Chapter Forty-Three: Whispers Beneath the Stone
"It is not always fire that destroys kingdoms. Sometimes, it is silence."
The air beneath the Citadel was different.
Still. Too still.
Kael adjusted the torch in his grip, the flames casting long shadows along the stone walls of the old tunnels. These passages hadn't been touched in decades—forgotten even by the old empire. Not even the Scorchborne had dared linger here long.
And yet someone had.
Footsteps echoed behind him—light, familiar.
Riven.
Neither of them spoke.
The descent into the underground chamber had started two hours ago. At first, it had just been dust, old webs, and echoing rats. But the further they went, the more the air changed. It wasn't just stale.
It was wrong.
Kael paused near a cracked wall. Strange markings—burned into the stone. Not carved. Burned. The language was twisted, like letters trying to remember what they were.
"What is this?" Riven asked softly.
Kael didn't answer. He ran his gloved fingers over the marks. Heat pulsed beneath the surface. Not residual warmth. Not magic.
Life.
Something was still alive down here.
They reached a chamber with no visible entrance. Only a wall of obsidian stone, veined with pulsing red lines. Like veins.
Kael stepped forward.
The veins responded.
The stone groaned.
A whisper skittered across the walls—no words, only the impression of speech. Like someone speaking directly into their bones.
Kael…
Riven stiffened. "Did you hear that?"
Kael nodded slowly. His grip tightened on the torch.
"I think it knows my name," he whispered.
The obsidian split open without warning. No cracks. No crumbling. It peeled apart like flesh, revealing a dark hallway slick with moisture and lined with old, unlit sconces.
Beyond it—footsteps.
Not echoes.
Fresh.
They followed.
They had to.
Each step was met with a heavier silence. The kind that pressed against the skull. The deeper they moved into the corridor, the clearer it became: someone was luring them.
Someone who wanted Kael to come.
The hallway opened into a wide sanctum. Dozens of statues lined the circular walls—each one different, and each depicting a twisted, monstrous form. Many were incomplete. Mouths sewn shut. Eyes melted. Limbs too many or too few.
At the center of the room stood an altar.
Upon it: a book.
Not ancient. Not dusty.
New.
Kael approached slowly. Riven followed, sword out now.
"Careful," he warned.
Kael reached out. The moment his hand brushed the cover, the room pulsed—every statue's eyes igniting with crimson fire. The walls breathed.
And then—
The book opened on its own.
A single page.
No ink.
Only blood.
The blood shifted and pooled into shapes. Into a sigil Kael had seen once before—burned into the chest of a Scorchborne priest who had tried to kill him in his youth.
Except this one pulsed.
Alive.
Kael staggered back.
Something crawled behind his eyes.
Not a vision.
A memory.
Not his.
He was standing on a scorched battlefield—flames frozen midair. Figures stood around him, unmoving. Above, a shattered sky. Red light. Screaming in the wind, though there were no mouths to scream.
And in the center of it all: a figure on a throne of bones.
Not the Emperor.
Kael.
A future.
Or a warning.
The crowned figure opened its mouth.
"You lit the fire."
Kael gasped as he fell backward, the vision shattering like glass.
Riven caught him. "What happened?!"
Kael clutched his chest, heart hammering. "It showed me a future."
"What kind of future?"
He looked up at Riven, voice hoarse. "The kind where I become the thing I'm trying to destroy."
The room was no longer empty.
A figure stepped out from behind the altar. Cloaked in black, face wrapped in shadow. But Kael could feel the heat pouring from him.
A mirror.
"You should not have come here," the figure said.
Kael stepped forward. "Who are you?"
The figure removed his hood.
And Kael stared into a face he recognized.
His own.
Younger. Twisted. Branded.
"I'm the fire you left behind," the boy said.
End of Chapter Forty-Three