The blade in Kael's hand felt heavier than it should. Not with weight but with memory. With the pull of something ancient, coiled and waiting. As he stood there in the ruin of the First Throne, the ground beneath his boots vibrated like something alive was stirring beneath the stone.
Arin shifted uneasily beside him. "Kael… it's getting louder."
It was. The hum beneath them had grown teeth becoming a low pulse, like drums in a distant battlefield. Kael gritted his jaw and stepped toward the shadow-throne buried beneath the rubble. Each step made the ground shudder softly.
He knelt, brushing back centuries of soot and broken stone. As his fingers reached the throne's edge, a whisper sliced through the silence.
"Son of the Shadow Crown…"
Kael froze.
He turned slowly, but no one was there. Just Arin, who looked just as shaken.
"You heard that too?" Kael asked.
Arin nodded. "It didn't sound human."
Kael's eyes narrowed. "It wasn't."
Suddenly, the dagger in his hand pulsed. A faint crimson light flickered from the sigil on the hilt. The blade trembled and so did the earth. From beneath the broken stones of the throne, a sliver of red mist began to leak, curling like smoke.
Kael stepped back, instincts on edge.
Then came the voice again, deeper now. Closer.
"You wear the curse like a crown, child of the lost blood. But you were never the only heir."
Kael's pulse quickened.
The mist thickened, spiraling into the air above the throne. And in the center of the swirling red fog, a face began to form half-shrouded, half-burned. Not flesh, not spirit. Something between.
Arin gasped. "Kael, we need to get out of here."
But Kael didn't move.
The voice in the mist was his father's.
Or at least, it wore his voice.
"You left me in the dark," Kael said through gritted teeth. "You let them curse me. Let them break my mother."
The specter's eyes glowed dimly. "I prepared you."
Kael took a step forward, ignoring Arin's warning hand. "Prepared me for what?"
The mist pulsed. "To burn the false bloodline. And to reclaim the Crown of Thorns."
Kael's breath caught.
He had chased answers. Now they chased him.
"Where is it?" Kael asked quietly. "Where's the Crown?"
The whisper was almost inaudible: "Beneath the Ash Tree. Where all kings fall."
And just like that, the mist vanished sucked into the dagger like smoke into a dying flame.
The silence returned, but it felt colder now. Watching.
Kael looked down at the blade, then back to the throne.
"We need to find that tree," he said.
Arin blinked. "What if it's just a trap?"
Kael gave a bitter smile. "Of course it is. But it's my trap now."
And with that, they turned their backs on the ruins of the First Throne… unaware that far behind them, a shadow crawled from the rubble, unseen.
Watching. Waiting.