I ran until my lungs burned like liquid fire.
Every breath felt like swallowing shattered glass. The poison coursed through my veins, an icy sludge slowing my limbs with every desperate stride, but I forced my body forward. My sword remained locked in my right hand, while volatile golden mana crackled weakly around my left.
I could still feel the sanctuary in the space between my ribs.
The pocket realm was holding. Thousands of hearts were beating safely within its golden borders.
My people. My family. Almost all of them.
I only needed two more.
I crashed through the archway of the eastern courtyard, and the sight before me stole what little air remained in my lungs.
My father stood with his back pressed against a crumbling palace wall, crimson running freely down his arm and staining his ceremonial robes. Cradled tightly against his chest was my youngest brother.
Cassian hung limply in his arms, pale and unconscious. He was only ten years old.
Three men surrounded them, blades drawn.
For a fraction of a second, relief surged through me. Nagas.
Then I saw their eyes. Cold. Empty. The scales along their necks were stained a sickly, unnatural black—the ancient markings that should have shone with the blessing of our ancestors had been corrupted.
Traitors.
The realization struck harder than steel. They hadn't just opened the gates for an invading force; they had sold their own bloodline. They had auctioned off their own kingdom.
One of the traitors raised his spear, its iron tip hovering inches from my father's throat. "You have nowhere left to run, Your Majesty."
My father spat blood onto the white stones, his golden eyes blazing with unyielding defiance. "I would sooner burn this kingdom to ash."
"Then burn."
The spear thrust forward.
"NO!"
Golden mana detonated from my palm. The spear shattered into a dozen glittering fragments before it could pierce my father's skin.
All three traitors whirled toward me. One of them let out a dark, disbelief-filled chuckle. "The prince."
" Ah! That fickle priest couldn't even do his job," another sneered. "The golden boy survived the poison."
I didn't answer. There was no time for words, no room left for mercy.
I raised my glowing hand, and a shockwave of ancestral light ripped across the courtyard. The stone floor buckled and tore open beneath our feet. The three traitors were launched backward as if struck by a falling mountain—one crashed through a marble column, another slammed heavily against the high wall, and the third was buried beneath a avalanche of collapsing rubble.
I didn't wait to see if they were breathing. I sprinted to my father's side.
His eyes widened as I skidded to my knees beside him. "Kael..."
For a heartbeat, raw, unvarnished relief washed over his face. But as he took in my trembling hands, the cold sweat on my forehead, and the black veins crawling up my neck, that relief turned to pure horror.
"Son..." He reached out, his hand gripping my shoulder. "What have they done to you?"
"I'm fine," I choked out, my voice ragged.
"You are lying to me."
"We don't have time for this!" I reached for Cassian. My little brother's pulse was faint, a fragile flutter against his throat, but he was alive. Thank the heavens, he was alive.
My father exhaled a heavy, shuddering breath and carefully transferred Cassian into my arms. "Take him. Go."
I blinked, looking up. "What?"
"The portal," my father commanded, his voice turning into the unyielding tone of a king. "Take your brother and step through."
"I'm not leaving you here!"
"You must, Kael!"
"I won't!"
His golden eyes hardened, swimming with fierce, heartbreaking authority. "That was not a request, Crown Prince!"
Before I could scream at him, a sharp, horrific pain exploded through my chest.
Agony tore through my shoulder, so violent it dropped me to my knees, barely keeping my grip on Cassian. A black, jagged obsidian blade pulled free from my back with a sickening sound, splashing my blood across the white marble.
I looked down, gasping. The strike hadn't hit my heart, but as I touched the wound, I felt the venom on the steel.
It wasn't the slow, paralyzing poison Eryn had given me in the tea. This was a dark, corrosive curse—a fluid ice that rushed straight into my bloodstream, freezing my veins from the inside out. My fingers began to shake uncontrollably. The world tilted, turning grey at the edges.
My father caught me before I hit the ground, dragging me and Cassian against his chest. "No... Kael, no..."
His voice broke. I had never heard the King of the Naga Realm sound broken.
I already knew. This second poison was fatal. The timer on my life had just run out.
I looked toward the shimmering tear in the air—the sanctuary portal was flickering, unstable, bleeding away its last remaining power. It couldn't stay open much longer.
I forced a weak, blood-stained smile. "Father..."
"Don't," he whispered, his hands tightening on my arms. "Don't you say it."
"You have to go," I rasped, every word dragging a breath of ice through my chest. "I can't hold the gate much longer."
"I will not leave my son to die in the ash!"
"You're not leaving me," I whispered, pressing my trembling, bloodied hand flat against his chest. "You are going to survive. So our people have a king."
Tears cut clean tracks through the dust and dried blood on his face. "I have already lost my kingdom, Kael. I will not lose you too."
"You haven't lost everything," I swallowed, the taste of iron heavy on my tongue. "You still have Cassian. You still have our people."
Golden mana flared around my fingertips.
The sanctuary portal roared, widening one last time in response to my royal blood.
My father grabbed my wrist, his grip desperate, pleading. "Kael..."
"I love you," I whispered. The words felt impossibly heavy, stealing the remaining strength from my knees. "I... I never said it enough."
His face crumpled, the regal posture shattering completely. "I know. Gods help me, I know. And I love you too my child."
"I should have listened to you," my voice trembled, tears finally spilling over my lashes. "You were just trying to protect me from him."
He couldn't speak. He simply pulled me into a fierce, crushing embrace, burying his face against my shoulder. For one brief, precious second, the war vanished. I wasn't a crown prince. I wasn't a failure. I was just a son being held by his father.
I closed my eyes, resting my head against his. "I'm sorry."
"So am I, my brave boy," he choked out. "So am I."
I gently placed Cassian back into his arms. The little boy stirred faintly, his tiny, weak fingers clutching at the crimson fabric of my sleeve. "...Brother...?"
"I'm right here," I whispered, pressing a soft kiss to his cold forehead. "I'll always be right here, Cass."
*Even if you never see me again.*
With the absolute last reserve of my spirit, I thrust both palms forward. Golden light roared from my core, surrounding my father and brother in a protective sphere of ancient magic.
"No! Kael!" my father screamed, reaching his free hand toward me.
I smiled through my tears, letting the light wash over us. "Rule them well, Your Majesty."
I shoved my hands forward, and the magic launched them through the threshold.
*SNAP.*
The doorway collapsed. The sanctuary vanished. The golden light died.
Silence. Complete, suffocating silence descended over the ruined courtyard.
My strength finally gave out, and I collapsed hard onto the blood-soaked stones, staring at the empty air where my family had been a second ago. I was alone.
"...Well."
A smooth, familiar voice echoed across the rubble.
"That was remarkably dramatic."
I didn't need to look up. I knew that voice better than my own name.
Eryn stepped through the drifting black smoke, his pale silk robes dusted with ash, but his smile as breathtaking as the day we first met beside the temple. Only now, that smile was entirely hollow.
Behind him, a dozen high-priests in bone masks stepped into the courtyard, their dark blades dripping with royal blood.
Eryn looked down at me, taking in my broken, bleeding frame, and let out a quiet, cruel laugh. "The great Prince Kaelan. Look at you. What a tragic, pathetic sight."
I forced myself up onto one palm, choking back a cough that sprayed crimson onto the marble. "You won't... find them."
"I know," Eryn replied smoothly, taking an unhurried step toward me. "You've hidden them in a pocket realm. Very clever." He stopped a few feet away, looking down at me like an insect under glass. "You were always exceptionally talented with spatial magic, Kael. But it doesn't matter."
His dark eyes dropped to my chest, lighting up with a terrifying, hungry glow.
"I can still feel it pulsing in your chest," Eryn whispered, stepping closer. "The Great Mana. The core of every king who ever ruled this land. Give it to me, Kael. Hand it over, and I might even let you draw your final breaths in peace."
I stared up at him—at the man I would have sacrificed my life for, the man for whom I had accidentally signed my kingdom's death warrant.
*How was I so blind?*
And then, a memory surfaced through the haze of the poison.
My father's hands on my shoulders inside the Inner Chamber. The ancient, sacred words spoken during the Rite of Succession: *The Great Mana is not a throne to be owned. It is a flame to be guarded.*
A sudden, fierce clarity washed over my dying mind.
I closed my eyes.
Eryn mistook the gesture for surrender, a triumphant grin spreading across his face. "That's it, my prince. Give it to me."
Deep within my chest, I reached for the burning core of golden light. I didn't try to wield it. I didn't try to fight with it. I simply opened my soul and let it detach.
A pain beyond physical comprehension tore through my body—it felt like my very spirit was being ripped in half. I bit my lip so hard it bled to keep from screaming.
Eryn's eyes widened, his breath catching as a blinding sphere of pure, golden light separated from my chest, hovering between us in the cool morning air. "Yes..." he gasped, reaching a trembling hand toward it. "Finally..."
I focused every drop of my dying consciousness on the glowing core.
'Mana of my ancestors...' I whispered into the quiet of my mind, where only the magic could hear me. 'Do not let him touch you. Hide yourself in the mortal realm. Wait for the day our bloodline rises again.'
The golden sphere pulsed once—a warm, steady beat that felt like a blessing.
I smiled through the blood on my lips.
With the very last spark of strength left in my body, I didn't pull the core into Eryn's hands. I threw my arm back and hurled it.
Not toward Eryn.
Away.
The golden sphere tore through the air like a shooting star, ascending high above the smoke of the palace, streaking across the sky before plunging over the horizon, vanishing into the vast, unknown world beyond.
Eryn's smile shattered. For the first time since this nightmare began, genuine terror flashed across his face.
"NO!" he shrieked, spinning toward the empty sky. "NO!"
A violent wave of dark wind erupted from his body in his fury, striking me like a physical blow. My broken frame was thrown backward across the courtyard, slamming heavily into the stone steps.
I couldn't move. I couldn't feel my legs. I could barely drag air into my crushed chest.
Footsteps rushed toward me.
Eryn stood over me, his beautiful face twisted into something hideous, demonic, and wild with rage.
"You utter fool!" he screamed, his voice shaking. "Do you have any idea what you've done?!"
I looked up into his dark eyes through a veil of crimson and shadow, and let a bloody, victorious smile curve my lips.
"Yes," I rasped, my voice barely a whisper. "You'll... never... have it."
Eryn's face went deadly pale, his eyes blazing with pure, murderous hatred. The last thing I saw was his hand rising, dark magic crackling around his fingertips as he brought it down toward my face.
Then, the world went completely black.