The Twelve and Him

They were there.

All of them.

My former companions.

They weren't the same anymore, but I would have recognized them among a thousand. Even deformed, even changed, even covered in scales, living armor, black feathers or ritual marks. Even unrecognizable, their gazes, their breaths, their absences — everything in them still vibrated with what we once were.

And for a second — just one — my whole body wanted to reach out to them.

I wanted to scream. To walk. To break that ridiculous distance. To tell them I was here. That I hadn't forgotten. That despite the races, the mutations, the pacts, the erasures... I had never stopped carrying them within me.

But I didn't move.

I didn't even think to. Because something invisible — and far older than fear — already had its claws around me.

The entire coliseum had frozen.

Or maybe it was me.

Or maybe it was them.

The Lords.