They left the coastline of Iskaran behind them, traveling east into a realm few dared to name.
There was no road to the next kingdom. No map could mark it. It was a land whispered of in the oldest sagas — a place once called Vaelmyr, now known only as The Bleeding Vale.
They crossed salt flats where the ground bled red beneath their boots — not from blood, but from crimson lichen that fed on the bones of the dead. Winds howled with voices not their own. The sky never cleared, caught in a perpetual dusk, as if the sun feared to touch what lay below.
Three days passed without seeing another soul. Only ruins.
Once, Vaelmyr had been a kingdom of poets and philosophers, its towers crowned in silver, its lakes said to reflect not one's face, but one's true self. Now, all that remained were shattered keeps, fallen statues, and lakes black with ash.
Aelric, never short on commentary, grew quiet. Even his jokes felt brittle here.
Lys walked slower each day. The wound from Iskaran had not fully healed. Magic did not work the same in this place — Kaelen could feel it. The Ember pulsed unevenly against his chest, and the Crown of Iskaran hummed in his pack like a thing agitated.
On the fourth night, they camped in the hollow of a broken amphitheater. Moonlight revealed carvings in the stone — old, elegant, and sorrowful. Figures danced around a central symbol: a crown pierced by thorned roots.
Kaelen stared at it long into the night.
"This place remembers pain," he said.
Lys, tending her bandages, nodded. "Vaelmyr was cursed during the Sundering. When the Nine Kings turned on one another, the queen of Vaelmyr did something none of the others dared."
Kaelen looked up. "What?"
"She bound her bloodline to the Crown. Not in symbol. In truth. It fed on her line — every heir born would carry its power… and its burden. When she died, the Crown remained. But none dared wear it. Not even the Hollow King."
Kaelen's eyes narrowed. "You think it still waits?"
"I think," Lys said slowly, "that it has not forgiven the world for forgetting it."
The next morning, the ground shifted.
They found themselves descending into a hollow valley veined with strange crimson trees — leafless, claw-like things. The path narrowed until it became a canyon carved by forgotten hands. Etchings along the walls pulsed faintly when Kaelen passed, as if remembering him.
"This is wrong," Aelric said. "It's watching us."
"I know," Kaelen replied.
At the canyon's heart, the path opened into a wide basin. And there, beneath a shattered moon and ringed by dead stone, stood the Throne of Thorns.
It was not a building. It was a living cathedral — vines of petrified bloodroot twisted upward to form spires that writhed without moving. At its center rose a pillar of glassy black stone — and upon it, suspended in midair, floated the Crown of Vaelmyr.
Even from afar, Kaelen could feel its weight.
This Crown did not shine. It absorbed light — a crown of dark crystal and thorned iron. It pulsed not with fire, but with memory. The Vale stirred around it. The wind turned cold.
And then came the voice.
"Turn away, heir of flame."
Kaelen froze.
The voice came not from ahead, but from within. It echoed through his blood, through the ember, through the faint scars on his palm that had never fully healed.
"You are not of this line. You do not bear its sorrow. This is not your crown."
Kaelen stepped forward.
"I bear the oaths of the old kings," he said aloud. "Their crowns belong to no tyrant. Not anymore."
The wind shrieked. Thorns erupted from the earth, forming a wall between him and the cathedral.
"Then take it — and bleed."
The earth split.
From the depths rose guardians — not flesh, not hollowborn, but echoes of Vaelmyr's royal line. Cloaked in sorrow, crowned in thorns, they glided forward, their faces masks of grief and rage. They moved as one — eight in all — wielding weapons woven from sorrow made solid.
Aelric stepped beside Kaelen, drawing his blade. "They don't look like they're in a talking mood."
"No," Kaelen said. "They're here to test me."
He raised his sword — and the Ember blazed.
The echoes struck.
The first came fast, a spear of bone aimed for Kaelen's heart. He dodged, rolled, struck back — but his blade passed through the figure like mist. Another swung twin daggers. Aelric intercepted it, barely parrying in time. "How do you kill grief!?"
"You don't," Lys said from behind them, her staff raised. "You remember it."
She slammed her staff into the ground — and from her hands flowed a wave of healing magic, not to harm the echoes, but to bind them. Light tangled around their limbs, halting their strikes just long enough for Kaelen to reach the center.
He stepped into the cathedral of thorns.
The Crown hovered before him, untouched by dust or time. Around it, vines writhed, baring a thousand thorns.
The voice returned, softer now.
"Who are you to claim what was born of loss?"
Kaelen looked down at his hands — scarred, calloused, stained.
"I am the one who remembers what the world tried to forget. I am not of Vaelmyr's blood. But I carry its burden now."
He reached forward.
The thorns struck — a thousand needles driving into his arms, his chest, his palms. Blood flowed freely. The Ember pulsed.
And the Crown sank into his hands.
Everything went still.
The vines froze. The echoes fell to their knees, heads bowed.
Outside, the sky cleared — just for a moment. A single beam of light pierced the cathedral and struck Kaelen, now crowned in thorn and memory.
Behind him, Lys gasped.
"Your eyes," she said. "Kaelen… your eyes are changing."
He turned.
The gold fire that had once flickered faintly behind his pupils now roared — mixed with something else. Something older. His voice echoed with quiet certainty.
"I know what we have to do next."