. In one direction, he glimpsed the spires of the Eradicate Church — black stone, sharp angles, banners that bore the serpent coiled around a fractured sun.
A few streets over, the church of another, older faith gleamed faintly, its golden light weak behind the fog, a distant promise of hope few dared approach.
Everywhere he looked, people's eyes burned the same crimson as his own — a city of mirrors, reflecting everything his family stood for, every twisted value, every unspoken cruelty.
Draeven's hands clenched inside his gloves. He hated it all. Hated the lie of nobility, the pretense of justice, the chains of truth they forced on others.
Yet, even as his gaze darkened, he walked calmly.
Past carriages, past beggars, past the twisted, tiered towers of the city — until the massive gates of Crowholt Castle rose ahead, iron and stone carved with crows in mid-flight.
Guards bowed silently as he passed, a subtle acknowledgment of the name he bore.
Inside, the castle smelled of smoke and old leather, of blood and iron.
Hallways stretched wide, ceilings high, banners heavy with the weight of generations.
Draeven moved with deliberate calm, following the sound of raised voices until he rounded a corner and froze.
His uncle — a brutish, red-eyed man — had a maid pressed against the wall, her screams muffled as his fists landed with sickening force.
Draeven's hand tightened around the suitcase handle. Calm as still water, he dropped it and stepped forward.
One punch — precise, clean, impossible to anticipate — sent the uncle sprawling across the floor. The sound of cracking bone echoed faintly against the stone.
For a moment, the hall was silent, except for the maid's ragged breathing. Draeven's crimson eyes burned cold, unreadable, untouchable.
Then a heavy step rang behind him.
"Draeven."
The voice carried the weight of mountains, of iron and storms. His father, tall, broad, every movement purposeful, crimson eyes glowing like the heart of a forge, stood framed in the doorway.
Peak of power, dominance incarnate — a man who commanded fear and respect with a single glance.
Draeven turned slowly, nodding faintly, knowing punishment would come. But even as his father's shadow fell over him, there was no fear in his eyes.
Only acknowledgment. Only the recognition that the Crowholt blood flowed through him, and that even in hate, he was born to endure and surpass.
His father stepped forward, voice low, dangerous, every word a hammer striking steel. "You forget who you are. You forget what Crowholt means."
Draeven's gaze met his father's, steady, unflinching. "I know what it means," he said. "I just… hate it."
A pause. Then, as the hall seemed to shudder with silent power, his father nodded slightly — a storm contained, a lesson in wrath and dominance — and the punishment began.
Not brutal, not cruel — but measured, perfect, designed to temper fire, sharpen it into a blade.
Draeven proceeded to kneel beside the maid, lifting her gently. "It's over," he murmured, his voice soft, almost warm — a rare sound in the Crowholt name. "I'm sorry… you don't deserve this."
The maid's eyes widened at the contrast — the terrifying Crowholt heir, showing kindness. Draeven brushed wet hair from her face, careful. She blinked, uncertain, but he only smiled faintly.
Bellamor Crowholt , his presence massive, almost regal. His eyes — the same deep red as Draeven's — swept over the scene. "Well done, son," he said, voice low but resonant, carrying both approval and threat.
He approached the maid. With a single, gentle flick to her forehead, he reminded both her and Draeven of the strange, firm love he commanded.
The gesture was small, but it spoke volumes: she was safe, under his protection — but the world obeyed his will.
Bellamor's gaze shifted to Draeven. Calm, measured, yet every inch a Crowholt.
"Your mother calls for you," he said, voice smooth as silk, but with an edge that hinted at storms to come.
Draeven hesitated.
Bellamor leaned closer to the maid, whispering with a smile that was both gentle and chilling:
"Don't listen to her rantings… she's bothersome when she's angry."
The maid swallowed hard, eyes darting between the two Crowholts, understanding the balance of love and cruelty that ruled this family.
Draeven exhaled, his father's presence a steady, terrifying anchor — a reminder of both the legacy he bore and the power he would need to master.
Draeven turned from the hall and walked down the corridor, each step measured, echoing faintly against the cold stone walls.
He reached the grand door at the end of the hallway.
With a deliberate push, it swung open, revealing a room bathed in candlelight, the air heavy with the scent of incense and old parchment.
At the center sat the matriarch of the Crowholts — her presence undeniable.
Her eyes glowed a deep, molten red, sharp and piercing as she fixed him with a glare.
"Draeven!" she shouted, voice slicing through the stillness.
Draeven's jaw tightened, but he bowed slightly, lips calm. "Mother."
The room seemed to pulse with her power.
She gestured to the maps and scrolls spread across the table, each marked with symbols of the Crowholt domain, the extent of their control and secrets.
"Rumors are spreading," she said, voice low but commanding.
"The Eclipse… it stirs again. Strange shadows, whispers of power awakening beyond our reach. You must investigate. You bastard son of crowholt"
Her gaze softened, just for a moment, as if measuring the man he had become.
"Intel tells me your son is alive."
At those words, Draeven's expression changed.
The casual boredom vanished, replaced by the lethal focus that marked a Crowholt at their peak. He nodded sharply.
"Yes, Mother I'll investigate it properly," he said, voice steady and cold.
Without another word, he turned toward the door, the weight of duty and legacy settling upon him like armor.