2025-08-21 05:41:43The corridors of the royal fortress were never silent. Even at night, when the torches flickered low and the guards spoke in hushed tones, the castle seemed alive—breathing, listening. Elias moved like a shadow, his cloak pulled tight, footsteps muffled against the stone. He was not meant to be here, not after curfew, but there were whispers he had to chase.
The rumors had begun innocently enough. A soldier claimed to have overheard a servant speaking of secret meetings in the lower halls. Another guard swore he had seen cloaked figures slipping into the abandoned chambers once used by the late queen’s council. Elias knew better than to dismiss such talk. In a kingdom already poisoned by betrayal, whispers could be daggers waiting to strike.
He descended the spiral staircase, his hand brushing the cold wall for balance. The torches thinned the deeper he went, and soon he was moving in near-darkness. At the final landing, he paused. Faint voices drifted from beyond the heavy oaken door at the corridor’s end.
“…the boy suspects nothing,” one voice rasped.
“He’s young, but not blind,” another countered. “If he learns the truth before we’re ready—”
“Then we silence him.”
Elias froze. His hand instinctively found the hilt of his sword. They were talking about him.
The door creaked slightly, and he pressed himself into the shadows as two cloaked figures emerged. Their faces were hidden, but their movements were purposeful, almost rehearsed. He followed at a distance, each step careful, each breath measured.
The figures led him not toward the council chambers, but toward the outer wall, where the fortress met the cliffs overlooking the raging sea. A hidden passage—one Elias had never seen—yawned open as a stone slab shifted under their touch. He hesitated only a moment before slipping inside after them.
The passage smelled of damp earth and secrecy. Roots curled through the ceiling, and the floor was slick with moss. The voices ahead echoed strangely, words overlapping and distorting. Elias strained to hear.
“…the crown will break…”
“…he cannot be allowed to unite them…”
“…the pact is almost sealed…”
The air grew colder the deeper he went, until his breath fogged. At last, the figures stopped in a cavern lit by a circle of dim blue flames. Strange symbols were carved into the stone floor, glowing faintly, pulsing as though alive.
Elias ducked behind a jagged rock, heart pounding.
The two cloaked figures knelt within the circle. A third presence appeared—not flesh, but shadow, rising from the flames, its voice a low rumble that scraped against Elias’s bones.
“Soon the kingdom will kneel,” the shadow intoned. “The prince’s death will mark the beginning. His blood will open the path.”
Elias’s throat tightened. They weren’t planning to merely dethrone him—they meant to use him as a sacrifice.
The cloaked figures bowed deeper. “As you command.”
A rock shifted under Elias’s boot. The sound cracked through the cavern like thunder. The shadow’s head—or what resembled one—snapped toward his hiding place.
“Who’s there?” one of the cloaked figures snarled, leaping to their feet.
Elias turned and ran. The cavern walls blurred past as he sprinted, the flicker of blue fire chasing him. Behind him, voices shouted, and footsteps pounded against the stone. The passage twisted and forked, but instinct guided him upward, toward air, toward light.
He burst from the hidden exit onto the cliffside, gasping. The night wind hit him like a blade, salty and sharp. But there was no safety here—the cliff was narrow, the sea roaring below, and the traitors closing fast.
Elias raised his sword, breath ragged, eyes locked on the figures approaching. “Come then,” he hissed, voice steady despite the terror clawing at his chest. “If it’s my blood you want, you’ll have to fight for it.”
The shadow’s voice echoed on the wind, chilling and triumphant.
“Then let the hunt begin.”
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Chapter 80 – Rhys’s Rift
The walls of Wynthorpe still smoked behind them.Elias rode ahead of the column, cloak torn by wind and ash. He didn’t look back at the dead not at the burned village, not at the bodies in the ditches. He had given the order, and that was enough.Behind him, Rhys kept silent, jaw tight. He could still hear the screams.They rode until dawn, when the road forked. The king halted, scanning the horizon. Ahead lay the next stronghold stone, cold, and unyielding.Elias turned to his captains. “We move at first light. Leave no supply unclaimed.”His tone was ice. The captains bowed and scattered to give orders. Only Rhys stayed.“You gave them no chance to surrender,” Rhys said.Elias didn’t look at him. “They burned our outposts, butchered our scouts. There’s no surrender left in them.”“That doesn’t make us better,” Rhys snapped. His voice carried enough fire to draw glances from the soldiers nearby. “You saw the women in the chapel, the children”“I saw,” Elias cut him off. “And I saw wh
Chapter 79 – Rynna’s Prophecy
The night was too quiet for war.Even the wind seemed to hold its breath as Rynna stood alone by the brazier, eyes reflecting the trembling flames. The camp behind her slept restlessly soldiers muttering through dreams, steel clinking faintly in the dark. Elias hadn’t slept in two days. He was in his tent, bent over maps that had begun to look more like graves than borders.She didn’t need to see him to feel his unrest. It rolled through the air like heat.Seren had said the King was changing. Mara said he was finally becoming strong. But Rynna saw something else: a shadow crawling along the edges of his soul, fed by choices he hadn’t yet made.The coals hissed. The smoke rose in twisting shapes, and for a heartbeat she saw two crowns one burning, one bleeding and between them, a hand that trembled before letting go.Her voice broke before she realized she was speaking.“Not by blade,” she whispered to the dark, “but by choice.”The tent flap rustled behind her. Elias’s silhouette app
Chapter 78 – Mara’s Triumph
The dawn came without light. Only a pale, wounded sky over Wynthorpe’s smoldering bones.Mara stood at the ramparts, her crimson cloak snapping in the ash wind. Behind her, the royal banners fluttered half-burnt but victorious. Below, the gates of the fortress lay open blackened by pitch, flanked by heaps of bodies that had once been Alaric’s defenders.They had taken the stronghold.At last.Yet there was no cheer in the morning air. Only the dull hum of exhaustion, and the sound of crows circling above.Elias watched from the courtyard, surrounded by the broken remains of his army. His armor hung loose, smeared with soot. His sword still bore yesterday’s rust-colored stains.When Mara descended the cracked stone steps toward him, soldiers bowed in reverence. They didn’t look at the king they looked at her.“Wynthorpe is ours,” Mara said, her voice steady. “The rebels who lived have fled east. The rest…” She hesitated only briefly. “The rest paid for their loyalty.”Elias didn’t resp
Chapter 77 – Arrows and Ashes
The morning after the blast, the valley was red. Smoke curled up the slopes like mourning veils, carrying the scent of pitch, flesh, and rain.The fortress of Wynthorpe had lost a wall a gaping wound in its western flank. Through that wound, Elias’s army now advanced.“Archers first,” Rhys shouted, his voice hoarse. “Shields up, no gaps!”Elias rode behind the vanguard, his armor spattered with soot, his sword unblooded but heavy in his grip. The world was sound and fury arrows slicing air, catapults groaning, screams lost under the thunder of men charging uphill.The rain began again, thin and gray, like the gods themselves had chosen to weep for what was coming.They reached the breach by midmorning. Wynthorpe’s defenders fought like cornered beasts their eyes wild, their blades clanging against shields slick with rain and blood.Elias dismounted, pressing forward on foot. A spear tore through a man beside him. Another soldier stumbled, clutching his throat. The mud was a mirror of
Chapter 76 – The First Siege
The sky was gray when they first saw the walls of Wynthorpe — vast, black, and silent as if carved from the bones of the mountain itself. Once a fortress of kings, now it flew the banner of treachery: the black hawk on red. Alaric’s mark.The march had taken eight days. Eight days through rain, hunger, and haunted silence. By the time Elias’s army reached the valley, even the air tasted of iron. The storm had passed, but its memory clung to them — a ghost that refused to leave.Rhys reined in beside Elias on the ridge. “There it is,” he said grimly. “The hawk’s nest.”Mara’s eyes gleamed. “A fortress of stone won’t save a coward forever.”Elias said nothing. His gaze roamed the high walls, the ramparts lined with soldiers, the watchtowers bristling with archers. The fortress was not merely defended — it was ready.Seren rode up last, cloak heavy with dust. “If we strike now, we bleed half our strength before we breach the gate. That wall was built to break kings, not house them.”Elia
Chapter 75 – March into Storms
The rain came before dawn not a drizzle, but a deluge that swallowed the camp whole.By sunrise, the banners were soaked, the earth turned to mud, and the army’s departure had become a test of endurance rather than a march of triumph.Elias stood beneath the awning of his tent, cloak dripping, eyes fixed on the gray horizon. The world was mist and thunder, the kind that drowned sound and blurred distance. Every strike of lightning seemed to flash against his armor, turning him into a silhouette a king of ghosts.Seren appeared beside him, his hood drawn low. “The omens couldn’t be clearer,” he said. “Storms before battle. The gods rarely whisper more plainly.”Elias didn’t turn. “Then perhaps they should whisper victory while they’re at it.”“Careful,” Seren murmured. “Mocking fate has a way of making it listen.”Elias gave a hollow laugh and stepped into the rain. “It already is.”The march began with the groan of wet wheels and the rhythmic thud of boots in the mire. The columns str
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