> "The shadow of an ancient sin stretches long, sometimes even across generations who believe themselves innocent."
> — Fragment from the Forbidden Lore, Elder Archives >
The mountain wind bit at Captain Valerius's face, carrying the damp scent of stone and the distant, ever-present whisper of the mists around Veilstone Keep. A week had passed since the fugitives—the boy, the priestess, and the disgraced knight—had vanished into that impossible crack in the rock. A week of relentless searching, of mapping every known smuggler's path, every hidden fissure, every forgotten alcove around the ancient fortress. And still, nothing.
Valerius stood on a makeshift platform carved into the rock, overlooking the vast, looming structure of the Keep. Below him, the Royal Guard encampment was a hive of quiet activity: men sharpening blades, poring over crude maps, and reporting empty patrols. Frustration gnawed at him, a dull, persistent ache in his jaw.
"Any new intelligence, Sergeant Bronn?" Valerius's voice was low, controlled, but the edge was there.
Sergeant Bronn, a stocky, grizzled veteran, stepped forward, a leather-bound report clutched in his gloved hand. "None, Captain. Our scouts confirm all known passages are either sealed or impassable. The local 'guides' are useless, claiming the Keep has 'its own mind' or 'wakes only for the chosen.' Rubbish."
Valerius scoffed. "Rubbish. The Keep is stone and mortar, Sergeant. It responds to pressure, not whispers. They're inside. That much is clear. The boy's aura... it practically screams from within those walls."
He felt it, a faint but unmistakable resonance from the obsidian shard that coursed within Ash. It was a cold, alien presence that Valerius abhorred. He despised the Crown, hated what it had done to Aerthos, the chaos it had sown, the madness it had inspired in so many throughout history. The King's Purge, ruthless as it was, was necessary to excise this blight.
He unconsciously reached for the heavy silver signet ring on his right hand, tracing the intricate, almost organic pattern etched into its surface. It was an ancient family heirloom, passed down through the Valerius line for countless generations. A symbol of their unwavering duty to the Crown, or rather, to its destruction. He didn't know the full history of the ring, only that it had been with his ancestors since before the first kingdoms were founded, a cold weight of legacy on his finger.
"They're after something specific," Valerius mused, pulling his thoughts back to the mission. "The priestess, Selene, she has a scholarly air about her. And the Keep is rumored to hold the largest repository of lore on the Crown, hidden from our King's more... pragmatic purges."
Bronn grunted. "So they seek knowledge? What good is knowledge to a fragment of chaos?"
"Knowledge is power, Sergeant," Valerius replied, his eyes narrowing. "And the Crown seeks to return. It tries to draw its fragments together. If those fools stumble upon a way to reunite the shards, or worse, awaken some deeper aspect of that accursed thing, then all of King Theron's work, all our sacrifices, will have been for naught."
He turned, facing his men. "We intensify the search. Forget the direct assaults. We need to find the secret paths. The ones known only to the truly desperate, or the truly mad. Every smuggler, every outlaw who ever used Veilstone as a hiding place, find their old haunts, their hidden maps. Offer coin, offer clemency, offer anything short of treason. I want every inch of this mountain, every shadowed cranny, scrutinized."
Valerius's gaze swept over the ancient fortress, then down to the signet ring on his finger. It felt unusually cold against his skin today, almost as if it pulsed with a faint, internal chill. The Crown's touch. He shuddered inwardly. His duty was clear. He would not allow the chaos that his family had sworn to fight to consume Aerthos. Not while a Valerius still breathed.
"We will find them," he vowed, his voice low, a promise delivered to the unyielding stone of the Keep. "And when we do, the Crown's last echo will be silenced for good."