THE KING WHO HAD NO MAGIC

CHAPTER 5: THE FORBIDDEN ALCHEMY

Julian scrambled backward in the mud, his eyes fixed on the darkness behind me. I didn't turn. I didn't have to. The air was curdling, turning from the damp rot of the forest into something metallic and sharp.

"Jack, look at me," a voice vibrated through the clearing.

It wasn't Julian. It was Silas. The scarecrow was no longer hanging from a rope. He was standing, his straw legs jerky and uneven, but his presence felt like a physical weight pressing against the trees.

"The boys in the silver tin are irrelevant," Silas said, walking toward us. He didn't look at Julian, who was currently hyperventilating. "We have a schedule to keep."

I couldn't speak, so I jabbed the sword toward the darkness, an unspoken question hanging in the air.

"That?" Silas chuckled, his stolen voice echoing. "That’s just the world remembering what it lost. You think you’re a freak, Jack? You think 'Hollow' is a slur the wizards invented for the unlucky?"

"He's a monster!" Julian shrieked, finding his voice. "He’s a void-mancer! The Inquisition will burn every tree in this forest to find him!"

Silas tilted his burlap head. "Inquisition? Little boy, your 'Inquisition' is a group of children playing with stolen matches. Jack isn't a void-mancer. He’s the original owner of the flame."

I frowned, gesturing for Silas to explain.

"Thousands of years ago, before the first 'Lord' learned to siphon mana from the atmosphere, there were the Hollows," Silas said, his red eyes glowing brighter. "They didn't use magic. They were the balance. They were the apex. Then the wizards found a way to bridge the gap—they stole the mana, stored it in batteries, and branded the ones they couldn't control as 'Hollow.' They didn't just defeat your kind, Jack. They deleted your history."

I grabbed Silas by his tattered lapel, my face inches from his. I pointed to the thorned crown glowing on my arm.

"It’s a seal," Silas whispered. "A lock on a vault. Malakor thought he was crushing you with that 'Weight of Sin' spell, but all he did was crack the door. Now, you need a key."

"Where?" I mouthed.

"The Old Well. At the edge of the Death-Mist. It’s the last remaining Forge of the First Kings. You want a real weapon? Something that won't shatter when you touch it? We go there."

"I'm not letting you go anywhere!" Julian roared. He had found a discarded dagger and was charging at me.

I didn't even look. I simply stepped into the Null-Pattern. Julian sailed past me, tripping over a root and face-planting into a pile of Mana-Hound ash.

"Leave him," Silas advised. "The forest will have him soon enough. We have a trek to make."

We moved. I followed Silas through the thickest parts of the mist, moving in a blur of silent speed. Every time my feet hit the ground, I felt the earth's energy pulsing up through my soles. I wasn't getting tired. If anything, the more the forest tried to choke me with its magical miasma, the stronger I felt.

"You’re eating the environment again," Silas noted, skipping over a stream of glowing blue water. "Careful. If you take too much, you’ll collapse the local ecosystem. Not that it’s much to look at anyway."

I caught a glimpse of my reflection in the water. My skin was pale, almost translucent, and the golden light of the crown tattoo was bleeding into my veins.

"How far?" I signaled.

"Past the Hanging Gardens of Bone. Just up ahead. Tell me, Jack, what will you do when you have the power to unmake them? Will you be a merciful king, or will you be the monster they say you are?"

I clenched my fist. I thought of Malakor’s boot on my head. I thought of the judges laughing as they revoked my knighthood. I thought of ten years of bleeding for people who saw me as mud.

"Mercy is for the living," I thought.

"I like that," Silas said, as if he could hear my thoughts. "Very poetic."

We reached a clearing that felt different from the others. It was perfectly circular, and the trees here were petrified—turned to solid black stone. In the center sat a stone structure, crumbling and covered in lichen.

"The Old Well," Silas announced, stopping at the edge of the stone circle. "Inside is a shard of the Star-Steel. It’s the only thing that can channel your hunger without melting."

I started toward it, but Silas put a straw hand on my chest.

"Wait for the greeting," he said.

"Greeting?" I mouthed.

The ground began to vibrate. Not a shake, but a deep, rhythmic thrumming that felt like a heartbeat. The water in the well didn't splash; it began to rise, swirling in a clockwise direction until it formed a towering pillar of liquid mana.

"A hundred years," a voice boomed—a voice that sounded like grinding rocks. "A hundred years since the last thief tried to drink from the forge."

The water began to take shape. Necks sprouted from the central mass—one, three, five. Five heads with eyes like molten sapphires.

"A Mana-Hydra," Silas whispered, backing away. "The High Kings left it here to guard the forge. It hasn't eaten a soul in a century, and it looks... hungry."

The Hydra roared, a sound that shattered the petrified trees around us. Its heads began to glow with different elemental energies—fire, frost, lightning, and acid.

"Silas!" I mouthed, looking for a plan.

"The Null-Pattern won't work here, Jack!" Silas shouted over the roar. "It’s made of pure mana! It doesn't see you—it is the sight! You can't hide from something that occupies every magical frequency at once!"

The fire-head lunged, a stream of white-hot flame incinerating the ground where I stood. I rolled, the heat searing my back.

"How do I kill it?" I signaled desperately.

"You don't!" Silas yelled, climbing up a stone pillar. "You’re a Hollow! Stop trying to fight it like a knight! Start acting like a vacuum!"

The frost-head snapped at me, encasing my legs in a block of absolute-zero ice. I couldn't move. The lightning-head was already arching back, its throat glowing with a blinding blue charge.

"Jack!" Silas screamed. "Eat! Eat or die!"

I looked at the ice around my legs. I closed my eyes and reached out with my mind, not to my limbs, but to the void in my chest. I felt the hunger, the gnawing, bottomless hole that Malakor had accidentally unleashed.

Mine, I thought.

The ice didn't melt. It vanished. The blue light from the lightning-head didn't strike me; it was sucked into my open palm, turning into a swirling vortex of energy that I forced down into my core.

The Hydra paused, its five heads tilting in unison. It sensed the shift. It wasn't looking at a human anymore. It was looking at a predator that was bigger than it was.

"More," I mouthed, the word tearing at my silent throat.

I stepped forward, my hand outstretched. The gold crown on my arm was now so bright it was casting shadows against the mid-day sun.

The Hydra let out a sound I’d never heard from a monster before. It wasn't a roar.

It was a whimper.

But as I reached for the central neck, the water began to turn black. The Hydra’s eyes shifted from sapphire to a dull, dead grey.

"Something's wrong," Silas muttered, his voice trembling. "The well... it’s not just a forge. It’s a seal for something else."

The Hydra exploded. Not into water, but into a thousand black, oily serpents that began to carpet the ground, moving toward me with a singular, terrifying purpose.

"The Star-Steel!" Silas pointed to the bottom of the now-empty well. "Grab it! Now!"

I dived into the pit, my fingers closing around a cold, heavy hilt as the black tide poured over the time