The cavern was alive now—breathing, shuddering, pulsing with old magic and older malice. Rael's hand trembled as he clutched his side, the black veins crawling from his wound itching, burning, eating at his focus. The monstrous eyes in the dark watched, unblinking, their gaze pressing on his soul like the weight of a mountain. Evan had edged closer to a shattered throne, dagger held low, attention split between Rael and the horror waking in the depths.
A sound rose from the deep—a groaning, wordless chant that vibrated the pillars and gnawed at Rael's teeth. The air felt thick, hard to breathe, and colder than the world above.
Water trickled somewhere unseen, picking up a frantic rhythm. Each drop was a drumbeat, counting down to something neither man understood.
Evan stepped up onto the dais of a throne formed from black iron and pale bone. He hesitated for just a moment, then placed his free hand on the twisted armrest.
The sigils blazed to life, gold and crimson, snaking across the stone in a web of power. He gasped as the throne drank from him, drawing strength, memory, and something else—his eyes flashed with light, his body tensed, but he didn't let go.
Rael staggered forward, blood seeping between his fingers, every breath a small victory. He could feel the other thrones calling—each with a voice, each a promise and a curse.
But his throne, his real throne, pulsed faintly above, as if urging him not to kneel to this place, not to give in to the hunger lurking in the dark.
"You're bleeding out, Rael," Evan called, voice cracking with pain and glee. "There's no going back. You can join me—share this power, shape what's left. Or you can crawl back to die alone above ground."
Rael didn't answer. He pressed his hand to the nearest throne—one made of fused crystal and petrified wood, humming with a different energy, colder, less violent than Evan's.
For a moment, he felt his body freeze, pain seeping away. But underneath, something else moved—a memory, maybe not his own.
He saw visions of forests burning, cities drowning, men turning to beasts and thrones rising from the ashes.
He pulled his hand back, breath fogging in the chill. The black veins in his arm pulsed, hungrier than ever, but he kept his feet.
Evan laughed, half-mad, golden light flickering beneath his skin. "This is it, Rael. This is what the kings before us feared—a world with no more secrets, no more rulers. Just the strong, the desperate, and the damned. Why do you still fight it?"
"Because," Rael rasped, "I'm not like you. I don't kneel to monsters, even if I become one."
The thing in the darkness shifted. Its eyes narrowed, and an arm—jointed wrong, covered in scales and rot—emerged from the gloom, grasping the edge of Evan's dais.
The ground splintered. The other thrones shuddered, some cracking, some glowing. All around, the air warped and groaned.
Evan's triumph twisted to terror. He tried to pull free, but the throne's grip held him fast. The monster's arm dragged itself closer, its body too vast to see, its hunger unmistakable.
Rael forced himself forward, every nerve screaming. He shoved his arm, poison and all, onto the crystal throne. He poured every drop of hatred and memory into it—his life, his rule, his refusal to die small. The throne responded.
The air flashed cold, a surge of raw energy flooding through his veins, burning out the black corruption. For a moment, Rael felt weightless, untouchable, like a god standing on the bones of the world.
He hurled that power at the thing in the dark.
Ice and lightning burst from the dais, striking the beast's arm, freezing rot to stone and shattering scales. The monster recoiled, bellowing, filling the chamber with its agony.
Evan screamed, trying to break free, caught between throne and terror.
The monstrous hand slammed down on his throne, crushing stone and bone alike. The light inside Evan flared, then sputtered out.
Rael staggered off the dais, vision swimming.
His wounds wept blood, but the black veins receded. The monster pulled itself away, disappearing into the chasm, leaving silence broken only by Evan's fading breaths.
He crawled toward Rael, half his body ruined. "You think you've won? There are worse things down here than us. Thrones… waiting. Hungry…"
Rael stared down at him, every muscle shaking. "Then let them come. I'll be waiting."
Above, dust rained down—the surface calling, the throne's true power flickering, beckoning him home. Rael took one last look at the dead thrones, the shadows moving in the dark, and began the climb back toward the world above.
As he pulled himself up, a new sound echoed in the deep—a slow, steady heartbeat that did not belong to any man or beast. Something had awoken. Something that would not sleep again.
Rael's legs barely worked, each step an act of pure will.
He pulled himself along the broken stones, following faint shafts of pale light filtering down from the ruined ceiling above.
The energy from the crystal throne still burned inside him—a cold fire threading through muscle and bone—but exhaustion gnawed at the edges of his mind.
The black veins receded, but they'd left scars that would never heal. His wounds bled sluggishly, leaving a trail dark as spilled oil on the ancient stone.
Behind him, the cavern shifted. The monstrous presence retreated, its pain and hunger echoing through the bones of the world. But something else lingered—a whisper, ancient and mocking, drifting through the air.
This is not your victory, Rael. Only the first of many debts.
Rael ignored it, refusing to look back. He focused on the way out, clawing up a rough slope toward a collapsed wall where moonlight shone through.
With each movement, memories flickered: the other thrones, the dead king at his feet, the moment the abyss looked back and found him wanting.
He reached the breach in the stone and forced himself up, dragging his battered body onto the surface. The night was cold and alive with the sound of distant fighting, the city above just as broken as he remembered.
Smoke rose from the ruins, distant fires crackling in the hollow shells of buildings. Somewhere, a bell tolled—a warning, or a dirge, he couldn't tell.
Rael collapsed beside the rubble, chest heaving. The energy in his veins faded, leaving only pain and a sense of emptiness.
He forced himself to sit up, checking his wounds. The poison was gone, but the scars were proof of how close he'd come to dying. He flexed his fingers, feeling a faint, unnatural cold where the corruption had burned through.
He looked back at the opening, half-expecting Evan or the beast to claw their way out after him. Nothing moved in the darkness below. Only silence and a cold certainty that the world's foundation had shifted.
Rael rose, swaying. He wrapped a filthy strip of cloth around his arm to stanch the bleeding and started toward the heart of the city.
Each step felt heavier. He was alone, the only king left in a world where monsters now knew his scent and the true thrones had begun to wake.
It would not be long before others crawled out of the deep—drawn by the power, by the promise of more. Old enemies, new monsters, broken souls desperate for something to rule or destroy.
He passed an alley where the scavengers from before had hidden. One of them, a girl with ash-streaked hair and haunted eyes, looked up as he passed.
She shrank away, but Rael stopped, pulling a piece of dried meat from his coat and tossing it at her feet. Her hunger overcame her fear.
She snatched it and vanished into the rubble.
Rael pressed on, vision swimming, heart hammering in his chest. The throne's call was weaker, but still present—a thread of gold in the fog.
He needed to reach it, to reclaim his place before someone else dared the climb. He needed answers. He needed power, or at least the illusion of it, to keep the city's wolves at bay.
He heard voices ahead—angry, desperate, armed with scrap and stolen memories of a world that no longer existed. Rael ducked into a ruined shopfront, watching as a gang of survivors dragged a chained figure through the street.
The captive's face was hidden, but the crowd jeered and spat, shouting accusations of witchcraft, betrayal, heresy. Rael saw in their eyes the same hunger that filled the thrones below.
He slipped away before they saw him, moving like a ghost through the city's remains.
The palace—what was left of it—rose at the center, black against the moonlit sky, the throne's echo growing louder as he approached.
He stumbled at the gate, blood loss finally catching up. He dropped to one knee, gasping for breath, vision narrowing to a tunnel of grey and gold.
A shadow moved above him—a silhouette against the ruins.
For a moment, Rael thought it was Evan, somehow returned from the dead. But the figure was taller, wrapped in midnight rags, face hidden behind a mask of old bone.
Eyes, golden and ancient, looked down on him with something between pity and contempt.
"You crawled back from the depths," the figure said, voice deep and cold. "But you didn't come alone."
Rael tried to rise, but the last of his strength failed. He collapsed in the dust, the world fading as the stranger crouched beside him.
"There are more thrones waking, king. And the dead walk in their shadows."
As darkness took him, Rael heard the city's bells toll again—this time, not for the dead, but as a warning to all who still lived: The true war was about to begin.