Chapter 34: Chapter 34: The Unchained King
🌑 Scene: Soulforge Crater – One Day Later
FX: Wind howls across the ruined landscape. Cinders drift like snow. 🖤🌬️
[Visual: The mountain has collapsed. Only the vault stands — scorched but untouched. A single figure walks through the ash barefoot.]
Mordaviel.
His white hair whips behind him like silk. His eyes no longer glow. They absorb light.
Mordaviel (thinking):
"I was forged to control."
"I was sealed for being too stable."
"Now I am… neither."
[Scene: He kneels in the ashes, placing a hand on the earth.]
[FX: Black veins ripple out beneath the soil.]
Mordaviel (whispers):
"I have no master."
"I have no bonded."
"Then I will become the flame no one commands."
⚙️ Scene: Memory Fragment – Inside His Mind
[Visual: Young Ariyenna smiling. Her voice echoes.]
"You were always the calm one. They said I was the chaos."
[Young Mordaviel]:
"You were the song."
"I was just the silence it needed."
[The memory ends. Mordaviel's eyes flicker with something old — grief?]
Mordaviel (thinking):
"But you changed the melody."
"And left me in silence again."
[Scene: Crater – Now]
[He walks to a nearby outcropping where a Rebellion scout's body lies half-buried in ash.]
He kneels. Places two fingers on the man's chest.
[FX: The corpse twitches. A single breath exhales.]
Mordaviel (calm):
"You may rest. But your soul… will remember me."
[Visual: The scout dissolves into black ash. From it rises a flickering wraith-like shape. Its eyes open — loyal.]
First Wraith Whispering:
"Your will, Unchained King?"
Mordaviel:
"I do not need armies. I need echoes."
"I will not burn the world. I will make it quiet."
[Scene Shift: Mountain Path Below – Villager POV]
A boy in a frozen village sees something rise from the peak — a black crown-shaped cloud.
He whispers, afraid:
"Something old is awake."
🌑 Final Scene: Mordaviel stares into the horizon.
Mordaviel (thinking):
"She chose to walk away from her role."
"But I will walk into mine — not as a servant. Not as a king."
"As the one who was left behind."
[FX: A heartbeat pulses beneath the mountains. Somewhere far off, Riven feels it. Again.]