The staircase spiraled downward so tightly that Drakon had to fold his wings completely against his sides and walk with his head lowered. Even then, the tips of his crystalline tail spines scraped faintly against the ancient stone walls, sending tiny sparks of verdant light dancing along the carvings.
The air grew colder with every step.
Not the clean cold of winter, but something heavier—old, stale, grieving.
Glacia's feathers glowed softly, providing the only real illumination after the door sealed behind them. The phoenix light caught on strange details: faded runes half-erased by time, claw marks that looked far too deliberate to be natural, patches of wall where the stone had been melted and re-fused as though something had once tried very hard to get out.
Jax walked last in line, one hand resting on Luna's shoulders. The shadow wolf's ears never stopped moving.
"Feels like we're walking into someone's tomb," he muttered.
Kairos didn't turn around.
"Because we probably are."
After what felt like several minutes but was probably only a hundred steps, the staircase ended in a circular chamber no larger than a modest classroom. The ceiling arched high and was lost in shadow. The floor was polished black marble veined with silver—almost like frozen lightning.
Seven arched doorways ringed the room.
Each door was identical: heavy obsidian, bound in dull silver, marked with a single large rune at chest height.
Only one of the runes was still glowing—faintly, sickly green.
Kairos stopped in the center of the room.
"This is the Vault of Broken Oaths," he said quietly. "Every door leads to a different branch of forbidden bond knowledge. Curses. Severances. Forced mergers. Bloodline theft. The glowing one…" He nodded toward the sickly green rune. "That's the one we want."
Elara stepped closer.
The rune pulsed unevenly, like a heartbeat with arrhythmia.
Drakon growled low in his throat.
That light is the same color as the corruption we felt on the feathers.
"Exactly," Kairos said. "It's active. Which means someone has been here recently. Very recently."
Jax crouched beside Luna, who was sniffing intently at the base of the glowing door.
"She says the scent is layered. Multiple people. Multiple pets. And something… wrong. Like rot under clean fur."
Elara looked at Kairos.
"Can you open it?"
He hesitated.
"My blood will unlock any door in this vault. But once we cross that threshold, the academy's oldest wards will know we're here. They'll wake. And they don't ask questions first."
Glacia made a small, anxious sound and pressed closer to his leg.
Elara met his gaze.
"Then we move fast."
Kairos exhaled once, sharply.
He stepped forward and pressed his left palm—still bandaged—against the rune.
Blood welled instantly through the gauze.
A single crimson drop slid down the obsidian and vanished into the carving.
The green light flared bright.
The door groaned open like something waking from a very long sleep.
Beyond it: darkness so complete it felt solid.
Then, slowly, torches along the walls kindled themselves—flames the color of dying emeralds.
They stepped inside.
The corridor was narrow, lined with shelves that stretched impossibly high. Each shelf held hundreds of crystal cylinders, each one containing a single rolled scroll or a fragment of something that looked disturbingly like preserved bone or feather or scale.
Most of the cylinders were dark.
A few flickered weakly.
And three—near the far end—burned with that same sickly green.
Elara felt Drakon's entire body tense.
They are watching the cylinders that are still alive.
Kairos moved first, scanning the nearest shelves.
"These are oaths," he said. "Actual bond oaths. Written in blood, sealed in crystal. When a bond is broken—willingly or not—the crystal darkens. When it's corrupted…" He pointed at one of the glowing green ones. "It does that."
Jax reached out toward the nearest dark crystal.
"Don't," Kairos snapped.
Jax froze.
"Touching a dead bond crystal without permission pulls you into the memory of its breaking. Most people don't come back the same."
Jax withdrew his hand slowly.
Luna whined softly.
Elara walked deeper into the corridor.
The green glow grew stronger.
At the very end stood a low stone table.
On it lay an open book—huge, bound in what looked like dragon hide that had long ago turned black and cracked.
Beside the book sat a single crystal cylinder.
Unlike the others, this one was cracked.
A thin line of green mist leaked from the fracture and drifted upward, curling like smoke.
Elara stopped in front of it.
The crystal was larger than the rest.
Inside, suspended in clear liquid, floated a tiny, perfect emerald scale.
Drakon made a sound Elara had never heard from him before—half grief, half fury.
That is one of mine. From before I was born. From my mother's clutch.
Elara's heart clenched.
She looked at the open book.
The page was written in an old script she could barely read, but certain words stood out even to her untrained eyes.
Severance.
Reaving.
False Resonance.
The Hollow King.
And then, near the bottom of the page, a single line circled in fresh ink:
"The Verdant shall be first. When the last dragon bond falls, the Hollow King rises."
Kairos read it aloud, voice flat and cold.
No one spoke for several heartbeats.
Then Jax, very quietly:
"Who the hell is the Hollow King?"
Before anyone could answer, the crystal on the table cracked again—louder this time.
Green mist poured out faster.
The torches flickered.
And from the far end of the corridor, where they had entered, came the unmistakable sound of stone grinding against stone.
The door was closing.
No—not closing.
Sealing.
Heavy bolts of black iron were sliding into place across the entrance.
Glacia screeched once—sharp, warning.
Drakon whirled, wings snapping half-open despite the narrow space.
Too late.
The door slammed shut.
Every torch in the corridor went dark at once.
Only the leaking green mist from the cracked crystal provided light now.
And in that light, shapes began to form.
Not people.
Not pets.
Something worse.
Silhouettes made of shadow and broken bond threads—half-formed wolves, half-formed birds, half-formed dragons—all of them eyeless, all of them moving with the jerky, marionette motions of things that had once been alive and loved.
They rose from the floor like smoke given claws.
And they advanced.
Kairos drew his ice sword with his good hand, blade flaring painfully bright in the green gloom.
"Stay together," he ordered.
Elara stepped in front of Drakon, hands already glowing with verdant light.
Jax drew two short daggers, Luna sinking low beside him, hackles raised.
The first shadow lunged.
Glacia met it mid-air—ice and corrupted shadow exploding in a violent hiss of steam.
The fight began.
(to be continued…)