Crescent Betrayal, The Ring That Remade Him

The Dying Embers

The dark does not just hide monsters. It turns you into one.

Lincoln rolled. He did not think. He did not reason. He simply threw his body sideways, his shoulder slamming into the cold, jagged stone of the mine wall. Above him, a heavy, bladed limb smashed into the ground where his head had been a second before. The sound was like a hammer striking an anvil.

"Get up," he told himself. "Move or die."

He scrambled blindly, his hands scraping against loose shale. He could feel the creature shifting, its weight causing the ground to tremble. It was smelling for him, testing the air with wet, clicking sounds. Lincoln sprinted into the blackness, his lungs burning. He needed distance. He needed light.

He turned a corner, stumbling down a slope that felt steeper than the last. His foot caught on something. He tumbled, rolling until he hit a flat surface.

Something was wrong. There was a light.

It was faint, a pathetic, wavering orange glow that barely kept the shadows at bay. He squinted, his eyes stinging from the dust of the descent. In the center of a small, cramped hollow, a figure sat hunched over. A stone plinth held a glass cylinder, and inside, a core of energy pulsed with a dying, rhythmic beat.

"Santiago?" Lincoln breathed out, his voice cracking.

The figure turned, the movement slow and agonizing. A pair of withered, dirt-stained hands trembled as the man shielded his eyes from Lincoln.

"Master Lincoln?" The voice was a rasp, barely audible over the distant skittering of the beast behind them. "Is that you? Or am I finally losing my mind?"

Lincoln rushed forward, falling to his knees beside the older man. He grabbed Santiago by the shoulders, feeling how thin the servant had become. His robes were torn, caked in grime and blood.

"It is me, Santiago. I am here," Lincoln choked back a sob, his chest tightening. "How are you alive? How did you get down here?"

"They threw me in," Santiago whispered. "They said I was an accomplice. They said I helped you steal from the family coffers."

Lincoln shook his head, his teeth gritting. "They are lying. Cressida just wanted you gone because you were the only one who knew the truth about my mother."

The old man nodded slowly, his eyes fixed on the dim orange light of the core. "It does not matter now. We are down here. We are forgotten. Look at the core, Master Lincoln. It is almost empty."

Lincoln looked at the cylinder. The energy inside was a faint, fading ember. It was not a fire. It was a funeral pyre.

"How long?" Lincoln asked, his voice steadying. He needed to be strong. He could not afford to break.

"Maybe an hour," Santiago said, looking at Lincoln with tired, sunken eyes. "Maybe less. When the light goes out, the cold takes us. And then, the things that live in the dark come to finish the job."

Lincoln felt the rage rising in his throat, hot and sharp. "We are not dying here. Not like this. I have a plan."

"What plan could you possibly have, boy?" Santiago asked, his tone devoid of hope. "You have no weapon. You have no food. You have nothing but your name, and that is a death sentence in this place."

"I have this." Lincoln pulled his mother ring from his pocket, holding it up so the dim light caught the dull metal. "It did something earlier. When I bled on it, it showed me things. It gave me a way to see."

Santiago leaned in, his brow furrowing. "That is the Forge Master signet. It was supposed to be destroyed when she died."

"It was not destroyed," Lincoln said, his fingers tightening around the cold metal. "And it is not just a ring. It is a key. I felt it, Santiago. It woke up. It talked to me."

Santiago stared at him, his mouth slightly open. "You are hallucinating, Lincoln. The darkness plays tricks on the mind. It makes you hear things that are not there."

"It was not a trick," Lincoln interrupted, his voice intense. "I saw the weakness in the stone. I saw the structure of the creature before it even moved. This ring, it is a tool. We just need to figure out how to use it before the light dies."

A loud crash echoed through the tunnel. Rocks rained down from the ceiling, small pebbles bouncing off Lincoln head.

"It found us," Lincoln whispered.

Santiago reached out, clutching Lincoln arm. His grip was surprisingly strong. "Leave me, Lincoln. You are young. You have your whole life ahead of you. Maybe you can climb out. Maybe there is a way back to the surface."

"I am not leaving you," Lincoln said, pulling away. "You were the only one who looked after me when I was nothing to that family. I am not leaving you here to be eaten by monsters."

"It is a death sentence, Master Lincoln," Santiago pleaded, his voice breaking. "Listen to me. You are the heir. You have to survive. You have to get back and tell them what they did."

"I will tell them," Lincoln said, standing up and grabbing a jagged piece of rock from the floor. "But I am telling them with my own mouth. I am not sending a ghost to do it for me."

The sound of skittering returned, closer now. It was faster, frantic. The beast was hungry. It smelled them. It smelled the fear radiating off the old man.

Lincoln turned to the core. It was pulsing slower, a steady, dying heartbeat. The light was flickering, casting long, frantic shadows against the walls.

"If I can just channel the energy," Lincoln muttered to himself. "If I can connect the ring to the core."

"What are you doing?" Santiago asked, his voice trembling.

"I am going to forge something," Lincoln said, his eyes scanning the debris around them. "I need metal. I need scraps. Anything."

Santiago reached into his tunic, pulling out a small, rusted knife. "Take it. It belonged to your father. He used to keep it in his study. I stole it before they dragged me away."

Lincoln took the blade, feeling the weight of it. It was dull, rusted, and useless, but it was metal. It was a start.

He knelt by the core, his heart hammering against his ribs. He placed the ring against the glass.

"Come on," he whispered. "Wake up. Show me how to survive."

The ring hummed. A low, vibrating sound that seemed to hum in his very bones. A blue light, colder and sharper than the orange glow of the core, flared to life. It illuminated the floor, projecting a complex, shimmering map of lines and symbols that only Lincoln seemed to see.

Santiago gasped, pulling back. "What is that?"

"It is the design," Lincoln said, his voice filled with sudden, manic energy. "I can see the structure. I can see the potential."

He pressed the rusted knife against the glass, right where the blue light intersected with the metal. He felt a surge of heat, a searing pain that traveled up his arm. He did not scream. He did not let go.

The rusted knife began to glow. The metal bubbled, shifting and realigning as if it were being worked by invisible hands.

"You are hurting yourself," Santiago cried out, trying to grab Lincoln wrist. "Stop it!"

"I have to," Lincoln gritted out, his teeth clenched. "If I stop, we die!"

The creature let out a high, piercing shriek. It was right outside the hollow. Lincoln could hear it clawing at the rock, tearing chunks of earth away with terrifying ease.

The blue light intensified, filling the small cave with an eerie, freezing brilliance. Lincoln watched, mesmerized, as the rusted knife warped, its edges sharpening into a jagged, serrated blade. The rust fell away, revealing a dark, polished metal that seemed to drink the light.

"It is working," Santiago whispered, his voice hushed with awe.

The light of the core shuddered. It dimmed once, twice, and then started to blink rapidly.

"It is going out," Lincoln said, his breath hitching. "The fuel is exhausted."

Then the blade finished.

Lincoln pulled the new weapon free. It felt heavy, balanced, and sharp enough to cut through solid granite. He stood up, turning toward the entrance of the hollow.

"Get behind me," he ordered.

"Master Lincoln," Santiago said, his voice thick with emotion. "You look just like her."

The everflame core gave one final, violent pulse, and then the light vanished completely.

Absolute, suffocating blackness swallowed the world.

Then, a sound tore through the silence. A wet, tearing screech that shattered the air. The beast lunged. Lincoln felt the wind of its passing just inches from his face. He swung the blade.