The cavern of chains stank of damp stone, rotting straw, and old blood.
Kael's merged assassin drifted through the shadows like a phantom. Its blades whispered as they slid through flesh and bone, cutting guards down before they could even gasp. No alarm bells, no calls for help—only silence, as one by one the slavers' sentries were erased.
When Kael entered, his presence filled the air with something heavier than smoke. The shadows recoiled and obeyed in the same breath, and the cavern seemed smaller for it.
The heart of the cavern pulsed with something wrong. Kael's abyss-touched sight revealed it instantly: dozens of slave contracts, each one anchored into reality with bloody runes. They weren't just paper—they were chains gnawed into the soul, shackles made of law and curse.
"All of this ends tonight," Kael murmured.
The assassin glided to the vault. The steel doors were etched with false protections—runes that promised safety to men who did not understand true darkness. With a touch, Kael's shadow drowned them. The lock shrieked as it split open, coughing up its contents.
Parchments stacked high, glowing red with binding seals.
Kael extended a hand. Shadows slipped over the contracts like oil, and one by one they shattered. Invisible chains snapped across the cavern, and the air was filled with gasps as men, women, and children felt something break inside them.
Some wept. Some fell to their knees. But all of them knew—freedom had come.
Kael stood silent as they trembled, the abyss swirling in his mask's gaze. "No one holds dominion over you any longer."
The cavern's master was found soon after. A fat man wrapped in silks, clutching ledgers and gems as though they might shield him. His face turned ashen when Kael appeared, assassin looming at his back.
"You dare…! Do you know who I serve?!" the man shrieked. "The prince himself grants me license! Kill me, and you—"
Kael's mask tilted, and silence cut him short.
"Then it is the prince's license that dies with you."
The assassin's blade opened his throat. His body vanished into shadow, erased like filth from the floor.
The freed captives gathered, uncertain whether to run or kneel. Kael ordered them forward, one at a time, names and origins spoken aloud.
Then she stepped out.
A girl no longer, but a young woman—her face hollowed by hunger, her clothes ragged. Yet her eyes were bright, unbroken, and when she met Kael's gaze, she did not look away.
It struck him like a knife of memory.
The dungeon, ten years ago. The roar of stone collapsing, the abyss swallowing him whole. He had looked back, desperate, and seen only Arlen and the prince watching coldly from the safe ledge.
But not everyone had stood still.
He remembered it now—the girl, younger then, pushing past others, arms outstretched, trying to reach him. He had seen her face in that blur of chaos, the only one who moved to help.
Then the prince's subordinate had struck her down, cracking her head against the stone, silencing her resistance.
She had vanished from his memory, lost in the noise of betrayal and pain. But here she was—alive, scarred, enslaved.
Kael froze. Beneath the mask, something in him twisted.
"You…" His voice was low, dangerous.
Her lips parted. Her eyes widened—not with fear, but recognition. She had seen him before.
And in that instant, though she could not name it, she knew exactly who he was.
Far from Greyspire, the ground trembled.
The enemy army was on the march. Black banners, endless lines of armored soldiers, siege engines that cracked the earth beneath their wheels. One hundred thousand strong, rolling forward like an avalanche.
At their heart rode a general clad in iron, a smile like a scar across his face. In his gauntleted hands, he carried a jagged stone, dark as a starless sky, its veins glowing pale.
The stone shook violently, as though barely contained, its energy lashing out in invisible waves. Soldiers flinched as they passed near it, muttering prayers or curses. Even veterans kept their distance.
The general only gripped it tighter, raising it high.
"With this, the Empire's spine will snap," he declared. "No wall, no tower, no army will stand when the gods themselves abandon them."
The stone pulsed again—unstable, alien, ravenous.
Back in the cavern, Kael's head snapped toward the horizon. His abyss-born senses shivered. That same unnatural energy pressed against him even across miles of distance.
Something was coming.
And Greyspire would be the first to break if he did not act.
The silence in the cavern after the slave trader's death was thick and trembling. The freed slaves looked to Kael with wide, uncertain eyes, their bodies bruised and hungry, their souls still bound by years of servitude.
Kael turned his mask toward them, voice carrying weight and finality.
"You have a choice. The same as those freed before you. You may walk away, take your freedom into the world and never see me again… or you may follow me. With me, you will remain free—and gain strength enough to never wear chains again."
Murmurs rippled through the cavern. Hope, suspicion, fear, and desperation clashed. Yet when Kael raised his hand and shadows parted to reveal the path outside, most fell to their knees in acceptance. They had been broken once; none wished to risk it again.
One by one, they stepped forward. Kael drew them into his Summon Space, a realm of ordered safety within the abyss. The moment they vanished inside, their chains seemed lighter.
Only the girl remained.
She stood still, arms wrapped around her thin frame, her eyes locked onto him. Not with fear—never that—but with something else. Recognition that had no name.
Kael extended his hand, offering her a ration of dried meat and water. She accepted, eating quickly yet with grace, every bite a reminder of how long she had been denied even this.
When she finished, her voice trembled as she spoke.
"I… I wasn't always here. I was taken because I spoke when I shouldn't. But before that—" she swallowed, gathering herself. "Before that, there was… a dungeon. Ten years ago. Do you remember the one near the Abyssal rift?"
Kael stilled.
Her words clawed at old wounds.
She didn't notice. Her eyes had gone distant, lost in memory.
"There was a boy. He fell." Her voice cracked. "No one helped him. Not the prince, not his men. They just watched. I tried. I ran to the edge, I tried to grab him, but…" Her hands shook. "They struck me. Knocked me out before I could reach him. When I woke, they told me it didn't matter. That he was dead. That he never mattered."
Her fists clenched, tears welling in the corners of her eyes.
"I don't even know his name. But I still remember his face when he fell."
Kael's heart pounded like war drums behind his mask. For years, the abyss had been nothing but betrayal, but here—here was the proof he had not been utterly alone. That someone had reached for him. That someone had cared.
She looked at him now, gaze unwavering.
"You… you remind me of him."
Kael said nothing. Words failed him. The abyss inside him roared in silence.
Her hand trembled, but slowly she raised it. Her fingers brushed the cold edge of his mask.
And then, with one hesitant motion, she pulled it away.
Kael froze.
The girl gasped.
Time itself seemed to shatter in that moment.
Far away, Greyspire thundered with new urgency.
The princess sisters had arrived, their banners blazing against the gray sky. Their presence alone cut through the haze of uncertainty.
"Greyspire will not fall easily," declared the eldest, her voice carrying across the marketplace. "Not while we draw breath."
At once, orders spread like wildfire:
The city was set to high alert, soldiers stationed at every gate and wall.
Messengers rode out to neighboring nobles, calling them to evacuate their people into Greyspire's defenses.
Storehouses were emptied, wagons filled with grain, roots, and livestock. Nothing edible was to remain beyond the walls.
"Better burned than feeding the enemy," one knight muttered grimly as peasants rushed to comply.
Within the heart of the city, Kael's trading company made its own announcement.
"All products—grain, tools, medicine, clothing—are reduced to a single bronze coin until the alert ends!"
Gasps filled the crowd. Commoners wept with relief, clutching what little coin they had to rush and buy supplies. Even nobles, wary at first, could not help but approve. For once, they were united in something that served everyone.
Greyspire's streets surged with desperate energy, the people moving not with despair but with a shared determination.
The storm was coming.
But Greyspire, this time, would not meet it broken.