The Obsidian Arena burned with torches and chants as the Rite of Crimson Ascension began.
Kael Varzian stood alone at its center. No crown, no ceremony. Just the black armor of his house, the ancestral blade Veindrinker at his side, and the knowledge that tonight would decide the future of the Crimson Throne.
Above him, nobles crowded the shadowy balcony, jeweled masks glinting in torchlight. They had gathered to watch him kill...or be killed.
Across the circle waited Dairon Sol, Warlord of the Eastern Reach, a living legend, a man whose battle scars were whispered about in taverns across the empire.
To claim the throne, Kael had to defeat him.
The Arbiter of Blood raised her bone mask and spoke:
"By blood and blade, by right of Varzian law, let the duel begin."
The first strike came like thunder.
Dairon moved with the fury of a storm, twin axes swinging in brutal arcs. Kael twisted aside, fast and precise, Veindrinker leaping to his hand as though it had been waiting.
Steel met steel. Sparks rained across the arena floor.
The crowd roarded as Kael drove Dairon back step by step; every parry a lesson, every cut deliberate. Veindrinker drank blood when it found flesh, its crimson runes flaring brighter with each drop.
But Dairon fought like a man who had no fear of death.
"Come on, boy!" he snarled, lunging again.
Kael met him with cold eyes and silence.
The duel was not rage. It was calculation. Every swing of Dairon's axe revealed rhythm, every step betrayed weakness. Kael waited for the opening. The single breath when the Legend faltered.
And it came.
A single low strike, Dairon overextended, and Kael moved like shadow. Veindrinker slid beneath ribs, through heart, and out the back.
Dairon staggered once.....
Then fell.
The Arbiter's voice rang clear:
"By blood of foe and witness of court, Kael Varzian claims the Crimson Ascension."
The arena erupted. Fire sigils blazed across the night sky, and the chants of 'Kael... Kael... Kael...' shook the stands.
But Kael only sheathed Veindrinker slowly. He had won the crown. But he had no idea what it would cost.
The crowd's roar still shook the arena when Kael felt it..... a pulse beneath the earth. A tremor crawling through the black stone like a warning.
He straightened slowly. The nobles of the Shadow Balcony were already shouting wagers, pledging oaths, toasting their new heir. But Kael saw none of them.
The ground itself was watching him.
"Your Highness," the Arbiter of Blood said as she approached, her bone mask streaked with runes that glowed faintly in the torchlight. "The crown recognizes you. The throne will demand its seal tonight."
Kael's eyes shifted towards the northern balcony where King Vaelor sat cloaked in shadow. The king gave no sign of approval. No sign of anything at all.
A father watching a son become heir.... or a rival.
Kael turned away before the thought lingered, because the tremor was growing worse.
Beneath his boots, the dueling circle's runes began to glow crimson, brighter than the torches above. The heat made the air tremble. His veins burned as though something inside him had been claimed...or marked.
And then came the whisper
"Heir of the Hollow Crown.....the blood remembers."
The voice was cold, feminine, and everywhere at once.
Kael's hand brushed the hilt of Veindrinker.
No one else seemed to hear it.
He scanned the arena edges, but the shadows revealed nothing, only nobles laughing, the Arbiter waiting and Dairon's corpse cooling on the black sand.
The words clung to him like chains.
The blood remembers
By the time Kael left the arena, the tremor had faded but the heat in his veins did not. It pulsed with every step he took toward the keep, like something beneath his skin had woken and would not sleep again.
That night, he dreamt of a throne made of bone and ash, and a crown that bled.
Kael woke before dawn, his breath sharp in the cold chambers of Blackspire Keep.
The dream clung like frost to his skin. A throne carved from bone; A crown dripping blood; A woman's voice calling his name from beyond the veil.
He rose and crossed to the mirror. The mark seared into his collarbone during the Ascension still glowed faintly, veins of crimson spiraling outward as though searching for something beneath his skin.
The magic had not settled; It was changing him.
He dressed in silence and left his chambers, boots echoing along empty corridors of the keep. Servants pretending not to watch. Nobles whispered from shadowed alcoves. Heir or not, Kael had seen the way they looked at him last night. Like a blade just unsheathed, dangerous even to the wielder.
At the Hall of Thorns, he stopped. The air here was older, heavier. The walls themselves seemed to breathe, black vines crawling across the stone like veins feeding the keep's heart.
It was there she found him.
The woman stepped from the shadows at the end of the hall, her robes stitched from smoke and midnight feathers. Her face hidden beneath a hood, but her voice carried like wind over glass.
"You bleed as your father bled", she said softly. "But the crown you claimed is not the crown that waits."
Kael's hand moved to Veindrinker. "Who are you?"
"Only a messenger," she replied. "The throne beneath the world stirs, heir of Varzian. And when it wakes, your blood will decide whether the empire stands... or burns!"
Her gaze, or what he felt of it beneath the hood, shifted towards the mark on his collarbone.
"The Hollow remembers you. The vale calls for you. Seek it before the next moonrise... or it begins without you."
Then she vanished. No sound. No trace.
Kael stood alone in the dark hall, the echo of her words curling like smoke around his thoughts.
The Vale calls for you.
He did not know what waited there but something told him he was going to learn...
Soon!!