Kneel! The Fallen Hero Has Returned!

Chapter 3: The Testing Stone

"Touch it, cripple. If a single rune lights up, I'll kneel and apologize in front of everyone."

Damon's voice carried across, loud and sharp. He pointed at the black pillar of the Abyss Power Testing Stone. "And if it doesn't, you get on your knees and say you're garbage."

Ronan sat at the entrance in his wheelchair, and he did not answer right away. He was too busy counting the crowd.

At least two hundred people were packed into the hall.

"Look at him," a woman whispered. "He actually came."

"Where else would he go?" her companion sneered. "Nobody's going to feed him now."

Old Bram, the one servant who had ever been kind to him, stood behind the chair with trembling hands. "Young Master," he whispered, "we can still leave. They can't force you."

"It's all right, Bram," Ronan murmured. "I want to see it."

"See what?"

"How loudly they laugh."

Bram frowned, confused, and Ronan let it go. He couldn't explain that the glowing heat in his chest had to be handled very carefully today. If the stone lit up, everyone would know he had recovered, and Damon would send a hundred assassins by morning. So Ronan needed it to stay dark.

A shadow fell across him.

"R-Ronan," Seren whispered, standing at the front row with her arms wrapped around herself. Her eyes were red and swollen. "Please, just say sorry to Damon and leave. You don't have to do this."

"Are you worried about me?" Ronan asked, blinking up at her with wet, hopeful eyes.

"I..." She bit her lip. "I just don't want you to get hurt."

"That's so kind," he said softly, and he let his voice crack. "You always cared the most."

Seren flinched, and for a moment guilt crossed her face. Then Damon grabbed her wrist and pulled her away, and Ronan watched her let him do it.

"Enough talk!" Damon barked. "Bring him up!"

Two servants lifted Ronan's chair onto the platform, and the crowd cheered. The stone stood twice his height, a smooth black pillar carved with silver runes that glowed whenever someone with Abyss energy came near. Ronan had touched it once as a boy, and it had lit the whole hall like a sunrise.

Now he stared at it, and his stomach tightened. Just touching it might be enough to wake the runes.

"Go on, cripple!" a voice jeered. "Don't fall out of your chair!"

"Hurry up! We have places to be!"

Ronan raised his right hand, shaking on purpose, and pressed his palm slowly against the surface. At the same time he drew his core inward and sealed it so deeply that even he could barely feel it. He held his breath.

Nothing happened.

The runes stayed dark. A long, heavy pause stretched through the hall, and then someone snorted, and then the whole crowd burst into laughter.

"Hahaha! Nothing!"

"I told you! He's finished!"

Damon folded his arms and grinned. "Look at that. Same old cripple. Now kneel, Ronan. You made a deal."

"B-but I can't kneel," Ronan said, and he looked down at his useless legs with a miserable expression. "My legs..."

"Then crawl!" a man shouted, and the crowd howled.

Ronan bowed his head, and his shoulders shook as though he were crying. In truth he was fighting a different battle. The core in his chest had sensed the stone's runes, and it was pulling toward them like a magnet. A thin thread of gold had slipped out of his control and crept down his arm into his palm.

*No,* he thought, sweating. *Not now. Back.*

The thread slid into the stone.

A sharp crack echoed through the hall, the laughter stopped. Every head turned toward the pillar, where a thin dark line had split the surface near the base.

"What was that?" a man asked slowly.

A second crack followed, then a third. They raced up the stone like spiderwebs, and the silver runes began to whine, thin and high. Ronan yanked his hand back and let out a scream that was mostly real.

"Aaah! It hurt me! It bit me!"

The pillar exploded.

Black fragments clattered across the room, people shrieked and ducked, and Damon threw an arm over his face. When the dust cleared, Ronan sat slumped in his chair, clutching his wrist and trembling, with a few small pieces of stone in his lap.

Silence filled the hall.

"It... it broke," a man whispered. "The testing stone. It's stood for three hundred years."

"How?" a woman breathed. "He's a cripple. He can't have power."

Then the shouting began.

"He tampered with it! I saw his hand!"

"That's a rune-breaker, I'd bet my life. He smuggled something in!"

"The stone was old. Anyone could see the cracks."

"Then why did it break right when he touched it?"

"Search him!" Damon shouted, pushing through the crowd with a flushed face. "Search his chair, his coat, everything! He's cheated somehow!"

Guards swarmed Ronan's chair. They tore off the cushions, pulled out his pockets, and shook his coat until it ripped at the seam.

One guard even lifted his legs and tapped them with a baton, and Ronan gave a weak cry that made some of the women wince.

"Nothing," a guard reported, panting. "Just an old blanket and a pouch of medicine."

"Impossible!" Damon snapped. "Search again!"

"S-sir, I swear, I didn't do anything!" Ronan sobbed, his voice breaking into a stammer. "I only touched it, like you told me! Please, I'm just a cripple, I don't know how, I don't know what happened!"

"Don't lie to me!" Damon grabbed his collar. "Nobody breaks that stone by accident!"

"Young Master Cross." Elder Fenn, a stooped man with a gray beard, stepped forward and cleared his throat. "Perhaps it's the corrosion. Everyone knows his body is filled with Abyss taint. Perhaps the stone simply couldn't tolerate it."

A murmur of agreement passed through the crowd. "Yes, that must be it!"

"Of course! Abyss poison! Like a rotten apple spoiling the barrel!"

"Then he should pay for the damage," someone said. "The family should at least be fined."

"Three hundred years of history," another voice complained, "ruined by a sick man."

Ronan lowered his head and let them argue. It was almost funny. They had just watched the truth explode in front of their eyes, and they were scrambling to build a story where nothing had changed.

"Fine." Damon finally let go of him, still breathing hard. "Take him away. And send a bill to the Vale family. A big one."

Servants rolled Ronan down the aisle as the crowd jeered and tossed crumpled paper at his head. Old Bram walked beside him with tears in his eyes, muttering curses under his breath.

Back on the platform, Damon stood alone, his face dark. He bent and picked up a small shard of the broken stone. Then he went very still.

The edge of the shard was warm.

"Strange," Damon whispered, and his smile slowly died. "That's not poison."