But I forgot to look back

The light in the healing room is dim, filtered through feathers strung across the narrow windows. The air smells of stitched leather and alchemical herbs, a quiet reminder that this is a healer’s place.

Crunket shifts beneath the linen sheets, groaning softly. His chest weakly rises, then slowly falls.

He’s still alive.

At the edge of the cot sits a tall figure wrapped in a robe of silent black. The King of the krows watches without speaking. His crown, shaped like a circle of feathers bent inward, rests in his lap instead of on his head.

“You’re awake,” the king says.

Crunket turns his head, his eyes are groggy and unfocused. “How long have I been unconscious?”

“Two days,” the King replies. “Long enough to paint the skies in stories all across the land of Kaelmoor.”

Crunket tries to sit up, but a sharp pain pulls him back. He winces, and the king gently reaches forward to steady him.

“I never thought I’d survive,” Crunket murmurs.

“Trust me, you expected so, or you would have never reached the surface,” the King says.

There is silence between them for a moment, heavy but not an uncomfortable one.

“Why did you stop us before? Why did you ban the skies?” Crunket’s voice is soft, unsure.

The King exhales, slow and distant.

“I once flew,” he says. “Higher than any Krow before me. My wings were burned with pride. My heart was filled with ambition.”

He stands and walks toward the window, his gaze lost in the drifting clouds outside.

“But when I reached the top, when I saw what lay above the sky…” He pauses. “I saw nothing.”

Crunket frowns. “Nothing?”

“An emptiness so vast, so cold, that it turned any single thing that we had ever discovered and created into dust. Every great achievement I thought I had done suddenly went pale.” He closes his eyes. “I believed the sky would give me the ultimate medal. But instead, it gave me silence.”

He turns back toward Crunket.

“I forbade the skies not because I feared what was out there, but because I feared others would lose themselves as I did.”

Crunket is quiet. The weight of those words, of that burden, settles in his chest.

The King steps forward, placing the feathered crown gently on the bed beside him.

“But in that crucial moment, I forgot to look back,” the King says, voice cracking just slightly. “I was so focused on what I’ve lost that I forgot the view below and missed the amazing world that we are living in.”

Crunket’s eyes widens.

“This world deserves to be seen,” the king finishes. “And you were the first one who saw it.”

He bows, not too deep, but just enough for every feather on his head to shift in reverence.

The next morning, the city awakes to see the result of the great revelation.

Trumpets echo through the vertical alleys of the capital. Bells ring atop stone spires. Krows from every corner gather in the plaza once more to see their race’s dream achieved the second time and to welcome a new generation.

By the law of the krows, the one who flies the highest shall be deemed the king.

And so, before the great canvas he once painted upon, Crunket is crowned.

His wings are still trembling.

His feathers still bear the marks of fire.

But when the crown touches his head, he stands tall - not just as a great scientist, not as a criminal, but as the one with the responsibility of the nation as a whole.

A king.

He raises a single claw, then points toward the Hero Party standing just behind the crowd.

“My first act,” he declares, “is to fulfill the promise I made to those who dared to help a dreamer.”

He steps down from the pedestal and approaches Arthur, Asa, Vellithar, Drok and Spidaract.

“This has become my dream the moment the true world appeared before my eyes,” he says, “Will we be allies and make this world whole as it should be?”

Then, in front of his entire people, he bows.

And the foreign heroes agree, telling him to keep his back straight when they meet the alliance.