…
The palace swallowed them.
Past the stairs, the air changed. The damp, mineral breath of the drowned city thinned into something older and drier, as if this place had been sealed away from the rest of the undercity's slow decay. Light from their lanterns slid over broad walls of pale stone, each block perfectly cut, edges still sharp despite the ages.
The first hall was wide, its ceiling climbing higher than anything they'd seen below. The walls were carved in processions of robed figures, crowns like halos, great beasts. The details had been softened by time, but the intent remained, It was a monument to something.
They followed the main passage, boots tapping over a floor of long rectangular tiles. Smaller corridors branched away into the dark, but the central path never broke, leading them deeper, always forward. The golden threads in Gold's chest pulled steadily, no longer tugging so much as guiding, like a hand on his back.
"Feels more like a temple than a palace," Ajit murmured, voice bouncing faintly off the stone.
No one disagreed.
The passage opened at last into a vast main hall.
The ceiling soared out of sight, swallowed by shadow despite the glow of their lanterns and the faint veins of pylonic ore threaded along the ribs of the arches. Countless pillars ringed the hall, each one carved with spiralling patterns like twisted roots, running from floor to ceiling. The floor was smooth, the tiles broader here, their lines forming a long avenue that led straight to a raised platform at the far end.
Upon that platform sat a throne.
It was simpler than Gold expected. No spikes, no snarling beasts, just a heavy seat of stone with a high back, flanked by two low arm rests. Time had worn its edges, but it felt oppressive, mighty.
And on that throne, resting where a king's head should have been, was a crown.
Gold felt it before he saw it.
His chest tightened, it wasn't pain, but recognition. The golden threads inside him flared, their tug no longer a direction but an ache. The distance between him and the crown felt wrong, like a limb cut off.
"We need to reach that platform," he said quietly.
Eyviria opened her mouth to reply.
But the hall answered first.
The pylons shone bright, flooding the whole space with light.
Stone groaned.
From between the pillars on the left, something stepped out - heavy feet grinding against the floor. A second shape emerged from the right. A third came straight ahead, blocking the line to the throne.
Three golems. Larger than the ones outside. Each one armoured in sculpted stone that mimicked plate, every joint denser mineral ridges. The veins of pylonic ore ran along them like ornate carvings, pulsing faintly with inner light.
The one at the centre carried a sword and shield - the knight. Its shield was broad and high, its sword a long, thick-edged blade made for crushing almost as much as cutting.
To its right, the spearman, taller than the knight, its shoulders wide, hand wrapped around a spear that was more like a pillar with a point.
To the left, the swordsman. No shield, just a massive two-handed sword nearly as tall as itself, the edge chipped but still deadly.
They halted in a line before the throne, feet planting in perfect synchronicity. For a moment, the hall was still, as if the palace itself was holding its breath.
Gold exhaled.
Calm washed over him, cutting through the lingering ache in his ribs, the memory of the Leviathan's slam, the weight of all the years behind him. The noise of the world dimmed. The only thing that mattered was the straight path from where he stood to where that crown waited.
"We have to get past them," he said.
Eyviria stepped forward, coat rustling. "Let's see how they handle this first."
She pulled her glove tighter and raised her hand, palm aimed toward the trio. For a short moment, space in front of her warped, as if pulled inward by invisible claws. Then she snapped her hand closed.
A sphere of compressed air detonated mid-row, just ahead of the knight. Fire burst from the heart of the implosion, expanding in a tight, controlled blast that would have torn flesh from bone if they had it.
The knight moved.
Its shield came up with inhuman precision, the explosion slamming against the stone. The force rippled across it. Then, with a twist of its arm, the golem angled the shield sideways with a heavy, contemptuous shove.
Fire and smoke were knocked aside, skidding across the floor in a rolling gust, leaving the golems untouched.
Under the knight's helmet, a glint. Two pale points of light, where eyes should have been, flickering. It looked at them.
Like something that was weighing them.
Eyviria lowered her hand slowly. "Well," she whispered, "that's annoying."
Gold stepped ahead.
Fritt and Ferra fell into place beside and slightly behind him. The others stayed back, forming a second line.
Gold inhaled.
He could feel the influence in his body now. As a pressure, like a tide pushing against his skin from the inside. He let it spread, filling his limbs, saturating muscle and bone. His vision sharpened. His heartbeat fell into a heavy, steady rhythm.
He exhaled. Heat rolled off him in a faint shimmer.
He took his first step.
The spearman answered. The golem's grip tightened, stone fingers cracking audibly around the shaft as It lunged.
The spear shot forward, a mass of stone and momentum big enough to throw wind ahead of it. The rush of air slammed against Gold's face a split second before the point reached him.
He evaded sideways.
The spearhead missed him, ripping through the air where his chest had been. He felt the vacuum it left tug at his clothes.
But the spear didn't stop.
As it overextended, the motion slowed with a grinding, croaking sound - the golem's joints resisting. Then the spear reversed, the tip carving a vicious arc back towards Gold in a slicing motion meant to catch him as he recovered.
Before the golem could commit to the attack, something slammed into the spear from the side.
Fritt's hands crashed against the stone, flames flickering briefly around his palms. Ferra's zweihander followed from the other side, her whole body leaning into the block. Together, they halted the spear just before it would have built enough speed to cut.
The shaft vibrated under their grip, the power behind it immense. Fritt's teeth clenched. "We got you!" he hissed through the strain.
The spearman dug in, trying to rip the weapon free. The two of them held long enough.
Gold ducked under the trapped spear and sprinted forward. The knight quickly reacted to him.
It stepped in, sword rising in a clean, vertical line. The blade descended with the inevitability of a falling gate, its weight turned into killing speed.
Gold didn't try to catch the full force. He turned into it.
He shifted his stance, twisting his shoulders and raising his own blade not to block, but as a slanted plane. Steel met stone near the edge of his sword - he let the impact slide along his weapon, transferring the power past him instead of into him.
The knight's sword smashed into the floor beside him.
The impact shook the hall. Tiles cracked. Dust burst upward in a ring, billowing, turning the space around them into a thick, choking cloud.
Gold let the blast of air roll past him, using it to carry him further into the dust veil. His feet found new ground, his body disappeared from the knight's direct sight.
The golem responded with brutal efficiency. It ripped its weapon free and swept the blade sideways in a wide arc, cutting through the cloud and swatting away the distraction.
Gold was no longer in front of it.
…
On the flank, the spearman's grip on the shaft tightened like a vice. Fritt and Ferra felt the change a second before it happened.
"Let go!" Fritt barked. They released their holds.
The spear jerked back, stone joints grinding as the golem drew the weapon in, the force enough to have dislocated their shoulders if they'd clung to it. They scrambled back a step, and that was when the hair on Fritt's neck prickled.
"Down!"
The warning came from his own instincts.
The swordsman's greatsword slammed down where they had just been. Both hands gripped the hilt, the full force channelled into the blow. The floor buckled, tiles blasted apart, chips of stone flying outward.
Fritt's hand clasped around Ferra's shoulder. He let his legs fold, harvesting the strain from the earlier spear struggle into his muscles like coiled springs. Then he detonated it.
A focused explosion erupted under his feet. Heat and force launched both of them sideways in a low, rough arc, tossing them out of the sword's shadow as it crushed the spot they'd been in.
"- The sword!" Fritt shouted mid-flight, planting his feet as they landed.
He took one staggering step forward, widening his stance. His shoulder rolled back and spine bending, drawing his fist to his hip as every muscle down his back tensed like pulled wire. Small flickers of flame escaped out from his back and shoulder, racing along his arm.
The swordsman raised its weapon again.
Fritt lunged to strike it. His punch met the flat of the stone blade half a second before Ferra hit.
The impact was a roaring strike. Fire and force exploded from his fist, cracks racing through the sword from the point of contact. On the opposite side, Ferra crashed shoulder-first, her full weight and momentum slamming into the weakened edge.
The massive sword snapped in two. The blade fell, shattered into chunks that clattered onto the ground.
Ferra stumbled a step, breath short. She turned and froze.
The spearman had reset its stance, slightly behind them. Its feet were planted wide, stone knees bent. The spear was nestled along its forearm, the tip of the spear aimed directly at her.
Its whole frame groaned with coiled power.
Most of Ferra's weight was still thrown forward from the slam. Her boots gripped the floor, but her centre of gravity was wrong.
Dread slid into her gut, cold and sharp.
An explosion erupted at the golem's waist, flame and force punching into its stance. The spearman toppled, its aim thrown wide as one leg scraped harshly across the tiles to regain balance. A chunk of stone helmet broke away from the pressure, fragments skittering across the ground.
A face was carved into the stone, deep sockets where the eyes were. In those sockets, lights burned. Shimmering and coiling like caged mist.
Ferra had a moment to process her rescue.
Then a blade flashed through her field of view. The knight's sword extended ahead as Gold ran on top of it.
He sprinted along the blade, the momentum carrying him upward. In two strides he was at the knight's eye level, driving his sword forward.
The tip plunged into the socket. There was little resistance, like piercing wood, then a sudden give. The blade sank in up to the guard.
A hiss answered him. A sharp, sizzling sound crawled along the steel into his hand as the eye's strange light reacted violently to the intrusion.
"Seems you can be blinded." Gold thought.
He twisted the blade, but the knight shook.
Its entire torso rotated in a violent, unnatural motion, joints grinding. The spin torqued Gold's body like a rag. He felt his grip slide, but he wrenched the sword free a second before he was ripped away completely.
He flew, hit the floor shoulder-first, rolled, then slid, boots screeching across the stone before he pushed himself up again. His lungs burning, the bruises from the leviathan's fight still lingered.
The swordsman, weapon broken but not harmless, stepped into the opportunity.
It gripped the ruined lower half of its sword, and dragged it across the floor in a vicious swing. The shattered edge carved grooves in the tiles, uprooting them in a grinding wave that raced straight toward Gold.
At the last instant, he pushed off his back foot, lunging backwards. The wave of pulverised stone roared beneath him, clipping the tips of his boots as he dashed away.
He landed a few steps away, feet digging in.
Fritt stumbled into view from the dusty side, Ferra backing up with her zweihander resting on her shoulder. They regrouped without needing to speak.
From behind them, Eyviria's voice cut through the hall. "We're not going to get anywhere like this," she said.
She was searching her bags as she approached quickly. She reached inside and pulled out several stones - small pylons, each one finger sized.
She handed them out quickly, one each.
"I can't blow up their cores directly," she said. "Their bodies are saturated with mana like torrents, it acts like a barrier to my influence. My magic slides off them."
"But if you embed these, already imbued with my influence, into weak points. I can use them as self detonated bombs."
Understanding clicked across their faces.
"Plant them," she finished. "Then shout."'
Looking back ahead, the golems had reorganised. The knight in the centre, shield raised, sword slightly back. The spearman to its right, stance tighter now despite the damage to its helm. The swordsman on the left, eager to strike.