"What did you see behind that glass?"
Elder Graves raised the ward-rod between them.
Thorne's hand moved to protect the journal beneath his cloak.
"Nothing. Just an empty room."
Graves seized his arm. "Do not mock me with lies. What did you see?"
"A man. Barely alive. Bound to feeding lines. Rhaedor Virelle."
Graves released him. "So you know."
"Why is he bound to the sun-stone?"
"Because guilt has a price. Or poison. We never determined which."
Dust fell from the ceiling. The wardstones were cracking. The floor shook—faint, but growing stronger.
Graves circled him slowly. "Twenty years ago, Verrian Dain killed the most powerful warrior in Erathil. Did you never wonder how he managed it?"
Thorne retreated a step. "Someone close to Zhorander ensured it. Rhaedor."
Graves inclined his head. "He made a choice. The realm or his friend."
The floor shook—stone fragments fell from the ceiling.
Thorne closed the distance between them. "You are using him to power the sun-stone. For twenty years, his life force has sustained the barriers. But his strength weakens. You need Kaelen."
"The girl carries her grandfather's flame magic. Stronger. Purer."
"She will never agree."
Graves pulled a scroll from his robes. "She will not have a choice. Your mother showed us how to redirect the binding. To the sun-stone itself. Two sources are more stable than one."
"Two days until the ceremony. Spend them wisely."
Graves turned towards the door.
Thorne blocked his path. "Wait. Why did Rhaedor betray Zhorander?"
Graves paused in the doorway. "Because the seers showed him what would come. What Zhorander's bloodline would birth. And Rhaedor believed them."
Thorne advanced another step. "What did they see?"
"Ask your mother's journal. But remember—some truths burn worse than fire."
Graves ascended the stairs into the shadow.
Elena's journal pressed against Thorne's chest. Cracks spread across the ward-stones. The walls groaned. Somewhere deep below, stone scraped against stone.
Rhaedor stirs.
And I have two days to understand why.
. . .
Kaelen pressed herself against the cell wall as guards swept past. Her door stood open—exactly as she had left it.
She slipped inside, and the locks clicked shut. One by one. Seven turns.
But someone was already waiting.
Councillor Frost sat on her bench.
Kaelen froze. "How did you enter my cell?"
Frost did not rise. "The same way you escaped yours."
"If they find you here—"
"Graves released us after Halden's sudden illness. He needed the lower council whilst he consolidated power."
Kaelen gripped the edge of her bench. "But he was—"
"Recovering?" Frost leaned back. "Halden will not recover. And Graves knows it."
"His first command was to advance the binding ceremony."
Kaelen drew back. "When?"
Frost met her gaze. "Tomorrow at nightfall. You need to leave before they bind you to the sun-stone."
"Like my grandfather."
Frost leaned back. "You know."
"I saw him. In the healing ward. Bound to the feeding lines."
"Then you understand. His strength weakens. They want to replace him. With you."
"You knew about this? All of you?"
Frost looked away. "We all knew. We told ourselves it was necessary. But when I saw what they planned for you—"
"Why are you helping me now? You stood with them when they imprisoned me."
"I stood with them when they took your mother. Seventeen years I have carried that guilt. I will not carry yours as well."
He leaned forward. "You need to go north. To the Sundered Peaks. Before Graves realises you are gone."
"North? The Hollow Map is lost. I have no means to navigate the mountain passes—"
Frost pulled a folded parchment from his robes. "I know. This will guide you."
Kaelen stared at the map in his hands.
How does he possess another? The Hollow Map was one of a kind.
Why does he aid me now? After standing with them when they imprisoned me?
She did not reach for it. "Where did you come by this?"
Frost shifted on the bench. "That does not matter. What matters is—"
Kaelen held his gaze. "It matters to me. You stood with them when they took my mother. You stood with them when they locked me away. And now you appear in my cell with an escape route already drawn?"
Frost looked away. "You have cause to doubt me. But I speak the truth. This map has been in my keeping for seventeen years. I took it from your mother's research. Before the Council could destroy everything she had gathered."
Kaelen pulled away from the parchment. "You stole from her?"
"I preserved what I could. When I realised what they intended—what Graves would do—I took what might save you. This map and her research notes."
He pressed the map into her hands. "Your mother was searching for something in the Sundered Peaks. Whatever the Council feared enough to execute her for. I never discovered what. But this map was hidden in her chamber. Marked in her own hand."
"You expect me to follow a map to a place even you do not understand?"
"I expect you to trust that your mother had reason. She died protecting whatever lies north. If you stay here, Graves will bind you to the sun-stone, and you will never know why."
Kaelen unfolded the parchment slowly. The edges were worn soft, creased from countless foldings. Water stains spread across one corner—pale brown marks from spilt tea or rain.
A route marked in faded red ink. Her mother's hand.
Kaelen traced the line with one finger.
The chamber shifted. She stood in their old room, watching her mother bend over the table. Candlelight flickered across scattered papers. Maera's ink-stained fingers traced mountain passes with those same sharp downstrokes. The same sweep at each compass mark pointing north.
Kaelen blinked. The vision faded.
Frost watched her closely. "The map knows your blood. Your mother ensured it would answer only to you."
Mother worked on this in secret. Hid it even from me.
The same peaks marked on this map—they haunted her dreams.
Specific landmarks dotted the path: Widow's Ridge. The Frost Gates. Thornpass. And at the journey's end, circled three times in that same red ink: The Burning Veil.
Beneath it, in smaller script: Where fire remembers.
Her collar pulsed with red light.
Kaelen looked up. "If I leave, they will execute you."
"Then I will finally pay for standing by whilst they executed your mother."
"This is not just about replacing Rhaedor's failing power, is it?"
"No. It is about control. About keeping certain bloodlines suppressed. One your mother carried without knowing. One you inherited."
"Tell me."
Frost crossed to the door. "Ashborn. Born of dragon flame. You carry dragon blood, Kaelen. And the Council will never let that power wake."
Kaelen's hand moved to her collar.
Of course. Elena's journal—the entry before her death. "By eighteen, she will be unstoppable."
She knew. She always knew what I would become.
"Eastern gate. Nightfall. Come alone."
Then he was gone.
Kaelen stood in her cell, the map clutched in her hands. Somewhere in the vaults below, her grandfather stirred.
The floor trembled beneath her feet. Faint at first, then stronger.
Above, guards ran past. Fragments of conversation drifted through the door.
"—third ward-stone cracked—"
"—Elder Graves wants full lockdown—"
"—if he wakes, we are all—"
The voice cut off.
She set the map aside and pulled out her mother's journal. She opened to the unfinished words.
Break the connection. Free him. Let—
Let what fall? Let what wake? Let what burn?
The missing page held the answer.
She closed the journal. The tremors had grown stronger. If the guards were clearing the lower levels, they would come for Miriam, too.
Kaelen approached the wall where Miriam's cell lay beyond. "Miriam. Can you hear me?"
Silence.
She went to the cell window. Miriam's cell was empty. The bench was overturned. The blanket is torn.
Kaelen's fingers locked around the window bars.
A wooden cup lay on its side near the door. The water pooled beside it had long since dried, leaving a brown stain on the stone. A corner of the blanket hung from the overturned bench—not torn, but ripped with force, threads dangling.
Then she saw the floor.
Long scratches gouged the stone—parallel marks, as if someone had dug their heels in whilst being dragged. More scratches clawed up the wall. Fingernail deep. Desperate.
A rust-coloured smear stained the doorway. Blood. Fresh enough to still glisten in the torchlight.
The door hung half-open, its lock shattered—bent outward, as though a great force had struck it from inside.
I left her. I escaped and left her behind.
A carved wooden bird lay on the floor near the wall, whittled from a scrap of firewood. Its wing was snapped.
"No."
Footsteps above. Kaelen ran back to her cell and hid the journal beneath her mattress. She pressed Halden's key into her palm.
The door's locks began to turn. Kaelen sat on her bench. Hands folded. Eyes closed.
The door swung open. A guard stepped inside.
He wiped his palms on his tunic. "Elder Graves wants you moved to the preparation chambers. Now."
Kaelen rose slowly. "The ceremony is not until—"
"Now."
The guard wiped his palms again. "The healing ward measures are beyond reckoning. They are clearing the lower levels."
"What happened?"
The guard did not answer. His gaze was fixed on the floor. On the stones beneath which the Sunken Vaults lay.
The cell had grown cold.
. . .
Two hundred miles north, Verrian stood in his chamber. A map of the Sundered Peaks lay spread across the table before him—routes marked in black ink, camps circled, supply caches noted at three-day intervals.
The pendant pulsed in his hand—steady now.
Korrath entered behind him. "Word from our sources in Erathil. The binding holds. The girl's power is calling to her grandfather."
Verrian watched the red light pulse. "Not just calling. Waking."
He set the pendant on the map, directly over the mark labelled The Burning Veil. The red light cast shadows across the mountain passes. The room felt warmer where the light touched.
Three days to reach the peaks. The girl will need two to escape the citadel. One day remains for whoever else moves in the dark.
He pocketed the pendant and turned to Korrath. "Prepare for the journey. We leave for the Sundered Peaks at dusk."
Korrath hesitated. "My lord, the pendant requires the girl's presence to complete the awakening. Without her—"
Verrian did not turn. "The girl will be there. At the right moment."
"How can you be certain? The Council has her locked away—"
He faced his captain. "Because Graves will try to bind her. She will resist. And when they push her too far, she will break free. Just as her mother did."
"And if she runs south?"
Verrian drew the pendant from his pocket. "She will come north. I hold the one thing she cannot refuse."
"The truth about her mother."
"Yes. And once she is here, she will make the same choice her mother refused. She will join me. Or she will die. Either way, the barriers fall."
He turned towards the door. "Prepare the camps, Captain. When Kaelen Virelle arrives, I want her to see exactly what awaits."
But as he reached the doorway, the pendant pulsed one final time. Then went dark.
Verrian stopped.
He turned back to the table, holding the pendant up to the light. Dead. Cold.
Not the girl. Not Rhaedor. Someone else has entered the race.
Korrath stiffened. "My lord—"
Verrian's mind worked through the possibilities. Another Council member? Thorne? Or someone from the old wars, someone who remembered what lay buried in the peaks?
He turned slowly. "Someone else has entered the race."
. . .
Hours earlier, Riven rode south from Shadowland. The guards had seen him through the gates at dawn.
No returning to Erathil. Not whilst the Council still hunts me.
He should feel relieved. Freedom. The open road ahead, no walls, no cells, no executioner's blade waiting in the dark.
But all he felt was the weight of leaving her behind.
Kaelen alone in that cell. Frost playing his games. Graves consolidating power.
The sun climbed higher. The landscape shifted—barren rock giving way to sparse vegetation. Thin grass. Scattered trees.
The forest should be loud this time of day. Birds. Wind through branches. Small creatures moving through the undergrowth.
But the forest had gone silent.
Riven's hand moved to his sword hilt. Every sense warned him. He started to turn—
Too late.
The blow came from behind—swift, crushing. His head snapped forward.
He caught a glimpse as he fell. A shadow. Dark leather. A symbol stitched on the sleeve—three lines crossed by a fourth.
I know that mark.
His vision blurred.
. . .
End of Chapter 19
. . .
Next in Chapter 20: The Breaking
The Council advances the binding ceremony as Rhaedor's strength wanes and the dragon heart stirs beneath the mountain. Kaelen shatters her collar and enters the Sunken Vaults, where her grandfather reveals her mother's sacrifice. Riven awakens in Drakonthir, 300 miles from Erathil, facing a dragon-blooded lord aware of Verrian's true plan. Below the Archive, Kaelen touches the sun-stone and learns the Cradle was forged at the Sundered Peak, and only there can it be broken.