The mist wrapped around Khael like a tightening fist. Each footfall that brought him deeper into the Blackened Veil was like walking through wet ash. The air was thick and heavy, cold enough to seep through the bone. And it carried the scent of ancient blood and burnt iron. Sound had slipped away behind him, the clash of soldiers and shouts from Rovan's men, even the rush of Ghost's warnings had been swallowed whole by the darkness.
For a heartbeat, Khael wondered if he'd died again.
No light. No sky. No Earth. Just the crushing dark pressing in from every side.
And he continued walking.
The mist clung to him with a freezing flesh like a second skin. His head pulsed with every step he took forward. Wisps of whispers curled around him, but words were insufficient to describe the threads of sorrow and rage that flickered just outside of his name. He saw shadows darting away on either side of his vision, only gone when he turned.
Khael felt his teeth grind together.
He would not break here.
He would not give them that.
"Khael..."
A voice.
He whipped around, sword at the ready, but there was no one, only the seemingly infinite grey black swirling of the Veil.
"You failed us..."
Another voice. Familiar. Varun.
No, it could not be.
His heart raced as images began to flash in his mind: Varun's face. Maelor's bloody beard. Eira's tear-streaked face as she plunged a dagger into Khael's chest.
He forced himself to move faster.
The ground beneath his boots began shifting; the solid earth beneath him disappeared, replaced by cracked stone etched with sigils he couldn't read. Strange shapes hung suspended in the mist, nothing recognizable, but fragments of things long dead: a rusted helm, a skeletal hand wrapped around a chain, a child's wooden toy smeared with dark streaks.
The Veil was not a passage. It was a graveyard.
A place for the forgotten to loiter.
He gasped for breath, ragged, but continued.
Then, the mist parted.
A narrow path of ancient stone wound ahead, bordered by jagged, twisted trees that resembled bone as opposed to wood. At the end, a flickering pale blue light wavered like an extinguishing flame.
Khael's heart lurched.
The Cursed Sanctum.
Behind him, the mist shrieked - a thousand voices roaring together.
He didn't stop.
He ran.
His muscles screamed, the pain in his side a white-hot brand, but he pushed himself forward. The Veil reached for him, tendrils of shadow flashed by his face, and clutched at his skin. He felt his mind slip away, images blurring. His father's voice. His mother's face, even though he had never seen it. A child's laughter.
He ripped free from all of it and crossed over.
The Veil dissipated like a torn curtain.
Khael stumbled onto a crumbled stone platform looming over a massive sunken ruin. Massive pillars jutted from the earth like a dead god's broken teeth. Shattered statues lined the outside edges, some lamenting dark ichor, others sneering in pain. In the center of the ruin stood one spire, the Cursed Sanctum.
It was older than Velarion. Older than any kingdom. Its stones bled shadow, the runes on its surface moving like they were alive. Pale blue flame flickered along its edge.
And at its base, a figure waited.
Not Ghost.
Not a soldier.
Something worse.
It was a man once. But now his flesh hung from his bones in strips, his eyes hollow with an unsettling glow barely there. Chains wound about his arms and throat, and in one hand, he held a wicked serrated blade.
A Warden.
One of the dead things left behind to guard places that should not exist.
He lifted his head.
"Another heir," the Warden rasped, his voice like wind sliding over dry leaves. "You bleed the blood of Draven."
Khael lifted his sword even though his arms trembled. "I'll take what is mine."
The Warden laughed, a low, grating sound. "You came to claim power, boy. But power has its price."
"I've paid enough."
"Not yet."
The thing moved fast, impossibly fast, chains sliding free. Khael barely ducked in time, the links nodding forward with enough force to rip a chunk of stone from the platform where his head had been. The Warden struck forward, the blade swinging through the air in an arc made for violence.
Khael met it, steel against steel. The impact reverberated through his arm, enabling the chains to force him backwards.
He gritted his teeth, drove his shoulder forward, and slashed low. The Warden twisted away from him, and the chains whipped out. One caught his wrist, and he felt the spikes salting the wound. Blood was already spilling, but Khael pulled his hand back towards the Warden, tearing flesh.
He felt something moving within him, the old and cold energy that had sparked when he had faced down the Sentinels.
It was humming now.
A whisper in his ear.
Let it out.
He howled and drove his sword into the ground, an energetic shockwave rippling through the stone. The Warden staggered.
Khael did not waste the opportunity. He closed the distance to the Warden and buried his sword into the Warden's chest.
Black ichor erupted.
The Warden raged with delight.
"Too late."
Chains erupted from off the wall, from the floor itself, wrapping around Khael's arms, legs, and throat. He fought against it, but the heavy iron serpents wrapped tighter and tighter around him.
The Warden leaned in even closer.
"I am not the first heir you have bled here, and I won't be the last."
Khael's vision began to blur.
No.
Not here.
Not now.
The amulet gleamed at his chest.
And then, a figure stepped into the mist behind the Warden.
Ghost.
His pale blade sparkled in the cursed light.
"You always talk too much," Ghost said softly.
In one smooth motion, he slipped the dagger into the back of the Warden's skull.
The thing stiffened, ichor spilling from its mouth, before clattering to the ground.
The chains slackened.
Khael collapsed to his knees, gasping for breath.
Ghost knelt next to Khael. "See? I told you you'd need me."
Khael coughed, blood spilling from his lips. "What... the hell was that?"
"An old debt. Done now."
The earth trembled.
The doors of the Sanctum began to open.
Inside, only darkness awaited.
Ghost's face was grim. "Whatever's in there, it'll make you a king, or leave your corpse here with the others."
Khael wiped blood from his mouth.
"Then let's see."
Together, they stepped into the dark.