Rael stood with blood on his chest and death in his eyes, swaying atop the throne's shattered dais. The poison in his arm crawled higher, icy and numbing, dulling the edges of everything except the pain. Down in the crater, the monster's corpse twitched once before going still, leaking black blood into the earth. The crowd that had gathered—scavengers, killers, the desperate—held their breath.
The new arrival didn't pause. Cloaked in black, boots silent on the broken stone, he walked with the patience of someone who'd seen many kings fall. The firelight caught only the edge of a pale jaw, a glint of a smile in the dark. Rael's grip on consciousness slipped, but he forced his focus to sharpen. He recognized that gait. Once, before the world shattered, it had haunted palace corridors and war rooms—Evan, the last prince of the old empire. The traitor who'd placed the knife in Rael's back.
Evan's voice was calm, almost gentle. "You're harder to kill than I remember."
Rael's lips twisted into something like a smile. "You'll have to try harder."
Evan circled the throne, never breaking eye contact. The world seemed to shrink to the cracked stone between them, the silence heavy and waiting.
"Don't flatter yourself," Evan said. "You were never the only one with secrets."
He opened his hand, revealing a small glass vial swirling with green and gold. The color matched the poison burning in Rael's veins. Evan tossed it up and caught it, smiling as Rael's eyes narrowed.
"This was meant to end you before the world regressed. A shame—your monsters finished the job for me, and the world fell before I could collect your crown. But here we are, the same game, new board."
Rael felt the throne stirring beneath him, sensing danger, offering power but at a price. His mind flickered through memories—wars, betrayals, alliances forged and broken. He'd survived worse than Evan. But never this wounded, never so close to the end.
"I suppose you want the throne?" Rael asked, steadying himself with a white-knuckled grip.
Evan laughed. "Not just the throne, Rael. I want what's beneath it. The real secret—the engine that let you cheat death when the rest of us were erased."
Behind Evan, the sky rumbled. Lightning forked between the ruined towers, ash swirling as if the world itself resented their presence. The crowd watched, senses sharpened by hunger for blood and history.
Rael tried to rise, and the pain nearly knocked him flat. "You've always been second-rate, Evan. You never understood the price of ruling."
Evan's smile didn't falter. He approached, lifting the vial, uncorking it. A sickly-sweet scent filled the air, making Rael's stomach churn. "You never understood survival. That's why you died the first time."
He tossed the contents of the vial at Rael's face. Rael twisted, but some of it splattered across his cheek and open wound. The poison bit deep, flaring agony through his skull. For a moment, everything went white. He clung to the throne, feeling it anchor him, reality buckling around his body.
Evan lunged, drawing a blade, the same ceremonial dagger he'd once used to end Rael's life. He moved with precision, slicing for Rael's throat. This time, Rael was ready—barely. He seized Evan's wrist, poison burning in his arm, and forced the blade aside. Both men struggled, locked above the throne. The crowd surged forward, sensing the chance to tear them both apart.
Rael's vision pulsed at the edges. The throne screamed inside his head, offering him a choice: unleash the last of its power and destroy everything, or fall and let the world be devoured by something worse.
Evan spat in his face. "You can't win, not this time. You're finished. The throne will burn, and you'll go down with it."
Rael's fingers found the edge of the blade, gripping the steel even as it sliced him open. He pulled Evan forward, close enough to see the fear in his enemy's eyes.
"You always wanted the throne," Rael growled. "Let's see if you can hold it."
With the last of his strength, Rael heaved both of them off the dais. They crashed down together, struggling in the dirt, surrounded by onlookers frozen between awe and terror. Lightning split the sky. The earth shuddered. Something deep beneath the ruins began to wake.
As Rael's consciousness threatened to flicker out, he heard Evan whisper in his ear:
"It's too late, Rael. You never realized—there are more thrones than yours. And I've already claimed another."
The ground cracked open beneath them, a bottomless void pulling them down. Rael tried to reach the throne, but it was already too far.
They fell, king and traitor, into the darkness below.
They plunged through blackness. Dust and stone whipped past Rael's ears as he and Evan tumbled together, limbs tangled, every instinct screaming to brace for an impact that never came. The throne's distant pulse echoed above, then faded as the void swallowed it whole. For a heartbeat, the world was nothing but falling.
Then Rael hit something solid—stone, wet and freezing. The pain from his wounds crashed in all at once. Evan landed beside him with a grunt, rolling away, blade scraping stone. For a moment, both men lay gasping in the dark, surrounded by the crush of ancient earth. Somewhere above, the mob howled, their voices muffled and distant, unable to follow.
Rael struggled to rise, one hand pressed to his ruined arm, the poison inside gnawing at his mind. Cold sweat broke out across his brow. Evan was already on his feet, dagger flashing in the gloom.
"Still alive?" Evan's voice echoed off the cavern walls. "Stubborn bastard."
Rael forced himself upright, leaning on the stone. The space around them was enormous—pillars rose into the dark, carved with sigils so old their edges had worn smooth. This was no simple ruin. The air pulsed with the same strange energy as the throne, but here it felt raw, untamed—like a heartbeat in the bones of the world.
He looked at Evan, seeing the tension in every line of the traitor's body. Both were bleeding, both half-broken, but neither willing to back down.
"You said there were other thrones," Rael said, breath ragged. "You found this place, didn't you?"
Evan smiled, thin and wild. "I did what you never had the courage to do. While you clung to your legacy, I dug deeper. There are thrones beneath thrones, Rael. Power older than kings—older than the world as we knew it."
A tremor ran through the stone, as if the earth was listening. Sigils flickered with faint golden light. In the distance, water dripped endlessly, echoing like the ticking of a broken clock.
Rael scanned the cavern. Shadowed shapes lined the far wall—other seats, not like his own, but monstrous things twisted from black rock and ancient bone. Each pulsed faintly, a heartbeat in the dark. Some were broken, others whole, and at least one looked as if it had been used not long ago.
Evan gestured with his dagger. "You see now? Your throne was only one door. There are others, each tied to a different aspect of the world that was lost. The regression didn't destroy them. It set them free."
Rael didn't reply. The pain in his arm worsened, the black veins crawling toward his neck. His vision doubled for a moment, but he forced himself to focus.
Evan circled him, keeping his distance. "You can feel it, can't you? The raw power here. If we join it, if we take more—maybe we can shape this world instead of clinging to scraps. Or maybe we let it devour us. Either way, I'm not dying for your throne."
From above, dust rained down as another tremor shook the earth. The voices of the mob grew fainter. Rael could sense the hunger of the hidden thrones pulling at his mind, tempting him with visions of empires reborn, gods unshackled, the promise of remaking the world in his own image.
But there was a catch. Each throne called to something else—something that moved in the dark, deeper still, a presence vast and cold, waiting for a king or a fool to claim it.
Rael staggered closer to the nearest throne, every step a battle against the poison. Evan mirrored him, drawn by the same promise and threat.
"You want to see who rules the world now?" Evan's voice was hushed, almost reverent. "Then let's see who survives this place. I hope you're ready to bleed."
Before Rael could answer, the ground split between them. Something massive and formless stirred in the shadows—old power woken from centuries of sleep. The air snapped with energy. The stone throne pulsed once, twice, then eyes—cold, ancient, inhuman—opened in the dark beneath them.
Rael braced himself, vision narrowing. If this was the true price of kingship, he would pay it standing.
He didn't plan on dying in the dark.