Lord of the Foresaken

The goblins gathered at the mouth of the cave when Reed emerged. Their wide yellow eyes blinked at the figure that stepped into the grey light—not the same boy who entered.

Blood matted his shirt. Claws had torn it during the trials. His eyes no longer held the dull brown of a human but glinted with a faint sickly green. His veins had darkened, pulsing slightly beneath his skin. And behind him stood Shia, blade-drenched and smiling, proud.

The goblins parted, uncertain.

Then came the elder.

Crooked, grey-skinned, with one cloudy eye and one sharp, intelligent one, he leaned on a twisted wooden staff and approached.

"You survived Drek’mar," he said in the goblin tongue.

Shia translated, voice low, careful. "He says no one ever comes back from that place. You did. That makes you... something else."

"I don’t need their belief," Reed said, voice rough. "They’ll follow or die."

Shia tilted her head. "A fine way to start a kingdom."

They called it a "domain," but Goblin’s Hollow was no more than a crater of despair. Rotten woods, poisoned soil, caves that stank of old corpses and desperation. The goblin tribe lived in pitiful clusters. Most were malnourished, too weak to hold a blade, and too scared to look Reed in the eye.

Reed sat on a broken slab of stone—his "throne." He looked down on them all, unblinking.