Legacy of the Lost Sigil

Chapter 9: Whispering Rib

The chamber pulsed like a wounded heart.

Kael knelt before the ribcage—blackened, cracked, yet unmistakably alive. The crystal coffin barely contained the thing within: a single massive bone, spiraled like a serpent’s fang, etched with runes so ancient the air around them shimmered.

[System Alert: Unknown Entity—Wyrmbound Class Detected]

Initiating mental defense layer...

Warning: Psyche Intrusion Level 2 / Consciousness Drift Risk: 42%

Kael's breath caught. “It’s... it’s inside my head.”

“Don’t let it anchor,” Thorne warned sharply. “It’ll speak in you. Through you. It doesn’t knock—it leaks.”

The voice came not as words, but as feeling: cold rain on a sunless day. Memories not his own surged in flashes.

Golden eyes watching a burning sky.

Hands—his hands?—gripping a bloody throne of bone.

A woman’s voice screaming his name, not as Kael, but something older: “Ardyn... Ardyn, come back!”

Kael clutched his chest. “It knows me.”

Seris moved closer, sword trembling. “No—it knows him. The one you were meant to become.”

The rib cracked—just slightly—but the sound echoed like thunder. A pulse of magic rushed out and splashed against the spiral walls like black ink over glass.

Thorne stepped forward, hand on Kael’s shoulder. “Focus. Seal it back down. Use the system.”

Kael's mind reeled. The voice spoke again, this time shaped into his thoughts:

“You carry my heart, heirling. My dream, my chains. Let me in... and I will show you your true name.”

For a heartbeat, Kael saw everything:

The Shrouded Fang standing before a half-born Wyrmbound, chanting his name in reverence.

A great betrayal—a child torn from a battlefield, sealed in a ritual not to destroy, but to host.

Aelira weeping, alone, with the pendant stained in her own blood.

Kael screamed.

Then—resistance.

The pendant flared. A flare of red sigils formed around Kael’s body, pushing the whispers outward. His hands glowed, not with fire, but with pulse energy—a healing magic infused with rejection.

[System Defense Protocol Engaged: Pulse-Seal Sigil Formed]

Wyrmbound psychic tether repelled.

Memory integration: 18% preserved.

The coffin stilled.

Kael slumped forward, drained, sweat freezing on his skin.

Seris knelt beside him. “You held it off.”

“I saw it,” Kael whispered. “It doesn’t want to kill me. It wants... to be me.”

Thorne, pale, nodded. “Now you understand. The seal isn’t just to contain it. It’s to merge it slowly into you. Over time.”

Kael stared at his trembling hands.

"Then we don’t have time."

The chamber was silent, but not still.

Kael stood beneath the open sky at the edge of the Rift’s outer rim, just beyond the stone arch that marked the sealed Spiral. Behind him, the others slept—Seris seated with her back to a rock, blade across her lap, Thorne inside a half-sketched ward circle, murmuring protective chants in his sleep.

But Kael could not rest.

[System Notification: Residual Wyrmbound Energy Detected]

Origin: Rib fragment—partial psychic imprint absorbed

Result: Arcane compatibility status... INCOMPLETE

Initiate Conditional Trial?

He hesitated. The last time he felt the rib’s pull, it nearly drowned him in memory. But something had changed. His pendant now glowed faintly whenever he focused inward—like it, too, had begun to adapt.

"Show me what you want," he whispered.

Trial Initiated: ASHBORNE PATH

Objective: Synchronize Wyrmbound Echo Energy with Pulse System without full possession.

Warning: High Risk. Low Guidance. Unknown Results.

Kael’s vision dimmed—not black, but flame-red. The system carved a spiral beneath his feet, and from the Rift’s edge rose a simulacrum of the rib—a burning outline in gold and crimson.

A voice stirred within. But it wasn’t the Wyrmbound.

It was... his own.

You fear becoming the beast... But what if the beast was never meant to be destroyed?

The training began not with strikes or steps, but breath. Kael was forced to hold magic and pain in tandem—to feel his pulse and the rib’s whispering rhythm align. The fragment echoed thoughts, surfacing fears, regrets, and temptation.

Then—his hand sparked.

Not fire. Not healing.

Both.

A small arc ignited between his fingers—an inversion pulse, as Thorne would later call it. Neither wholly destructive nor restorative. A mix of rejection and adaptation.

It danced like lightning across his palm, crackling into a blade form, vanishing just as quickly.

Kael gasped.

[System Alert: New Trait Unlocked — Wyrmborne Adaptation]

Pulse energy can now invert temporary matter: healing or harming depending on target resonance.

This ability bypasses magical wards but is unstable in high-memory zones.

He opened his eyes.

Thorne stood nearby, watching. His staff was still glowing, but he’d not interfered.

“You felt it,” Kael said.

“I did.”

Seris stirred but remained silent. The crackling hadn’t woken her—it had paused her dream.

Thorne crouched. “And now you’ve passed your first Ashborne Trial.”

“Was it real?” Kael asked. “That voice… was that it?”

“No,” Thorne said carefully. “That was you. Or rather, the part of you that survived being a seal.”

He glanced at Kael’s hands, still pulsing faintly.

“That was the first proof that your system is no longer just a tool. It’s becoming a bridge.”

Later that night, Kael stood alone.

He looked at his palm, the faint shimmer of crimson still beneath the skin. Not a wound, not a gift. A mirror.

Behind him, Thorne and Seris watched—but did not interrupt.

“I’m not becoming him,” Kael whispered. “But I’m not just me either.”

The pendant pulsed once.

“Not becoming. Becoming something new.”

And the spiral below responded with the faint echo of breath.