All Chapters of Empire of the Plains: Chapter 31
- Chapter 40
44 chapters
Chapter Thirty-One – “The Starborn Child”
“Some lights guide you home. Others burn a path through you.”“Tell me you still feel him.”Lyra’s voice was a whisper wrapped in smoke.Karan closed his eyes. “Yes. Far. Thin. Like a string in a storm.”Serah scanned the gray horizon. “Which way?”Karan pointed toward the sky itself. “Up.”Serah frowned. “Up isn’t a direction.”“It is today,” Lyra said. “Mount, both of you.”They rode hard across the ash plain until the ground turned to old glass and the wind grew warm with memory. Above them, a pale ember flickered—too low to be a star, too stubborn to be a cloud.Serah squinted. “That light—why doesn’t it move?”Karan’s jaw tightened. “Because he’s holding it still.”Lyra breathed out, steadier now. “Kael, keep shining. We’re coming.”“Explain this ‘up,’” Serah said as they reached the cliff of broken basalt.Karan dismounted, laying his palm to the stone. Lightning slid beneath the surface like fish. “Sky-steppe.”Lyra nodded. “Old Dortracy legend. A stair the wind builds for thos
Chapter Thirty-Two – “Riders of Vareth”
“The wind remembers every oath you whisper into a horse’s ear.”“Ride or fall!”Vael’s spear flashed as the sky buckled. A round black wound opened above, drinking heat from the world.Lyra hugged Kael close. “Hold, little star.”Karan urged his smoke-stallion on. “Stay tight!”Serah laughed. “If I die, make it a song.”The sky-steppe trembled under hooves that struck nothing and found everything. Behind them, the wound widened with pale fire; a cold drew breath from their lungs.“Vael!” Lyra shouted. “What is it?”“The Mouth,” Vael said. “What eats thrones.”“Can it eat us?”“It eats anything that calls itself ruler.”“Then it will choke on me,” Lyra muttered, face down to the mare’s neck.Kael stirred, eyes half-gold, half-boy. “It’s hungry.”Karan leaned in his saddle. “Don’t speak to it.”“I’m not,” Kael whispered. “It’s speaking to me.”Vael slashed her spear; a hard wind-bridge arched a canyon of cloud. “Single file. Breathe with your mounts.”Karan sang the binding song—low Dor
Chapter Thirty-Three – “The Ash Envoy”
“A truce is a blade with pretty manners.”“Tell me that city isn’t moving.”Serah’s voice wobbled between awe and profanity.“It breathes,” Karan said.Lyra tightened her arm around Kael. “It waits.”They had fallen into a city made of storm.Streets formed where wind agreed. Towers rose like spears of rain arrested midfall, their edges faint and bright. Bridges arced from nothing, then settled into ropes of cloud, then into plates of hammered lightning that rang under hoof. Doors appeared when they were needed and shut like eyelids when they weren’t.Vael whistled low. “I’ve heard old songs, but this… this is new.”Kael leaned out from Lyra’s hold, eyes wide. “It knows us.”Karan’s gaze never stopped moving. “Or it knows what it wants from us.”“And what’s that?” Serah asked.“An ending,” Karan said.They crossed a square of pale thunder. A fountain stood in the middle, water pouring upward, pooling in a hovering bowl. The Dortracy mounts—smoke and memory—drank steam like it was swee
Chapter Thirty-Four – The Plaza of Lions
“Now? In my city?” Lyra asked.The white-veiled leader kept a palm raised. Light hung like a held blade. Ten more robed figures set their feet, each hand crowned by a bright sigil. The storm-city went still.Karan stepped half a shoulder in front of Lyra and Kael. “No one forces a rite on my son.”“You forced storms,” the leader replied, voice careful and clean. “We force meaning with law. Plaza of Lions. Now.”Vael clicked her tongue. The smoke herd stamped. “They want a door. If the city is a mind, they found where it dreams of lions.”Serah touched her hilts. “You move us by talking?”“By script,” said the leader, and drew a square of light. It hinged into a gate. Through it lay gold stone, broken marble, and the long shadow of two fallen cats. The dawn there was deliberate.Lyra felt the knot over her heart where three bands waited. “You will not name him.”“We will prove him harmless,” said the leader. “Or prove you cannot hold him.”Karan glanced at Lyra’s mantle. “We go. We cho
Chapter Thirty-Five – The War of Two Gods
“Hold the ring!”Lyra did not look away from the open circlet on Kael’s palms. The sky over the Plaza of Lions darkened at the center. White School sigils flared along the arches. The Mouth bit once, twice, testing stone.Karan planted his feet. Lightning thrummed in his shorn hair. “Kael, breathe with me.”“I am,” the boy said. The circlet did not fall.Serah sprinted the rim and cut a glowing sign that crawled along the cracks. “They are scripting the bite. They want the hole to swallow the vow first.”Vael sounded her horn and sent riders to every corner. Hooves stamped bright veins until the sigils sputtered. “We hold the edges,” she called. “Make the center true.”The White leader lifted both hands. “Seal the crown, mother. Close the gap. Give the world a circle it can chew.”Lyra raised her eyes over the ring. “No.”“You will lose him.”“We will teach it to starve.”The plaza lurched. Rael leaned against a pillar and barked names that were turning worthless.Karan spoke without
Chapter Thirty-Six – The Door of the Deep
“Do we follow him?” Serah asked, staring at the doorway that had opened where the lions once watched. Kor’Vareth stood with one forehoof inside the light, coin-braids chiming, ears pinned to whatever breathed beyond the stone.“We follow,” Karan said. He kept the open circlet under his cloak, fingers hooked through its gap as if it might try to close. “When the stallion calls, riders answer.”Lyra shifted Kael higher on her hip and kissed his hair. “Stay small. Stay ours.”“I’m not a door,” the boy murmured.“Never again,” she promised.Vael raised her horn; the smoke-born mounts stamped. Kor’Vareth blew once, a thunder that trembled the tiles, then stepped through. The light accepted him like a lake taking back a river. Karan guided his stallion after and looked back.“Now,” he said, and they crossed.Inside was tarnished silver. No sky, no ground, yet a road appeared under their hooves and sealed behind them like skin healing. Air smelled of wet iron and stone.“What is this?” Serah
Chapter Thirty-Seven: The Iron Rebirth
“Show me where the rope sings,” Lyra said.Kael pointed at the glowing litter on the far bank. “There, there, and there.” His finger traced the stakes. “The knots hum.”Karan studied the river. The current ran quick and brown. White School brass lined the bank. “We try words first.”Serah slid a knife into each boot. “Then we teach the words to bite.”Vael sent three notes into the mist. Lyra rode down with Kael before her saddle. She stopped where the ford shallowed. “Envoy,” she called. “You offered peace. This is not peace.”No envoy came. A white-veiled lector raised a rod and drew a square of light above the litter. “Behold the child chosen from among the ash,” the lector said. “Behold the rope of mercy.”“Mercy that binds is not mercy,” Lyra said.Karan stepped until the river wet his boots. “Who is the child?”“A miracle,” the lector replied. “A vessel that steadies the world.”Kael pressed into Lyra’s chest. “He is afraid,” he said.“Release him,” Karan said. Lightning prickle
Chapter Thirty-Eight – The Black Glass Road
“Keep the pace,” Vael murmured.Beyond Velannis’ green fringe, the world unrolled in sheets of hammered light. Dunes lifted and settled like the muscles of a sleeping beast; heat made the horizon breathe. Sand hissed under hooves that knew how to float rather than punch. Dortracy riders kept braids uncut and curved swords wrapped in cloth so the sun would not turn steel into a second sun. The road was memory more than line, a path felt through a mount’s shoulders.Lyra rode with Kael tucked against her, counting his breaths and the small shivers that meant thirst before he spoke. The open circlet lay beneath her mantle, its gap a cool kiss over her heart. She had promised the well-woman to wear refusal like law; even here the promise steadied her, as if a little emptiness created space for air.Karan took the middle rather than the point and let Vael read the dunes. He rode open-handed, shoulders loose, weight in calves, not jaw. The serpent scar along his forearm stayed quiet, cooked
Chapter Thirty-Nine – The Lion Reforged
“What’s on the lake?” Serah asked.“Not ash,” Vael said. “Not riders.”The black glass field shivered as if a fingertip tested its skin. Far out, something pale slid beneath the crust, a shadow traveling under a mirror. The forge breathed slow.Karan did not reach for lightning. He stood in the doorway with his hands open, letting the desert pass through him. Lyra lifted her mantle so the open circlet rested where any archer could see it. Kael leaned at her hip, listening to a song only he could hear.“It swims,” he whispered. “Not in water. In words.”The smith wiped her palm on leather and watched the lake. “If it favors glass, it favors reflection. It will try to turn you back into yourselves.”“Then we don’t look,” Serah said.“You look,” the smith replied. “And you don’t blink.”Three billets lay on oiled cloth, dark as river stones. Oathsteel was still a promise.Outside, Kor’Vareth stepped onto the nearest ribs and put weight down carefully. Coins in his braid clicked as hair b
Chapter Thirty-Nine – The Lion Reforged
“What’s on the lake?” Serah asked.“Not ash,” Vael said. “Not riders.”The black glass field shivered as if a fingertip tested its skin. Far out, something pale slid beneath the crust, a shadow traveling under a mirror. The forge breathed slow.Karan did not reach for lightning. He stood in the doorway with his hands open, letting the desert pass through him. Lyra lifted her mantle so the open circlet rested where any archer could see it. Kael leaned at her hip, listening to a song only he could hear.“It swims,” he whispered. “Not in water. In words.”The smith wiped her palm on leather and watched the lake. “If it favors glass, it favors reflection. It will try to turn you back into yourselves.”“Then we don’t look,” Serah said.“You look,” the smith replied. “And you don’t blink.”Three billets lay on oiled cloth, dark as river stones. Oathsteel was still a promise.Outside, Kor’Vareth stepped onto the nearest ribs and put weight down carefully. Coins in his braid clicked as hair b