Torrezx-leave Red Legends -

"If you walk out those gates," Kaelen warned, "the red fades from your veins. You will age. You will feel the cold. You will die."

Among them, Torrezx was the oldest. His armor was no longer the vibrant crimson of the recruits; it was the color of dried blood and deep iron, etched with the jagged lines of a thousand battles that history had forgotten but his bones remembered. The Weight of the Crown Torrezx-Leave Red Legends

Torrezx stood on the precipice of the Ash Gardens, looking down at the city below. To the people, the Red Legends were gods. To Torrezx, they were a cage. He reached up to his helm, the seal hiss-releasing as he pulled it off. The air was cold—sharper and more honest than the recycled heat inside the Citadel. "If you walk out those gates," Kaelen warned,

Torrezx didn’t turn. "That is the lie we told ourselves to justify the burning. We aren't legends because we are powerful, Kaelen. We are legends because we were supposed to protect the things that are fragile. But look at your hands." You will die

"I am tired of being a monument," Torrezx said softly. He unlatched his chest plate, letting the heavy obsidian-metal crash into the ash. Then the greaves. Then the gauntlets. He stood in simple, frayed tunics, looking smaller, more human, and infinitely more dangerous because he was finally free.

The Red Legends remained, but the spark was gone. And for the first time in three hundred years, it began to snow on the Citadel. If you'd like to adjust the story, let me know: