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Home / Fantasy / The Shard-Bearer / Chapter 10- Embers of Empire
Chapter 10- Embers of Empire
Author: Eze Adaeze
last update2025-10-27 06:12:18

The tunnels still smelled like smoke.

It clung to everything, the stones, the water, my skin. When I breathed, it tasted like iron and memory.

Fennric had found us a corner beneath what used to be the glass market, a hollow of fallen masonry and tangled pipes. The walls sweated with condensation, black with soot. The only light came from the faint ember-glow in my hands, which I kept low and covered. Even that small warmth made him flinch sometimes.

We hadn’t spoken in hours.

Above us, the city moaned, wood creaking, distant bells tolling for the dead. Somewhere, a voice shouted a prayer. Others answered it. I caught fragments through the cracks in the stone.

“Saint of Ash, take our fear.”

“Saint of Ash, burn our enemies.”

The first time I heard it, I thought I was imagining things.

The second time, Fennric smiled.

“Listen to them,” he murmured. “They’ve already begun.”

“Begun what?” I asked.

He leaned forward, his thin face lit from below. “To believe.”

I stared at him. “They’re terr
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  • Chapter 10- Embers of Empire

    The tunnels still smelled like smoke.It clung to everything, the stones, the water, my skin. When I breathed, it tasted like iron and memory.Fennric had found us a corner beneath what used to be the glass market, a hollow of fallen masonry and tangled pipes. The walls sweated with condensation, black with soot. The only light came from the faint ember-glow in my hands, which I kept low and covered. Even that small warmth made him flinch sometimes.We hadn’t spoken in hours.Above us, the city moaned, wood creaking, distant bells tolling for the dead. Somewhere, a voice shouted a prayer. Others answered it. I caught fragments through the cracks in the stone.“Saint of Ash, take our fear.”“Saint of Ash, burn our enemies.”The first time I heard it, I thought I was imagining things.The second time, Fennric smiled.“Listen to them,” he murmured. “They’ve already begun.”“Begun what?” I asked.He leaned forward, his thin face lit from below. “To believe.”I stared at him. “They’re terr

  • Chapter 9- The Hunter’s Blade

    The blade whispered from its sheath, shards of broken light dripping off its edge. Veynar didn’t posture, he didn’t threaten. He simply stepped forward and swung.I barely saw it. A streak of glasslight cutting through the smoke faster than I thought.The shard screamed inside me, my arm snapping up of its own accord. Crimson fire flared across my palm. Steel met flame. The impact rattled every bone in my body, sparks cascading down the stones.I staggered back, breath ripped from my lungs. He hadn’t even put his weight into it.Veynar advanced, calm as a man walking through a garden. Another strike came, precise, elegant, a butcher slicing meat. My feet moved before I could think, the shard jerking me sideways. The blade carved through the air where my neck had been, slicing a hanging sign in two. The wood hissed, its cut edge glowing faintly as if burned.“Good,” Veynar said evenly. “You are fast. But not fast enough.”His third strike was a blur. My body screamed. I threw fire to m

  • Chapter 8- Ashes in the streets

    This The stink of ash clung to my skin. No matter how many alleys I ducked into, no matter how many buckets of gutter-water I splashed across my hands, I could still feel the heat of that soldier’s scream echoing in my palm.Drakemire was not silent.Voices followed me in the dark, carried on the rising smoke.“They say he burned a man to dust.”“His hand glowed like molten iron.”“The rat-king of the alleys has a devil’s brand.”Every whisper was a knife turned my way. People shut doors as I passed. A drunk stumbled into the street and, seeing my face, shrieked as though I carried plague. He ran, tripping, leaving me staring at my reflection in a black puddle, veins faintly red, eyes rimmed with fire.The shard pulsed inside me, a heartbeat too strong for my chest. They fear you because you are more. They are meat, you are flame. Burn them. Claim them.I pressed my hand hard against the wall, forcing a ragged breath. The stone hissed under my touch, a scorch mark spreading in the sha

  • Chapter 7- Chains of Fire

    The stairs seemed endless. Each step groaned beneath our boots, the catacombs shuddering still with the echo of what I’d unleashed. Dust rained from the stone ceiling, and somewhere far below, the vault roared like a dying beast.My legs shook, my breath ragged. The shard’s brand burned in my palm, a coal that wouldn’t cool. I flexed my fingers and watched faint crimson veins flare, dim, flare again. My body wasn’t mine anymore, it pulsed to a rhythm older than me, deeper than me.Corin climbed ahead, every muscle tight, sword never sheathed. He glanced back often, but never for long. His eyes didn’t hold worry anymore. Only suspicion.Behind me, Fennric scribbled by the dim glow of a fresh lamp, his hand shaking, his grin stretched wide. His muttering filled the stairwell. “Chosen, marked, vessel of fire… oh, the text was right, it was right…”The whispers filled the cracks of my skull, louder now that the fight was over. A chorus hissing in unity.He doubts you. He watches for weakn

  • Chapter 6 - The Shard’s Claim

    The shard pulsed, crimson deepening as my hand rose. I tried to stop it, truly, I did, but my body was no longer mine. My fingers stretched, trembling, reaching.Corin’s shout tore across the chamber. “Malrik, don’t!”But it was too late.My palm struck the shard.The world exploded.Heat slammed through me, fire that wasn’t fire, light that was blood. My chest seized as though a forge had been lit inside my ribs. My scream rattled the skull-walls until dust rained like ash.Corin and Fennric were hurled backward, crashing into bone and stone. Fennric’s lamp shattered, plunging the vault into crimson darkness, the shard’s glow was the only light.Visions ripped through me, not memories, not dreams, but centuries of slaughter. Cities burning, towers of glass shattering, rivers running red. Faces twisted in agony, their eyes glowing the same crimson that now poured into my veins.I am hunger. I am fire. I am yours.I staggered, clutching the shard, though it felt weightless now, as thou

  • Chapter 5 - Beneath the Bones

    The stair dropped us into a throat of stone, narrow and slick, the air growing colder with every step. Our boots echoed, each sound swallowed by the dark like it was listening.Fennric’s lamp sputtered, painting the walls in ragged circles of light. Symbols carved into the stone slid past us in spirals and jagged lines, shapes like eyes scratched by hands long rotted. Some were worn smooth, others gouged as if someone had tried to erase them.Corin muttered under his breath, “Tombs on tombs. Nothing good lives here.”Fennric’s grin shone crooked in the lamplight. “Not lives. Waits.”The whisper slid through me again, soft but clear, threading into my bones.Closer.I stumbled on the step, catching myself on the damp wall. My pulse thudded too loud in my ears. Neither of them reacted. They didn’t hear it. Only me.The air thickened as we reached the bottom, where the stair spilled into a long corridor. The walls here weren’t bare. Bones jutted out, mortared into the stone, skulls stari

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