The air was brittle, keen as broken glass, when Kael and Liora crested the last ridge. Below them stood the Silent Keep.
It was not a castle in the grand sense—not like the white towers of Lumeris or the black fortresses of Drakar—but a sprawling ruin of broken stone walls, fissured towers, and ivy-strangled arches. Nevertheless, its presence bore down upon the land. The shadows clustered about it, spreading out as if the very ruin was bleeding darkness.
Kael shivered. The mark on his arm prickled faintly, as though whispering a greeting to the keep.
"This is it," Liora said quietly. She did not smile. Her pale eyes lingered on the ruin with an unreadable weight. "The place where they say your bloodline was first cursed."
Kael swallowed. "You've brought me to my death, haven't you?"
"Or your truth."
The wind stirred around them, carrying on it the far creak of stone, as if the keep itself groaned to life. The slope was steep and lined with broken boulders. They moved cautiously, yet Kael could not shake the feeling that unseen eyes tracked their progress.
By the time they reached the shattered gates, Kael's breath came heavy. The gates hung crooked, one iron bar twisted like clay. Liora touched the metal lightly. Frost spread across the iron, shimmering.
"It's old," she murmured. "But power still lingers here."
Inside, the courtyard gaped open. Weeds pushed their way up through cracks in the cobblestones. Statues had toppled—winged figures with faces worn off, as though someone had tried to scour them from memory.
The mark on Kael's arm burned hot.
He clenched his fist. "Why does it feel like it knows me?"
Liora's gaze jerked to him. For the first time, her poise faltered; uncertainty gleamed in her eyes. "Because this keep was built for the Heirs of Shadows. You are not the first."
Kael's breath stalled. "There were others?"
"Always. One every generation. Some burned out early. Some disappeared. None of them." Her voice fell to a whisper. "None of them lived long enough to complete what began here."
The words stung Kael's chest like a dagger. He wasn't special. He wasn't the chosen one. He was merely another in a line of cursed children, fated to repeat the past.
They walked on.
The deeper they penetrated the keep, the more suffocating the silence grew. It was not a natural silence. It pressed against Kael's ears, stifling his breath, muffling the clang of his boots on the stone. Even the beat of his heart seemed distant, as if the keep absorbed the sound from the air.
They entered what could have been the great hall. A collapsed ceiling let in shafts of light that illuminated fragments of stained glass. The windows depicted battles—men in armor holding their ground against dark, monstrous shapes.
Kael stopped before one panel that remained intact. The figure in the glass bore the same mark etched into his skin.
His throat tightened. "That's… me."
"No," Liora breathed. "That's the first Heir. The one who began it all."
Kael stepped closer. The glass shimmered strangely, as though the light bent in it. The eyes of the figure in the glass seemed to live, watching him.
And then the whisper.
Kael…
He leapt back, heart pounding. "Did you hear that?"
Liora stiffened. Her hand went to her sword. "What?"
It—my name was said." His voice cracked. He slapped his hand over the mark, which now pulsed frantically, each beat of it echoing the sound of his name in his mind.
Kael… Heir… ours…
The voice grew louder, not one voice but several voices layered one on top of another like a choir far beneath stone. He fell to his knees, holding his arm.
Liora was beside him in an instant, gripping his shoulders. "Kael, listen to me. Don't answer it."
"I'm not—" He gasped. Shadows seeped from the cracks in the hall, curling like smoke, racing toward him. They wrapped around his legs, coiling up his arms.
The voices surged. Join us… complete us…
"Kael!" Liora shouted. "Fight it!"
But it was too late. The shadows struck into his chest like knives.
—
Kael was absent from the hall.
Darkness gaped endlessly, broken only by faint flashes of silver light. He was standing on nothing, in a limitless void. And before him stood a throne, crafted of obsidian and bone. Upon it was a form cloaked in shadow.
Kael's breath stopped.
The face of the figure was obscured, twisting like smoke. But its eyes… its eyes were his own.
You've returned home," said the shadow-Kael. Its voice was layered, distorted, like a thousand throats speaking together.
"This isn't real," Kael whispered.
"It is more real than your world of war and dust." The figure rose, towering, shadows pouring off it in waves. "I am what you will be. What you already are. The end that was promised."
Kael shook his head furiously. "No. I won't be like you.
"You have no choice." The figure extended its hand. "Every Heir before you struggled. Every Heir was broken. You will be no different."
Kael's chest ached. His body was weighted, his spirit pulled towards that outstretched hand.
And yet—somehow beyond the void—he heard a voice. Liora's.
"Kael! Come back!"
Her voice cut like a knife through the darkness. For the first time, the figure hesitated. Its smoky shape wavered.
Kael gritted his teeth. "I… don't… belong to you."
He tore his arm free of the pull with every ounce of strength he possessed. Light—faint, struggling—burst along the edges of the mark. The darkness shrieked, a sound that rattled the void.
The figure recoiled. "You cannot resist forever!"
Kael's vision blurred. His body was ripping in two. And then, with a nasty snap, the void collapsed.
—
He came to with a gasp, lying prostrate on the floor of the hall. The shadows writhed around him, then dissolved into the cracks of the stone. His flesh seared where the mark had burned, but he lived.
Liora crouched over him, her face white, her eyes open wide in a thing he had never seen in her before: fear.
"You…" Her voice trembled. "You stood against it."
Kael tried to sit up, but his body screamed in objection. "What was that?"
"The throne of shadows," Liora whispered. She looked around the ruined hall, her breath weak. "No one has ever returned after it called them. Until you."
Kael's heart pounded. The vision of the figure's eyes—his own eyes—burned itself into him yet.
He looked down at his trembling hands. "If that's what I'm destined to become… then maybe the prophecy is true."
Liora's jaw tightened. She placed her hand firmly on his shoulder, grounding him. "Or maybe you've just proven you can defy it."
For a while, Kael simply looked at her. Then he nodded weakly.
But in his heart of hearts, he knew the truth wasn't so simple. The throne hadn't been defeated. It had simply been biding its time.
And it was still calling his name.