Chapter 4 — The Thirteenth Bell
Rain fell like a confession over the capital of Veyra.
Each droplet echoed against the palace roof — a rhythm the city had learned to fear.
Twelve bells. Always twelve.
The Thirteenth hadn't rung since the night a prince was executed for treason.
That prince was now walking through its shadow.
Erevan kept his hood low as he moved through the lower city. The streets stank of damp stone and desperate dreams. Beggars whispered prayers to the gods that stopped listening centuries ago. He didn't blame them; he'd stopped listening too.
> "They think you're still rotting in the royal crypt," the Crown murmured inside his mind, voice smooth as mercury.
"We could remind them otherwise."
Erevan smiled faintly. "Patience, Nihil. Even vengeance needs a stage."
He turned a corner into an alley filled with the smoke of roasting meat and black-market incense. A little girl with a missing tooth held out a wooden charm shaped like a crown.
"For protection," she said. "They say the ghost prince walks again."
He froze. The charm was carved with thirteen points.
"Do they?" he asked softly, taking it from her.
She nodded solemnly. "Mama says he eats liars."
Erevan laughed, a quiet, broken sound. "Then your mother has met the court."
He dropped a coin into her palm and walked away.
Behind him, the girl whispered, "The bells will ring again."
---
At the palace, the High Seer was screaming.
His eyes had gone milk-white; his fingers dug into the marble as he hissed prophecies between broken breaths.
> "The thirteenth flame has rekindled!"
"A soul without weight walks beneath the storm!"
The courtiers watched in horror. The Queen-Regent's voice was cold. "Speak plainly, prophet. What rises from the grave?"
The Seer shuddered. "Your sin, my Queen. Wearing a prince's face."
---
Meanwhile, Erevan stood before the city's central clock tower — the heart of the bells.
Rain slid down his cheek, tracing the scar of resurrection.
The door to the tower was locked. It didn't matter. Locks were for the living.
He pushed, and the wood splintered apart like memory itself.
Inside, the tower spiraled upward into gloom. Each bell hung silent in the dark, shaped like a frozen tear.
As he climbed, whispers trailed him — echoes of prayers, curses, lullabies. All twelve bells spoke in fragments of his past life.
Then he reached the top.
And there it was — the Thirteenth Bell. Smaller than the rest, darker, its surface carved with runes that refused to be read.
> Touch it, the Crown purred. It remembers you.
Erevan hesitated. "What happens if I do?"
> You remember it back.
He placed his hand on the cold metal. The bell trembled, then screamed — not a sound, but a feeling. The city below shivered as shadows stretched like spilled ink.
Lightning tore across the sky, and for one heartbeat, thirteen bells rang.
People fell to their knees. Windows shattered. The palace lights died.
Erevan staggered back, gasping as visions flooded him — his own execution, his brother's hand holding the blade, the Queen's eyes filled not with sorrow but relief.
> "Ah," he whispered, trembling between rage and laughter. "Family reunions are going to be awkward."
The Thirteenth Bell quieted, its echo fading into rain.
Far below, the Queen looked up from her throne, pale as bone.
"The Thirteenth… has rung," she whispered.
And somewhere in the distance, a child's voice laughed — the same girl from the alley — as if she'd always known.