Chapter Thirteen
The wind howled like a mourning mother as they crossed into the Red Expanse, a scorched land where no tree dared root and the sky wept fire instead of rain. Here, legend said, the Veiled Kings once ruled—not with crowns of gold, but with pacts written in blood and sealed with silence.
It was said they had tried to steal the First Flame for themselves.
It was said they succeeded—briefly.
Then the earth rebelled, swallowing their cities whole.
Now, only the ash remained.
And something beneath it, waiting.
Taru's steps slowed as the ground began to crack underfoot. "It's whispering again," he said, voice thin. "But not like before. This one… wants us to turn back."
Amira clenched her fists. "Then it knows we're close."
The forgotten souls behind them walked with unease. Even Elias reached for his dagger more than once, though nothing visible approached.
Then, through the mist of ash and heat, the ruins emerged.
Pillars half-buried. Statues defaced by time. And at the center, a great obsidian gate—still standing. Still sealed.
The Gate of the Veiled Kings.
Its surface shimmered not with magic, but memory. Every line etched into its face was a life taken. Every symbol, a silence forced.
Amira approached it alone.
She placed her palm against the stone, and it burned—not with fire, but with grief. Echoes rushed into her: mothers offering their children to darkness for safety, fathers burying names, songs unsung because silence had been safer.
A voice rose from beneath the gate:
"Do you come to free us… or to join us?"
Amira stood firm. "I come to speak your names."
The earth rumbled. The gate trembled.
Then a panel in the center split open, and from it poured a cloud of black wind—thick with pain, regret, and longing. It formed into shapes, then settled into three towering figures cloaked in shadow.
The Veiled Kings.
Each wore a mask made of bone and flame.
One stepped forward. "The First Flame rejected us. What makes you think it will follow you?"
Amira's voice did not waver. "Because I didn't come to own it. I came to carry it—for those you silenced."
The second king raised a hand. "And what will you give in return? The Flame always asks for sacrifice."
Elias stepped beside her. "Then it will take all of us. Not just her."
Taru joined, voice clear: "We carry it together. Flame, silence, sorrow. All of it."
The third king laughed bitterly. "Together? Foolish. Fire consumes. It doesn't share."
Amira looked at the ash swirling around her feet, at the souls standing with her—forgotten, quiet, but present.
And she whispered, "Then let it consume us—not to destroy, but to become something new."
The Veiled Kings fell silent.
Then, slowly, they removed their masks.
And beneath them were not monsters.
But children—terrified, weeping, burned by choices too great for their small hands.
And they bowed.
"Then go," they said as their bodies crumbled into ash. "And build a flame that does not devour."
The gate dissolved.
Beyond it, a stairway of bone and gold spiraled into the heart of the buried city.
Light pulsed from below—steady, ancient, patient.
It was time to descend.