The ruins of Veyndral still smoldered when Rael stepped through the ash.
The city had been a jewel once—white spires crowned in crystal, streets paved in silverstone, rivers flowing like liquid moonlight. Now it was nothing but blackened bones and silence. Even the wind carried no life here, only the acrid stench of burning flesh and broken dreams.
Rael's boots crunched over fragments of shattered towers, sparks rising from his every step. Behind him, the Hollow Flame moved like an army of phantoms, their crimson armor slick with blood, their chants still echoing in the air.
But Rael barely heard them.
The chains burned louder than any war cry.
They weren't metal—they were inside him, coiled around his soul like serpents of molten iron. Every oath Malrik had carved into his being writhed there, alive, whispering commands he couldn't refuse.
And yet… in the cracks of that burning cage, something else pulsed. A memory. A face. Silver eyes glistening with tears. Hands trembling as they held him once, long ago.
His mother.
The name hovered at the edge of thought, a wound too deep to heal.
Rael stood at the city's shattered heart, where the great cathedral had fallen. Malrik approached, his cloak billowing like smoke, his grin sharp as a blade.
"Well done," the warlord purred, surveying the carnage. "The world will remember the name Rael of the Hollow Crown."
Rael said nothing. His voice had become dangerous—every word a spark that could ignite something Malrik couldn't control.
Malrik circled him like a predator. "You hesitate. Why?"
Rael's mismatched eyes—one now gold rimmed in black, the other silver drowned in flame—lifted to meet his father's gaze. "They screamed," he said quietly. "Women. Children."
Malrik's smirk widened. "And did you not feel it? The power? The glory? You were born for this, Rael. For war. For dominion."
Rael's hands curled into fists. "You said I'd be free."
Malrik's laugh was low, cruel. "Freedom is an illusion, my son. Power is all that matters. And you have it now. The chains you feel?" He stepped closer, his breath hot as embers. "They are not shackles. They are your crown."
Rael stared at the smoking ruins, his heart a battlefield of fire and shadow. He wanted to believe Malrik. He wanted to silence the ache inside him that whispered of another life, another path.
But then he heard it—faint, almost imagined.
A voice on the wind.
"Hold on, Rael. I'm coming for you."
His breath caught. His head turned sharply toward the eastern mountains, where the storm writhed like a living beast.
Her.
Selene.
For a heartbeat, the chains recoiled.
Malrik saw it—and his grin vanished, replaced by a snarl. "What do you hear?"
Rael's jaw locked. "Nothing."
Malrik's eyes narrowed, suspicion dark as tar. But he didn't press. Not yet.
Instead, he raised his blade to the storm. "We march for the Blackstone Forge. Tonight, the Hollow Crown rises. And when she comes for you…" His voice dripped venom. "…you will kill her with your own hands."
Rael said nothing. But inside him, the war began—not between kingdoms, but between a son's soul and the chains that bound it.
And in that war, one truth burned brighter than all:
If he saw her again, he would not let Malrik decide what happened next.
Even if it killed him.