Chapter Forty-Five: Beneath the Throne
"Power isn't buried to be forgotten. It's buried to be feared."
The throne room was silent—ruined by flame and fractured stone. The walls still echoed with the clash of rebellion, but Kael didn't look back.
Not at the bodies. Not at the blood.
Only forward.
At the jagged crack where the dais once stood.
Riven touched his arm. "You're sure this is the place?"
Kael nodded. "The boy… the other me… he said the truth was buried beneath the throne. This crack wasn't here before. The Scorchborne's attack—it exposed something."
Together, they stepped over the edge, descending into blackness.
The air thickened the deeper they went.
It wasn't just the weight of earth pressing down—it was something older. A presence in the stone, humming softly like a breath held for centuries.
Their boots crunched on charred bone and old glass. Riven lit a torch from the embers of his palm, revealing walls carved with ancient script.
Kael read aloud.
"To rule with flame is to burn your name upon the world. But to rule with mercy is to risk being forgotten."
Riven muttered, "Sounds like the kind of thing your ancestors would've etched in gold."
Kael smiled faintly. "They feared being forgotten more than being hated."
The corridor ended at a door made of obsidian, veined with molten silver. In its center was a seal—Kael's sigil—but twisted, almost mutated, as if grown like a tumor.
Riven reached out.
It burned him.
Kael stepped forward and pressed his palm to the mark.
It pulsed once. Then opened.
Inside was a chamber untouched by time.
A massive, circular room. At its center was a pedestal of glass, and atop it burned a single flame—not red, not orange, but white.
It didn't flicker.
It didn't waver.
It watched.
The Heartflame.
Kael stumbled forward, breath stolen. "I can feel it… calling."
Riven stayed close. "Kael. We don't know what it wants."
A voice whispered—not aloud, but in Kael's mind.
"You are mine. You always have been."
Suddenly, the room shifted.
Fire erupted around them—not hot, but cold. Scenes danced in the flame—visions of a world scorched, cities crumbling, Kael standing atop a throne of skulls.
Riven burned beside him, chained to the pyre.
Kael screamed. "No!"
The vision shattered.
And then the boy—his doppelgänger—stood at the edge of the flame.
"You see it now?" he said softly. "This is the future if you lose yourself. If you let the flame consume you."
Kael dropped to one knee, trembling.
"I don't want this."
"Then fight it."
Riven stepped forward, wrapped his hand around Kael's, grounding him.
"You're not him," Riven said. "You chose not to be."
Kael looked up.
He wasn't alone.
He never was.
The Heartflame pulsed again—brighter. Then… it split. A shard of it drifted down, small and golden, and entered Kael's chest like a soft breath.
It didn't burn.
It settled.
Not as a weapon.
As a bond.
The boy smiled.
"You've done what I never could," he whispered. "You've changed the flame."
And then he was gone.
Kael stood. Stronger. Steadier. The flame inside him no longer roared. It glowed.
"Let's go," he said. "We've got an empire to rebuild."
Riven nodded. "Together.".
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The last chapter for the day maybe !!!