All Chapters of Heir by Dawn: Chapter 21
- Chapter 30
140 chapters
Chapter 21: The Chamber of Oaths
The passage twisted downward like a vein cut into the earth. The air stank of wet stone and something older copper and rot. Victor stumbled, still pale from the pool.Ethan kept a steady hand on his back. “Breathe,” Ethan murmured. “You’re through the worst.”Victor’s laugh was a hollow rattle. “That was only the beginning. I saw it, Ethan. All of you. Dead because of me. And I believed it.”Julian walked ahead, torchlight painting his smirk in gold and shadow. “Maybe you should have believed it, cousin. The cradle doesn’t invent lies it magnifies them.”“Shut up, Julian.” Ethan’s voice was sharp, edged with restraint. Julian turned, walking backward with an easy grin. “Oh, don’t scold me, dear heir. You know I’m right. Our bloodline is rot wrapped in silk. And you?You’re about to inherit seventy percent of the world’s wealth and seventy percent of its hatred.” Miriam’s quiet voice slipped in like a knife. “And yet he clings to loyalty. So quaint.”Victor whispered, “Why are you all
Chapter 22: The Broken Hour
They fell. Air tore past them, endless, black. Victor screamed until his voice broke. Miriam was silent, arms spread as though she welcomed the abyss. Ethan clutched for something, anything, but there was no ground, no end. Then the fall stopped.Not with a crash. Not with impact. They simply… hovered. Victor gasped, thrashing. “What—what is happening,why aren’t we”.Ethan looked down. There was no floor, only an ocean of shifting mirrors stretching to infinity. Above them, or below them, Julian’s laughter echoed, ragged and broken from blood. “Welcome… to the cradle’s third amusement.”Miriam’s voice was steady. “The Chamber of Hours.”Ethan snapped, “You knew this was coming?”“Not this shape,” she admitted, eyes sharp, drinking in every reflection below. “But the cradle always tests time.” Victor whimpered, staring into the mirror-ocean. “It’s… it’s us. I see us. But wrong.”He was right. Reflections swam in the mirrors , thousands of them. Ethan saw himself crowned, drenched in bl
Chapter 23: The Vanished
Silence. The echoes of the clock’s toll still vibrated in their bones. Chains clattered to the mirrors, dissolved into smoke, and for one heartbeat the chamber was still.Then Victor collapsed to his knees, hands clawing at the air. “Ethan! Ethan, am I—am I still here? Do you see me?”Ethan gripped his shoulders. “I see you. You’re here.”Victor sobbed, shaking violently. “It didn’t take me, it didn’t.”Julian’s broken laughter spilled into the silence. He staggered to his feet, wrists raw, blood dripping down his arms. “Ah… so it spares the coward. How poetic.”Miriam’s gaze swept the circle. Her eyes sharpened. “Wait.” She counted them. One. Two. Three. Her smile curled, cold. “We are four no longer.”Ethan froze. His gut dropped. He turned, scanning the shattered mirrors, the infinite reflections.Julian chuckled darkly. “Oh, yes. One is gone.”Victor’s sobs caught in his throat. He looked around wildly. “Who? Who.”Miriam’s eyes locked on Ethan. His chest seized. He spun back. The
Chapter 24: The Duel of Shadows
The cavern rang with steel. Blades sparked as Ethan clashed with himself, each strike a mirror, each parry perfectly timed. His arms ached, but his reflection’s movements were effortless, cruelly precise.Victor backed away, trembling. “This, this isn’t fair. It knows every move.”Julian laughed, blood still dripping from his lips. “Fair? Oh, Victor. This is Hale blood at its purest. He’s not fighting a stranger. He’s fighting inevitability.”Miriam’s smile was thin. “Or fate.”The reflection snarled mid-strike, voice identical to Ethan’s but colder. “You pretend at morality. You pretend you’re different from them. But I know. I am the hunger you bury. I am every lie you whisper to yourself at night.”Steel locked. The twin leaned in, eyes burning. “And when you kill, when you betray, when you destroy… it won’t be me you hate. It will be yourself.”Ethan gritted his teeth, forcing the blade away. “You’re not me.” The reflection smirked. “Aren’t I?”He twisted the sword, slammed Ethan
Chapter 25: The Hybrid
Julian’s eyes widened with manic delight. He staggered closer, blood smearing his jaw. “Perfection. Do you see, Ethan? The cradle has woven us together. My hunger, her cunning, your strength. A child more Hale than any of us.”Miriam’s gaze glittered, sharp and dangerous. “Not a child. A weapon.”The hybrid tilted its head. Its voice was layered, Ethan’s timbre, Miriam’s silk, Julian’s rasp. “Not child. Not weapon. Mirror. Key. I am what remains when your lies collapse.”It raised a hand. Time warped. The whispers froze mid-chant. Even Victor’s ragged breathing halted for a heartbeat.When sound returned, the hybrid stood inches from Ethan, blade in hand. Ethan jerked back, barely catching the strike. Steel screamed.The hybrid grinned. “Predictable. You fight like a man who still believes he has choices.” Ethan shoved it away, chest heaving. “You’re nothing but a trick. A shadow!”The hybrid’s grin widened. “If I am shadow, then why does your heart pound like prey?” It lunged again,
Chapter 26: The Name
The cavern roared as the ceiling split apart, gears grinding in infinite layers above them. Each tooth of metal turned with thunder, glowing faintly.And carved deep into the endless wheels was the same word, repeating, searing itself into the air. HER NAME.Victor clutched Ethan’s arm, shaking. “Wh-what does it mean? Ethan, what does it mean?”The hybrid tilted its head, smiling with Miriam’s cruelty. “It means the cradle is tired of your silence. Speak it, or it will drag it out of your flesh.”Ethan’s grip tightened on his sword. “This isn’t your fight.”Miriam stepped forward, voice smooth as poison. “Isn’t it? If the cradle itself demands her name, then she is tied to the key. To the inheritance. To us. Who was she, Ethan?”Julian staggered closer, grinning wide, eyes fever-bright. “Yes… yes, let him choke on it. The drowned one. The ghost. Your anchor and your shame.”Victor’s voice cracked. “You, you keep talking about her like I should know. Why don’t I know? Who was she?”The
Chapter Twenty-Seven: Hubrid of Anna
The chains burned like molten ice as they dragged Ethan downward. His scream was swallowed by the abyss, echoing back distorted, like a hundred voices mocking him. Then silence.He landed hard. Not on stone, not on glass, but on water. Black, endless water. It rippled out in rings, yet his body didn’t sink. He stood, trembling, sword still in hand, chains vanished.Above, the gears had closed, sealing away Miriam, Victor, Julian, and the hybrid. Only darkness remained.Ethan’s chest heaved. “Where… am I?”The water shifted. A ripple approached, deliberate, like footsteps. And then he heard it soft, familiar, slicing his heart open: “Ethan.” His head snapped up.She was there. Standing barefoot on the water, her dress clinging to her knees as though still soaked, hair trailing in damp strands. Her eyes were the same wide, alive, accusing. Anna.Ethan staggered forward, voice breaking. “No… no, this isn’t real.”Her smile was faint, trembling. “You let me drown.” He fell to his knees on
Chapter 28: The Choice
Her hand extended, soft, trembling. “Just say it. Say you’ll save me.” Ethan’s heart pounded. He reached instinctively then froze. From the abyss, another voice rose. Cold. Familiar. His father’s.“Ethan. Remember the blood you carry. Seventy percent of the world’s wealth, the power of generations, it is not yours to waste on ghosts. We did not build empires so you could trade them for regret.”The chains toward the abyss pulled harder. Ethan’s teeth ground. “No… no, you’re dead. You’re not here.”But the abyss laughed with his father’s voice. “Dead? We are all here. Every Hale that ever was. And we do not forgive weakness.”The glass shards circling Anna spun faster, showing hundreds of reflections of Ethan boy, man, heir, traitor.Anna’s whisper cut through, desperate. “Don’t listen. They never loved you. I did. Choose me.”Victor’s voice echoed faintly above, like a distant call through water. “Ethan! Hold on! Don’t let them take you!”Ethan’s breath hitched. He looked up saw nothin
Chapter 29: The Void Beyond the Cradle
The glass around them flickered, and the void bent. Ethan saw flashes cities burning, oceans splitting, millions of lives bound by unseen chains. At the center of it all: the master key, glowing like a dying sun.The first figure’s voice thundered. “The key was never forged to grant power. It was forged to contain it. To seal something that must never wake.”Ethan froze. “No… they told us the key controls the world’s wealth, the bloodline, the cradle.”The being’s faceless head shook. “Lies crafted by those who feared the truth. The key is the last shackle binding what your family tried to bury.”Ethan’s throat tightened. “What… what is it binding?”The void quaked. The figures stilled. For the first time, their voices wavered. “The first Hale.” Ethan staggered. “That’s impossible. The records he’s long dead.”A third figure’s laughter shattered like glass. “Dead? No, child. He sleeps. Bound beneath the weight of every successor’s greed. Your bloodline does not inherit his empire. It
Chapter Thirty: The Voice of the First
Ethan’s fists trembled. “If you’re so powerful, why are you chained here? Why not tear free?”The titan’s lids flickered, just slightly: “Because every Hale after me chose to bind rather than break. They feared what I would unleash.They sealed me with the master key their lives, their wealth, their children, all linked to my chains. But you… you are different.”Ethan staggered back as the titan’s words wrapped around his mind like hooks. “I’m nothing like you.”The voice purred: “Aren’t you? You refused the ghost. You refused the blood. You fell into the void because you would rather destroy choice itself than be enslaved. That… is my will.”Ethan shook his head violently. “No. That was my choice. Mine.”The titan chuckled, deep as shifting mountains. “You believe in choice? Then choose now, child. Release me… or remain their prisoner forever.”The cavern quaked. A chain snapped, molten sparks exploding into the air. The titan’s massive hand twitched, each finger thicker than the tow