2025-05-19 12:45:11
Previous Chapter
Latest Chapter
Season 2-Chp 18
Jerome woke before sunrise, drenched in sweat, heart hammering in his chest like it was trying to knock itself loose. The word echoed through his skull like a bell that wouldn’t stop ringing — not just a sound, but a memory trying to force its way out. “Arvail.” It wasn’t his name. Not the one his mother gave him. Not the one on his ID. But it felt right in a way that terrified him. Like slipping into someone else’s skin and finding it already fit. He sat up slowly, the motel room still half-cast in dawn’s early shadow. Margareth was curled up on the second bed, deep in sleep. Selene was nowhere to be seen.The stone Cassiel had left sat on the table. The chain beside it had dimmed, but not faded. Jerome stared at them both, breath shallow. He hadn’t told them what the Crown said. Not the voice. Not the name. Because it didn’t feel like something he could share without unraveling completely.He dressed in silence, then pulled out the old journal. He hadn’t opened it in hours. Now he f
Season 2-Chp 17
Jerome sat on the floor, breath ragged, his body slick with sweat from the ritual’s aftershock. The chain still pulsed in the center of the circle, glowing with slow, furious light. Margareth crouched beside him, one hand steadying his back. Selene hadn’t moved. She stood a few feet from the door, her eyes locked on the wood as though it might split open on its own.Another knock.Then a voice. Male. Calm. Perfectly measured.“You’ve opened it too far. You can’t close it now.”Jerome stiffened. He looked to Selene, whose expression had gone strangely flat.“Do you know who that is?” he asked.She nodded slowly. “Yes.”“Who?”Her voice was dry. “A Herald.”Margareth narrowed her eyes. “Of what?”Selene glanced at Jerome. “Of the Crown.”No one spoke.Another knock.This time, it was followed by a phrase that slid under the door like smoke:“Let me in, Jerome. We’ve waited long enough.”Jerome stood, unsure how his legs were moving. His mind was still reeling from what he’d seen during
Season 2-Chp 16
He sat upon a blackened throne carved from iron and stone, its edges jagged like broken teeth, its base wrapped in twisted roots that pulsed with red light. Around him, towers crumbled into dust, cities sank beneath rivers of flame, and an army of shadows stood kneeling before him. Their faces were hidden, their mouths sewn shut, but still they whispered his name. The sound came not from their throats, but from the world itself — the wind, the ground, the sky. His name echoed through everything.“Heir.”The Crown was not metal. It was alive.It moved as it rested on his head, shifting like a serpent coiled around his skull, whispering promises not through language, but through sensation — images, impulses, clarity. There was no fear here. No hunger. No weakness. Every wound Jerome had carried — his loneliness, his anger, his resentment toward the world that had forgotten him — it all melted under the weight of that presence. He could see the timeline stretch before him, not in hours o
Season 2-Chp 15
The motel room was dark except for the crack of orange light leaking beneath the curtains. Outside, the wind howled low and steady, brushing leaves against the windows like fingers tapping for permission. The room itself felt smaller than it had yesterday, the air thicker, as if it carried weight that hadn’t been there before. Jerome lay still on the bed, his hands pressed against his chest, the chain resting on bare skin, the mark glowing faintly underneath it. He hadn’t moved for over an hour. His eyes were open, fixed on the ceiling. He wasn’t asleep, but he wasn’t fully awake either. Something hovered just outside his thoughts, too quiet to be language, too loud to ignore. A pressure behind his eyes, a tug just beneath his ribs, a voice forming in the dark corners of his awareness. Then, without ceremony or sound, it spoke.“You are the silence after the storm.”Jerome blinked.“You are the heir they feared would wake.”The words were smooth, unhurried, spoken not aloud but within
Season 2-Chp 14
Margareth kept her eyes on the road, one hand resting tensely on the steering wheel, the other clutching the journal open in her lap. Jerome sat beside her, silent, hunched slightly forward with his fingers curled into the sleeves of his hoodie, as if trying to shrink away from the warmth still pulsing beneath the mark on his forearm. The mark hadn’t gone away. In fact, it had started to deepen. Faint lines had appeared around it, delicate as veins, but glowing softly beneath the skin like ink burned with memory. Neither of them had slept much since the graveyard. The vision—shared, tangible, real—had rattled something loose in both of them. It had proven that Jerome wasn’t imagining things, but it also proved something worse: that whatever Aerian Callen failed to seal wasn’t just breaking free. It was aware of Jerome now.“There,” Margareth said, slowing the car as they turned down a side road near the base of the cemetery hill. “That’s the cabin the journal mentioned. Guy named Elia
Season 2-Chp 13
Jerome and Margareth didn’t speak for most of the hike. Their breath came in quiet clouds. Above them, the trees leaned inward like whispering giants, and the sky stayed dim, even though it was almost noon. The further they walked, the heavier Jerome’s chest felt, like someone had looped a rope around his ribcage and pulled tighter with each step. The chain under his shirt was quiet, not glowing, not warm—but it felt awake. It wasn’t whispering to him, not yet, but it was waiting, like it already knew where he was headed. The closer they got to the edge of the cemetery, the more the air changed. It wasn’t colder anymore. It was thick, like breathing through damp cloth. Even the wind refused to blow past the gate.Margareth finally broke the silence.“This place wasn’t on the map.”“I think that’s the point,” Jerome muttered.They stepped through a rusted gate with half its hinges missing. The graves were old, most of them unreadable, their stone faces cracked with age. But the one the
Season 2-Chp 12
The motel room sat quiet in a way that felt unnatural, like the world outside had been turned off and sealed behind glass. The hum of the air conditioner had stopped sometime after midnight, and the only sound left was the occasional creak of old wood settling beneath layers of dust and cheap carpet.Jerome sat on the bed with his legs crossed, the chain resting in his hands, glowing faintly like a lantern submerged in dark water. Margareth had fallen asleep in the chair near the window, arms crossed over her chest, her body wrapped in a motel-issue blanket, and her head tilted slightly to the side like someone caught between alertness and collapse.She hadn’t said much since they returned from Elden Reach, and Jerome hadn’t pushed. He didn’t have the energy. All he knew was that the longer he held the necklace, the heavier it felt — not physically, but as if its history pressed through the metal into his veins, weighing down his chest and spine with stories he hadn’t lived but someho
Season 2-Chp 11
Branches clawed across the road like fingers reaching for the car’s windshield, and the dirt beneath the tires grew uneven, threatening to toss them into the ditches on either side. Margareth gripped the steering wheel tightly, eyes narrowed. Jerome sat beside her, the necklace tucked beneath his shirt — though it had begun to hum again, faintly, like it could sense what lay ahead.Neither of them spoke for the first hour. There was only the sound of the engine, the occasional bump of the road, and the wind slipping through the cracked window.When Margareth finally did speak, it was quiet. Measured.“This place is almost forgotten,” she said. “I only found the name once. No photos. No real records. Like it’s been scrubbed.”Jerome shifted in his seat. “What’s it called again?”“Elden Reach.”He frowned. “Sounds like a bad video game.”“Or a place that doesn’t want to be found,” she muttered.Eventually, the trees parted, revealing a wide, sloping field of grass that led to the edge o
Season 2-Chp 10
The first thing Jerome felt was pain.A deep, throbbing ache pulsing through his ribs, jaw, and neck. His entire body screamed like he’d been hit by a truck, then thrown into another. His eyes opened slowly, vision swimming, light stinging.He wasn’t on the ground anymore. He was lying on a couch. A small, warm apartment — pale green walls, faint vanilla scent in the air, and a dim lamp glowing near a stack of books.Not his house. Not his room.And most importantly… not alone.“Hey.”Margareth’s voice cut through the haze.She was sitting in a worn armchair across the room, legs tucked beneath her, eyes red and tired, but focused entirely on him.Jerome tried to sit up, but pain flared in his side.“Easy,” she said, standing quickly. “You hit your head. Or something hit it for you.”He winced as she helped him lean back against the cushions.“What... happened?” he asked, voice raspy.“I found you. In the alley behind those apartments near 8th Street. You were unconscious. Bleeding. A
You may also like
You Do Not Deserve Me
Keep It Flowing92.1K viewsThe Peerless Man With a Thousand Gifts
Kaiser Ken63.9K viewsThe Heir's Revenge
Twine Twin76.7K viewsI Married a Beautiful Boss After the Breakup
Seafarer's Strike173.5K viewsThe Housekeeper’s Legacy
Wonderful65457 viewsThe return of the underestimated imperial master
Unique 72 viewsThe Untameable Leon
ALadyWriter8.6K viewsUnderestimated Son In Law
Raishico299.9K views