The chains rattled louder.Metal screamed.Stone groaned.
Vael drew back, cloak sweeping the dust.Reylen raised his torch.The flame trembled.
The chained thrones… moved.Not all.Just one.On the far left.
It tilted forward.
A skeleton fell out.Wrapped in old, rotted robes.Its skull still wore a crooked crown.
Then came the voice.
Low.Dry.Inside their minds.
"You woke us."
Reylen stepped back."This isn't normal—this is—this is cursed."
Vael didn't move.His eyes locked on the fallen crown.
The voice whispered again."You wear what should not rise again."
The broken crowned skeleton twitched.Then stopped.
Vael took one step forward."I didn't choose this," he said.
"Neither did we."
Nyra's hand glowed.A pale shield formed around them.
The old voices—They grew louder.Many now.
Not just one.
"We fell so you could rise.""We screamed so you could walk.""And now you come here… to do what?"
Vael clenched his fists."To break it.To end it."
The dead laughed.
No sound.But the feeling pressed into their bones.
Then the walls cracked.
From the stone, black shapes slipped out—like smoke with eyes.
Echoes.But older.Hungrier.
One lunged.
Nyra stepped in.Light burst—Burning it away.
Reylen drew his blade."I thought we were done with nightmares."
Vael stared at the remaining thrones."They're not just thrones.They're prisons."
He walked toward the center.
Each step echoed like thunder.
The old figure—the first crowned one—raised its head again.
Its mask cracked further.
And underneath—Vael saw his own face.
Younger.But his.
He froze.
Reylen called, "Vael?"
But he didn't answer.
Because the voice returned.From the masked figure.
"You're not the first.You won't be the last."
Then everything shattered—The mask.The silence.The ground beneath them.