The city of Seravelle had long since given up on quiet nights.
The bells no longer rang for peace. They rang to keep rhythm, to maintain the illusion that time still flowed normally while the world crumbled under gold and blood. The rains came often now—thick, heavy, constant—like the sky itself mourned what had yet to happen.
Kaelen stood alone in a hidden corridor beneath the Temple Quarter, his boots wet from rain and mud. The passage was ancient, older than the city above, lined with crumbling frescoes that showed gods without names and kings with hollow eyes. This was where the Circle had first gathered when there were only three of them. Now there were dozens.
And not all were trustworthy.
Still, Kaelen walked with purpose. The silence of the underground no longer unnerved him. He had learned to hear what lived between the silences.
He entered the inner sanctum, where the Circle had inscribed its new creed into stone: Not crowned. Not broken. Remembered.
The great wall bore the sigil of their rebellion—a shattered crown, still bound by a single thread of flame. Elaine had carved it herself the night after the blood pact. Every flicker of torchlight made it seem like the fire moved, like it refused to die.
Kaelen touched the stone.
And something deep within him—something that wasn't entirely his own—shivered in recognition.
"You're losing sleep again."
Elaine's voice echoed behind him, sharp but quieter than usual.
She stepped into the light. Her coat dripped rainwater, her silver blade still at her side. But her eyes didn't challenge him tonight. They searched him, like someone looking at a map with missing ink.
"I'm not the only one," Kaelen said, still facing the wall.
Elaine joined him, gaze lifting to the crown on the wall. "The others whisper more than they act. And they follow you, but not all with open eyes."
"I know."
She glanced at him. "Then act. Or they'll give that crown to someone else."
Kaelen finally turned. "Let them. A crown given is never a crown earned."
Their argument dissolved into quiet. Not peace—just pause.
Elaine hesitated, then produced a parchment from inside her cloak. It was marked with a broken seal, stained red. She handed it to him without a word.
Kaelen unrolled it slowly. His heart sank.
A list of names.
Bloodlines.
Hidden heirs.
Some crossed out in black ink.
Some... marked with gold.
"You've seen this before," Kaelen said.
Elaine nodded. "I found it in the vault beneath the Miragarde Archives. Buried under false treaties. Someone didn't just erase history. They rewrote it."
Kaelen ran his fingers down the list until he found a name that chilled him: Kaelen Thorne.
Marked not in black.
Not in gold.
In crimson.
The torchlight flickered again.
Not because of wind.
Because something had entered.
A presence, just beyond the veil of flame and dust.
Kaelen's hand reached instinctively for his dagger, the one he had used during the pact. Its edge was dull now—but the sigil carved into the hilt pulsed faintly with heat.
Elaine stiffened. "We're not alone."
A figure emerged from the darkness behind the sanctum's central pillar.
Cloaked in shadows.
Eyes glowing faintly—not with magic, but something older.
The silver mask over the figure's face was shaped like a weeping king, its mouth sewn shut by thread made of light.
Kaelen stepped forward. "You're not one of the Circle."
"No," the figure said. "I'm one of its consequences."
The voice was strange—layered, as if spoken by more than one person. Male and female, young and old.
"I have come," it continued, "to deliver a truth too dangerous to write, too ancient to remain buried."
Elaine drew her blade. "Speak, or disappear."
The masked figure tilted its head. "You still believe truth can be told without cost. Cute."
Kaelen stepped closer, against Elaine's protest. "Then speak it to me. I'm already paying."
The figure lifted one hand.
A mark shimmered in the air—a circle of thorns, within it a serpent devouring its own tail.
Kaelen's breath caught.
It was the same as the wax seal he had broken two nights ago. The one that came with only three words:
The heir sleeps.
The masked figure's voice grew softer.
"You remember that name you read on the scroll? The one in crimson? That is not a warning. It's a prophecy."
Kaelen's fingers curled. "I'm no heir."
"You're wrong," the figure whispered. "You're not the heir."
It turned slowly toward the wall, toward the shattered crown, and placed its palm against the stone.
Blood began to seep from the crack in the carving.
Not a trick of light.
Not illusion.
Real blood.
Elaine stepped back. "What are you doing?"
"I am reminding him," the figure said, "that silence is not peace. It's delay."
As the blood dripped, the flames in the sanctum dimmed, and Kaelen heard whispers in the dark. Not voices around him. Voices inside.
Names he didn't know.
Places he had never seen.
And a throne—not gilded and polished, but blackened, broken, and hidden beneath the world.
The figure's voice echoed one last time.
"When you break the second silence, the other heirs will awaken. And not all will want a king."
With that, the figure vanished—its mask falling to the ground, now empty.
Kaelen and Elaine stood frozen.
No enemy.
No magic residue.
Just the blood, now dried, on the wall.
Elaine whispered, "What do we do now?"
Kaelen looked at the cracked crown, the blood, the whispering names in his skull.
And answered without hesitation:
"We find them."