The battlefield was quiet now.
The bodies of the Golden Saints lay scattered like broken statues beneath the rising sun. Their armor, once glowing with divine light, was cracked and smoking, their white-and-gold cloaks soaked in blood and dust. Birds circled above, drawn by the smell of magic and death.
Kairo stood in the center of it all—unmoving, jaw clenched, fists trembling.
The curse inside him wasn't quiet. It wasn't satisfied.
It wanted more.
His fingers flexed as the mark on his chest pulsed, slow and deliberate, like a second heartbeat. He felt the power crawling under his skin, like something alive trying to stretch its limbs.
"I'm still here," he whispered.
He wasn't sure who he was talking to. The Saints? The throne? The part of himself that wasn't sure he deserved to still be breathing?
It didn't matter.
He had won.
But it didn't feel like victory.
Behind him, Lira sat on a chunk of fallen stone, running a bloodied cloth down her blade. Her knuckles were scraped raw, one eye swelling shut. She didn't say anything.
She didn't need to.
Not yet.
Solin was kneeling near the body of one of the fallen Saints, prying loose a pendant from the armor. His fingers moved carefully, respectfully. Not out of pity—out of understanding.
"These weren't soldiers," he finally said. "They were messages."
Kairo turned his head. "What kind of message kills thirty people?"
"The kind that says: 'This was nothing.'"
Iri stood alone, away from the group. She was whispering to her rabbit again, as she always did. But Kairo noticed something different—her eyes were open wider, her fingers trembling, her lips quivering between words. She wasn't playing anymore.
She was scared.
And Kairo couldn't blame her.
The Saints were supposed to be the pinnacle of holy magic—blessed weapons, divine armor, perfect formation.
They'd been torn apart in a single night.
By him.
Or… by the thing inside him.
Solin walked over, holding the pendant. It shimmered slightly in the morning light, a symbol etched in gold: a sun with a blade through it.
"Sunbreaker Division," he said. "The highest order of Saints."
Kairo stared at it. "They weren't the highest anymore."
Solin nodded. "No. But others still are."
"How many?"
"Too many."
Kairo grunted. He turned away, looking out at the horizon. The sky was streaked with clouds and ash.
"Then we need to stop waiting for them to find us," he said.
Lira looked up, frowning. "What are you saying?"
Kairo stepped forward, his voice low and clear.
"I'm done running. I'm going to the throne."
The silence that followed was sharp.
Even Iri stopped speaking to the rabbit.
Solin stood straight. "You're serious."
Kairo didn't answer.
He didn't have to.
They broke camp before noon, heading east through a ruined forest burned by the Saints. The trees were charred black, their twisted trunks forming a path like crooked ribs. The smell of smoke clung to everything. No birds. No animals. Just dead earth and sky.
Lira walked beside Kairo, her steps matching his.
"You know this is insane, right?"
"Probably," Kairo said.
"People die chasing the throne."
"People die running from it too."
She looked at him, long and hard. "You're changing."
"I know."
"Is it the throne?"
Kairo hesitated, then shook his head.
"It's me. I'm just finally being who I am."
She didn't respond.
But she didn't fall behind either.
That night, they camped near a collapsed bridge over a dry riverbed. Solin set wards around the area. Lira stood watch. Iri drew circles in the dust again.
Kairo sat on a fallen log, watching the stars flicker in the sky. His mind wouldn't stop turning.
The Saints.
The ritual.
The pain in his chest.
The look on the last Saint's face when he bowed.
And the whisper he'd heard during the fight—quiet, but clear.
"You are the storm we left behind."
He didn't know what it meant.
But it was stuck in his head like a splinter.
Late into the night, Solin sat beside him.
"You're not sleeping either?"
Kairo shook his head. "Not much lately."
"You don't trust your dreams?"
"I don't trust what I might wake up as."
Solin nodded slowly. "The closer you get to the throne, the more it'll test you."
"Test me how?"
"Your mind. Your memories. The parts of yourself you buried. It wants you as you are, not as you pretend to be."
Kairo glanced at him. "Sounds familiar."
Solin smirked. "Because I failed."
Kairo looked back at the sky. "I'm not planning to."
Three days later, the landscape began to change.
The land sloped downward into a valley covered in bones—thousands of them. Skulls, ribs, spines. Some human. Some not. All old. All arranged like rivers flowing toward a central peak.
At the heart of it all, barely visible through the haze, stood a jagged spire of black stone.
The Bone Throne.
It wasn't a throne in the traditional sense. It was a mountain of bones, twisted and sharpened into a seat large enough for giants. Magic crackled in the air around it, violent and wild. The sky above it swirled darkly even during daylight.
As they approached the outer edge of the valley, Kairo stopped walking.
His breath caught in his throat.
Because now he could hear it—clearly.
"Come."
Not in words.
In feeling.
In instinct.
It wasn't speaking to his mind.
It was pulling at his soul.
They made camp outside the valley that night.
Solin insisted on rest. Lira insisted on planning. Iri just curled up in her cloak and stared silently toward the throne.
Kairo couldn't sleep.
Couldn't sit.
Couldn't stop pacing.
The closer he got, the more alive he felt—and the more fragile.
Like a mirror full of cracks.
One wrong step, and everything inside him would shatter.
But he wasn't turning back.
Not anymore.
Just before dawn, he left the others and walked to the edge of the bone valley.
The wind was cold here, not from air, but from memory.
He stepped forward, his boots crunching against ancient skulls.
No monsters stopped him.
No guardians appeared.
Just silence.
He kept walking.
By midday, he stood at the base of the Bone Throne.
It rose like a god's grave—impossibly tall, covered in markings, ancient swords jammed into its sides like offerings.
He looked up.
And saw something move.
A figure.
Sitting.
No—waiting.
He climbed.
Every step was harder.
Not from weight, but from resistance.
The throne did not want him yet.
But he kept going.
He reached the top by nightfall.
The figure was still there.
Not dead.
Not alive.
Wrapped in chains of smoke.
Its face was bone. Its eyes were fire. Its voice was quiet.
"You came early."
Kairo stood tall. "I'm not kneeling."
"You don't have to."
"You already belong to me."
Kairo stepped forward. "Then why am I still fighting you?"
The figure tilted its head.
"Because you're not here to sit."
"You're here to burn."
Then everything went white.
He saw his past.
His mother's eyes.
His blood on the floor.
The day he didn't awaken.
The moment they called him nothing.
He saw every person he'd let down.
Every laugh that covered a scream.
Every scar he refused to show.
Every choice he wished he could take back.
And then—
He saw himself.
Standing at the foot of the throne.
Grinning.
Bleeding.
Still alive.
Still fighting.
He opened his eyes.
The figure was gone.
The chains were gone.
Only the throne remained.
Empty.
Waiting.
Kairo stepped forward.
And sat.
The bones didn't reject him.
They didn't devour him.
They sighed.
Like something that had waited too long finally exhaled.
And the sky above him broke open with light.
Not gold.
Not holy.
Something else.
Something older.
Something hungry.
Far across the continent, the Order felt it.
In temples, blood spilled from statues.
In the capital, glass shattered in every tower.
In the cursed lands, the monsters bowed without knowing why.
And in the deepest part of the world, something darker than all of them smiled.
The throne had chosen.
And the world would burn.