The doors of the Cursed Sanctum creaked open like the last gasp of a dying god.
The stone underneath Khael's boots shuddered, dishing out curses in a language that belonged to no world, calling forth the deepest pits of Khael's dread. Blue fire lit the wayward, not torches or simple candles, but actual orbs of spectral flame, floating quietly, illuminating nothing beyond the narrow hall that faded into blackness.
Behind him, the mist from the Blackened Veil hissed, retreating like a creature that feared what waited inside. Ghost stood silently beside him, engrossed in what lay beyond the threshold, his breath a cloud of frigid air.
"You have time to turn around," Ghost muttered.
"I died once already," Khael answered without breaking his stride. "Everything after that has just been vengeance."
The moment he placed his foot into the Sanctum, the doors closed behind them with a sound like a heart stopping.
No turning back.
The hall compressed as they walked, dark walls lined with ancient carvings: battles, coronations, monstrous creatures devouring cities, a man with fiery eyes and a crown of living shadows. Each carving had a single word in the old tongue written just below it. Draven.
Khael's heart raced.
"This place was built by your ancestors," Ghost said softly. "Or maybe it was built for them. No one remembers."
"The throne Eira sits on… was stolen," Khael said in a low voice. "She may wear the name Valen, but it was Draven blood that raised this realm."
"And was spilled."
They reached the heart of the Sanctum.
A massive, circular, domed chamber opened up in front of them, made of obsidian stone. In the center of the chamber, a raised platform, an altar floated above a pit of swirling darkness. Burning runes were spread across the floor, flickering like flames. The air was charged with raw energy.
And on the altar, in the center, was a single object:
A sword.
Raven black, wrought from something more ancient than iron, its hilt wrapped in iron wheels, its blade covered with names-thousands of them. Fallen kings. Obscured gods. Defiants and devout.
Khael stepped forward, hypnotized.
The chamber shook.
Ghost seized his arm. "That sword is cursed. You don't just take it - it takes you."
Khael looked him hard in the eyes. "Good. I want to know what I feel."
He stepped up to the altar. The glyphs ignited beneath him, bright crimson fire.
"State your bloodline."
The voice was not heard - it was felt. Inside his skull. Inside his soul.
"Khael Draven. Son of Seron Draven. Last heir of the Black Crown."
The air froze. A strong breath passed through the chamber.
"You seek vengeance."
"Yes."
"You offer pain."
"I have no joy left to offer."
"Then bleed."
A tendril of shadow lashed from the blade and wrapped around his wrist. A sudden slice, and blood pooled upon the altar. It hissed, it contacted the stone.
The blade rose of its own accord.
And flowed into his chest, with no regard for whether he wanted it or not.
"KHAEL!" Ghost shouted, threw himself forward, but the altar erupted with light, tossing him back against the wall.
Khael screamed.
Not out of pain, but out of awakening.
Memories, not even his own, flooded into his mind, empires burning, thrones cracking, gods weeping black tears. He saw Eira on a throne made of bones. He saw Varun strangled by vines made of ash. He saw himself crowned in fire and eyes like twin voids.
He didn't know what he was becoming.
But he wasn't human anymore.
The sword disappeared within him, dissolved into ash, and absorbed into him.
He fell to his knees, gasping, trembling, and the chamber went still.
Then the voice returned.
"One path sealed. One curse broken. One door opened."
Khael slowly rose to his feet. Blood was still pooling where the sword had broken the flesh of his chest, but his eyes were burning now, faintly, and not-quite normal.
Ghost took a step forward, slowly. "Are you... Still you?"
"No," Khael said quietly, "but I remember who I am."
He looked at his hands. A black symbol burned into his palm, a crown made of jagged flames.
Before Ghost could say anything, a low growl rang through the room.
The floor split.
The altar cracked and collapsed underneath its weight. What sprang forth was a spiraling staircase, leading down into incomprehensible blackness.
And from below... footsteps.
But not merely one pair. Many.
Khael turned to Ghost. "They are already here."
"Eira wouldn't wait." Ghost muttered. "She felt the breaking of the curse. She will send everything."
Without hesitation, Khael began his descent down the stairs.
"I thought you were going to rest," Ghost called.
"There is no rest left in me," Khael said without turning. "Only reckoning."
Beneath the sanctum
The staircase was never-ending.
The deeper they descended, the colder it grew, not in the physical sense but rather spiritually. Cold that scraped the soul. The air was thickening. Each step spawned whispers. Each revolution of the staircase birthed hallucinations - or memories, Khael would no longer tell the difference.
He witnessed his father burning alive on a pyre.
He saw Eira holding a babe - his babe.
He saw a version of himself, laughing, young, unbroken.
Then it was all gone, and replaced by the thrum of ancient power.
At the bottom, they passed into a chamber of mirrors.
Dozens of them, floating in the air. None of them showed reality. In one, he saw himself as a tyrant. In another, he saw a martyr. In another, he was not there at all.
"What is this place?" he asked.
Ghost's voice was tight. "The Trial of Echoes. The blade unlocked it. This is where the old kings came to lose themselves."
"Then let's hope I'm not one of them."
The moment he stepped across the line of mirrors, the chamber screamed.
Every mirror shattered, and from the shards they came.
Figures of shadow and fire - with his face.
His smile.
His rage.
The first one lunged at Ghost, but Khael tackled it in the air, throwing a fist into its jaw. It had no blood, only screamed. Another one attacked. Khael ducked and grabbed a shard of mirror, slashing its throat.
Ghost sped around him, blades out. "They're you, or what you'll become."
Khael's voice was calm, Ice. "Then I'll kill every version of myself that doesn't win."
They fought side by side - shadows collapsing under blade and flame. Khael fought with savage clarity, his strikes precise and sure, driven not by rage but by purpose. One after another, the echoes of himself fell.
But only one remained.
This one didn't attack.
It just stood there - bleeding, broken, laughing.
"You will never be king," it hissed. "You will never be loved, you will never be enough."
Khael strode towards it and gripped its throat.
"I do not need to be loved," he whispered. "I only need to be feared."
He snapped its neck.
The chamber fell silent.
The last mirror remained unbroken.
And there Khael saw himself, reflected in a body that would not move.
A woman stood behind him.
Eira.
Older. Colder. Wearing the Black Crown.
Welcoming a child with void-black eyes.
Khael's voice cracked. "That's not real."
Ghost said nothing.
The mirror broke.
Above - The Betrayer Queen
Far above the Sanctum, in the very heart of the capital, Eira stood on the balcony of the Black Spire. Shadows made her crown shine with intensity - a cruel contrast to her eyes that simmered with controlled rage.
A slight tremor, a pulse, had just passed through the earth.
She felt it - the old bond severing. The blade of the void ripped away from its master, claimed by one who was still breathing.
"Send the Black Hand," she ordered.
Eira's captain hesitated. "But your Grace,* they have not been used in."
"I said, send them."
He bowed and was gone.
Eira closed her eyes.
"Khael," she whispered. "I should have killed you slower."
She put her hand on her stomach, flat and firm.
She would soon have it all.
But she wouldn't if Khael reached the throne first.
Back into the Deep
Khael and Ghost stepped from the Trial chamber into an ancient runway punctuating with a corridor of black fire.
And waiting for them were the bodies.
Fresh bodies.
Soldiers, slaughtered. With the mark of the Black Hand stain on their armor.
Ghost crouched next to one. His face went pale. "These guys weren't guards. These guys were killers."
"Sent here after me?"
"Even worse. They were sent here to contain whatever is down here"
A low rasping growl ran out from ahead.
Khael rose. The blade-mark on his hand pulsed.
"I don't care what is down here. If Eira wants it dead, I want it alive."
Ghost looked at him like he was mad. "You're turning into something that you don't even understand."
Khael's voice was calm, cold.
"Then the rest of the world better start understanding me."
He walked towards the darkness.
And something ancient opened its eyes.