Cradlemark was not a city meant to fall. Towering spires, arcane wards etched into its very stone, and a population trained in fear and obedience made it a jewel of the Empire's strength. From its center, the Obsidian Throne rose like a dagger against the heavens, seat of the Crown's tyranny. And tonight, it would burn.
Kael stood upon the shattered ridge overlooking the city, the Threnody Shard humming faintly at his side like a dying star. Beside him, Selan prepared the last of the sigil runes, her hands shaking from exhaustion and anticipation. Their ragged band—real fighters and illusionary echoes alike—waited in tense silence.
"Are you sure the shard will open the gate?" Selan asked without looking at him.
Kael nodded. "It doesn't just open it. It sings it open."
Selan looked up. "And the cost?"
Kael's eyes were calm. "Already paid."
He raised the Threnody Shard. The air shimmered.
A deep tone echoed through the sky, low and mournful—a sound that bent magic and rattled the teeth in their skulls. Below, Cradlemark's great gates of silver and iron trembled. A pulse radiated from the shard, and the runes Selan had etched ignited in crimson.
The gates exploded inward, torn from their hinges not by force, but by resonance. Metal melted. Walls crumbled. And Kael walked into the city like a god of vengeance.
The defenders were already scrambling—mages shouting in the old tongue, soldiers rallying at the inner bastions. But they were unprepared for Kael.
The first line fell before his scythe ever reached them. Blood from the fallen rose in spirals around him, drawn into spells that twisted bone and sundered wards. A wave of fire rushed through the city's outer quarter—Selan's work—carving a path to the Throne itself.
They moved like a storm.
Selan took down the watchtowers with precision, flames licking upward in graceful arcs. Kael's illusions sowed confusion, turning brother against brother, shadow against flame. The echoes whispered in soldiers' ears, voices Kael couldn't always remember creating.
He was losing himself.
Every step forward felt like a dream unspooling.
They reached the central bridge—wide enough for a battalion—and were met with the full force of the Crown's elite. Gleaming armor. High inquisitors. Elementalists.
And one familiar figure at their front.
Vaelis, the Knight-Savant.
Once Kael's mentor. Now the Empire's deadliest blade.
"Kael," Vaelis called, voice calm, sword glowing with restrained fury. "You've come far. But it ends here."
Kael felt the shard tremble.
"It ends," Kael replied. "But not for me."
He charged.
The bridge became a war-torn melody. Vaelis met Kael in a clash that cracked stone and time. Their blades collided—one steel, one blood—each strike a symphony of precision and pain. Vaelis fought like memory: graceful, practiced, perfect.
But Kael fought like a man with nothing left to lose.
Selan dealt with the flanks, flames and illusions slicing through the enemy mages. Harth—still limping, still real—shielded Kael's side with a small squad of resistance veterans. They held the line as Kael dueled his past.
"You could've ruled beside us," Vaelis hissed, parrying a downward scythe strike.
Kael spun, blood trailing like wings. "I was never meant to rule. Only to end you."
Vaelis landed a cut across Kael's shoulder. Kael responded by channeling pain into power—his blood igniting into tendrils that wrapped around Vaelis's legs.
With a roar, he brought the scythe down.
Vaelis blocked—barely—but was driven to one knee.
"Why do you fight like this?" Vaelis spat, blood in his mouth. "What is it all for?"
Kael's voice was quiet.
"Her name."
Then he drove the shard into the bridge.
The resulting explosion of resonance flung everyone back. The bridge cracked, collapsed in sections—but the path ahead opened. The gates to the Obsidian Throne stood exposed.
Kael staggered to his feet. Vaelis didn't rise.
Selan ran to his side, face pale. "You're bleeding too much."
Kael laughed bitterly. "What's new?"
She helped him forward.
Together, they entered the Throne.
The interior was a mausoleum of power—walls etched with names long forgotten, floors tiled in obsidian glass. The throne itself was empty, towering above a dais soaked in old blood. And there, waiting, was the true enemy.
The Crown Regent.
A sorcerer whose face had never aged, robes woven with threads of fate and memory. He smiled as Kael entered, arms open like a father welcoming a wayward son.
"Kael. I wondered when the song would bring you here."
Kael raised the shard. "No more games."
The Regent stepped forward. "You know what the shard costs. One life. One death. That is its truth. You can use it to end me... or to bring her back."
Kael froze.
Selan looked at him, eyes wide.
"Kael... he's lying."
The Regent raised a hand. "I only offer truth. You've seen the vision. You know it's possible. You can rewrite it all. One life. Hers... or mine."
Kael's grip trembled.
The shard pulsed.
He could see it—Selan, alive, untouched by war. A peaceful life. A world without vengeance.
He looked at her.
"I could bring you peace," he whispered.
She stepped forward, tears in her eyes. "Kael... don't you dare."
He looked at the shard.
Then back to the Regent.
He smiled.
"Her peace is not mine to take."
He threw the shard—directly into the Regent's chest.
The sound that followed was not a scream.
It was a song.
A note that split the sky. A chorus that shattered illusions. A requiem that tore through the throne and echoed into every heart in the kingdom.
The Obsidian Throne cracked.
The Regent dissolved.
The empire trembled.
Kael collapsed.
Selan caught him.
The Eye flickered one last time. Then, silence.
Outside, dawn broke.