The Crownless Curse

Chapter 8: Fire Beneath the Bones

The closer Kael moved toward Haldrim, the louder the city screamed.

The gates were already splintered, shattered wood scattered like bones across the road. Smoke curled from broken watchtowers, and the smell of blood hit him even before the heat did. Bodies lay everywhere. Soldiers. Children. Merchants with blades still in their hands. The street had become a grave.

Lira grabbed his arm before he could step past the gate. “Think,” she said, voice low. “We are not here to save a city. We are here to keep you alive.”

Kael looked into the inferno. “This is where I was born. My mother died in that tower. My father bled for these people.”

“And they would all die again if you fall here. You are not ready to face what waits inside.”

“I cannot turn back.”

Lira searched his eyes, then sighed. “Then I’ll get you through it. But if you hesitate, even once, we both die.”

He nodded, and they slipped into the ruins together.

Haldrim had fallen hard. The upper levels of the citadel were crumbling, the stone blackened and cracked. The main market was unrecognizable. Fire had eaten the stalls, and ash rained like snow from the sky. But it was not just the destruction that unsettled Kael. It was the silence between the screams. Something deeper moved within the city, something ancient and cruel.

They ducked into a ruined inn. Inside, the floor was slick with blood. A dying guard leaned against the wall, coughing up foam. His sword was broken, and his eyes were wide with madness.

Kael knelt beside him. “Who did this?”

The man gripped his wrist, nails digging deep. “The riders… they brought the hunger. It burns. It devours.”

Lira pulled Kael back. “He is marked. His soul is already eaten.”

The soldier screamed, not from pain, but from something worse. Then his body twisted, spine snapping, limbs jerking like a puppet before collapsing.

Kael stared. “What happened to him?”

“Shadow poison,” Lira whispered. “The wyrm breathes it into the air. Once it touches your blood, it takes everything. Mind. Flesh. Will.”

They moved on, faster now. Every street showed more horror. People who had fought and lost. People who had begged and burned. And some who had changed, eyes glowing faint red, their bodies twitching with unnatural movements as they prowled the alleys like hounds.

Kael and Lira avoided them, staying low, silent. But he knew it was only a matter of time before they were seen.

As they turned a corner near the old forge, Kael paused. The building was still burning, but inside, beneath a collapsed beam, a voice called out.

“Help!”

Kael rushed in, ignoring Lira’s hiss behind him. He shoved the debris aside and found a boy, no older than ten, pinned beneath a support beam. His leg was crushed.

“I can’t move,” the boy cried.

Kael lifted the beam with both arms, muscles screaming. “You can now. Come on.”

The boy crawled free, tears streaking his ash-covered face. “Thank you.”

Kael hoisted him onto his back. “Where is your family?”

The boy just shook his head.

They left the forge just as a shriek tore through the air again. This time closer.

Kael turned toward the sound. On a rooftop not far away, the shadow wyrm landed, massive wings folding against its spiked back. Its eyes scanned the city. Then it looked straight at him.

The sword in Kael’s hand flared to life.

“They see you,” Lira said. “Run.”

Kael bolted, the boy clinging to his neck. Behind them, the wyrm shrieked, and a blast of black fire slammed into the ground just yards away, melting stone and splintering wood. They ducked into an alley as the fire chased them.

“This way,” Lira shouted, pulling him through a hidden archway and into a dark tunnel beneath the city.

The heat followed them, but the tunnel curved sharply, and the flames vanished behind stone.

They stopped. Kael set the boy down gently.

“I want my mother,” the boy sobbed.

Lira knelt beside him. “She is gone. But you are not. Stay here. Do not move until it is silent.”

The boy nodded, trembling.

Kael stood. “We cannot hide forever.”

“No,” Lira said. “But there is one place the wyrm cannot enter. The Deep Hollow.”

He frowned. “That place is a myth.”

She met his gaze. “So were you.”

They emerged from the tunnel into the ruins of the lower quarter. The stones here were older. Cracked with age rather than fire. The path led to a large stone arch carved with runes Kael did not recognize. Lira traced one with her finger.

“This was your father’s work,” she said.

“He built this?”

“He sealed it. To protect what sleeps beneath.”

A low growl echoed behind them.

Kael turned.

A shadow stepped into the alley, followed by two more. Men. Or what had once been men. Now they moved like puppets. Jerked forward by invisible strings. Eyes glowing. Skin pale and stretched.

Riders.

Kael pushed Lira behind him. The sword in his hand brightened, runes flaring gold.

The lead rider opened its mouth. No voice came. Only the sound of a thousand whispers, layered and broken. Kael lunged before it could speak again.

Steel met shadow. The blade sang, slicing through the first rider’s neck. Black smoke erupted from the wound, and the creature collapsed into dust. But the others charged.

Kael fought them, step by step, fire and steel clashing with claws and darkness. One leaped onto his back. He drove his elbow into its jaw, then spun, slicing it in half. Lira hurled a dagger, catching the third in the eye.

Silence fell again.

Kael breathed hard. “How many more?”

Lira looked at the gate. “Enough to drown us if we wait.”

They stepped through the arch. The moment they crossed the threshold, the air changed. Colder. Older. The light dimmed, even though the tunnel ahead was open. The Deep Hollow was not a place of earth and stone. It was a place of memory. A vault of forgotten power.

The path wound downward. Deeper and deeper until Kael lost all sense of time. The whisper in his bones grew stronger. The mark on his chest burned.

At last, they reached the heart.

A wide chamber opened before them, circular and carved from obsidian. In the center stood a pedestal. Upon it, a second blade.

This one was thinner, longer, its hilt wrapped in black leather. Its runes shimmered red, not gold.

Kael stared.

Lira nodded. “The Twin. Your father forged them together. One for the hand. One for the soul.”

Kael stepped forward. As his hand neared the sword, the whispers in his head grew louder. He touched the hilt.

The room exploded in light.

Flashes. Images. His father’s face. A burning castle. A woman screaming his name. Chains. Blood. A voice in the dark.

You are not enough.

Kael fell to his knees. The mark on his chest burned white-hot. The sword pulsed, and he felt something inside him shift. A wall break. A seal open.

He saw himself, standing on a battlefield. Both blades in hand. Surrounded. Alone. And yet, unafraid.

Then the light vanished.

Kael stood, the second sword now in his grip.

Lira watched him. “Can you feel it?”

He nodded. “It is not just a blade. It is a promise.”

A deep rumble shook the chamber. Dust fell from the ceiling.

“They know,” Lira said. “The wyrm comes.”

Kael looked at the two blades. One in each hand. His father’s legacy. His birthright.

“Then let it come.”

They raced back toward the city. The shadows had thickened. The streets were crawling now. Dozens of the twisted. Riders stood at every corner. The wyrm circled overhead, its shriek shaking the sky.

Kael raised the second sword, and the air around him bent. The twisted recoiled. For a moment, they were afraid.

They fought their way back to the forge. The boy was gone. Safe, they hoped.

The wyrm landed in the square.

Its eyes found Kael again.

It roared.

Kael stepped forward, blades ready.

Lira shouted, “You cannot fight it here. Not yet. You need the Hollow’s gift to awaken fully.”

“Then what now?”

She held up a rune-stone. “I can buy us a breath. Not more.”

She crushed it in her hand.

A flash of light burst outward, blinding the wyrm for an instant.

Kael and Lira ran, slipping through the alleys as the beast thrashed.

They reached the edge of the city just as the light faded.

Behind them, Haldrim burned.

Kael looked back.

“I will return,” he swore. “And when I do, I will end this.”

Lira touched his shoulder. “Then we must reach the Archive. Before the Riders do.”

He nodded.

And together, they vanished into the woods beyond the fire, carrying the twin blades, and the last hope of a dying kingdom.