Crown of shadows and sin

The fires reached Dravenfall before nightfall.

Alera stood at the northern wall of the Hollow Hall, staring out at the glowing haze rising beyond the hills. It wasn't wildfire. It wasn't the Syndicate.

The flame had no warmth. It radiated death.

Beneath the smoke, something moved. Slowly. Like a god reclaiming what had once been his.

Inside the Hall, Kael poured through scrolls taken from Valdrik's vault ancient texts written in broken Old Tongue. He was searching for names, for stories, for warnings. But every passage said the same thing:

 The Bone Heir was never meant to rise again.

 If he does, all heirs fall.

Kieran had not spoken since he woke.

His eyes had changed. One still burned dark amber his true self but the other glowed faint violet, cracked with shadow. The transformation had begun when he channeled the Rite. And now, something darker stirred inside him.

He sat in the Hollow Hall's lower chamber, silent, unmoving, his back pressed against the cold stone wall. Alera sat beside him, but he didn't look at her.

She didn't speak either.

There were no words left that didn't ache.

When she finally broke the silence, her voice was barely more than a whisper.

"Do you know what's happening to you?"

He shook his head. "But I feel it."

"Can you stop it?"

"No."

She closed her eyes.

He turned toward her. "But I can use it."

In the city's lower district, corpses were rising.

Not mindless. Not slow. These ones walked with precision. Eyes white, bodies stitched in gold and bone. Each carried a sigil etched into their chests like a brand of allegiance.

Kael watched from the rooftop of an abandoned tower, his breath visible even in the summer heat.

He had never felt fear.

Not in the Frostborn Temple where he was raised.

Not during the Rite.

Not even when his own existence hinged on another child being denied divinity.

But this…

This was older than prophecy. Older than gods.

This was the beginning of the end.

And the Bone Heir… was marching toward the Hollow Hall.

Valdrik collapsed inside the vault.

His strength had waned ever since the Rite. He was fading.

Alera stood over him, demanding answers. "Tell me what he is."

Valdrik coughed, blood staining his lips. "He was the first chosen. Created by the founding kings to rule with divine authority. But he turned on them. He demanded more than the throne. He wanted to unmake death."

"And they buried him?"

"No. They failed to kill him. So they locked him beneath the Ember Throne and sealed the world above."

"Then why now?"

Valdrik looked at her, eyes dim. "Because your son was never meant to live."

The walls shook.

Dust fell from the ceiling. A low, grinding sound echoed from the southern gate.

Kieran stood in the Hall above, watching the horizon turn black with smoke.

The Bone Heir had arrived.

And with him came the Choir of the Dead thirteen highborn warriors resurrected from the tombs of fallen kings. Bound to the first heir by blood and sacrifice, they wielded power unlike any living being.

Kael returned, blood on his robes, eyes haunted.

"We can't stop them," he said.

"We don't have to," Kieran replied.

Kael turned sharply. "What do you mean?"

Kieran stepped forward. "We draw them in. And we destroy the throne before he touches it."

Alera stared at him. "Destroy the Ember Throne?"

"Yes," Kieran said. "We end the war by ending the thing they all want."

That night, the Hall was silent.

Alera lay awake, eyes fixed on the cracks in the ceiling above her bed.

She thought of the throne.

She thought of the child inside her still, calm, waiting.

She thought of Kieran, whose soul now danced on the edge of ruin.

And she thought of the first heir, whose name no scroll dared record.

A name buried beneath bone and dust, erased by kings, feared by gods.

She rose before dawn, dressed in black, and descended to the vault where the throne once stood.

Kael was already there.

Waiting.

"Will you help me destroy it?" she asked.

He didn't answer. Just stepped forward and placed his hand on the stone floor.

Frost spread beneath his palm, cracking the earth.

Kieran joined them minutes later, his blade humming with dark light.

Together, they would make a choice no ruler had dared make in five hundred years.

To destroy the throne...

Even if it destroyed them too.