The throne room roared with silence.
Riven's grip tightened on Alric's shoulders, but he recoiled as the king's skin burned like iron from a forge. The black fire surged higher, swallowing the torchlight until the chamber seemed lit by shadows instead of flame.
The seer raised her staff, voice breaking as she tried to chant words of warding. They died on her tongue. Each syllable drowned beneath the laughter bleeding from the ring.
"I was born of betrayal. I am bound to the crown. I do not end."
The voice of Dafros shook the stones.
Alric's body convulsed, dragged like a puppet by unseen strings. He clutched at his throat, his veins glowing faintly red as though chaos itself had set his blood alight. The crown upon his brow shuddered, cracks spreading through its metal, weeping embers like a wound that would not close.
"Fight it, my king!" Riven's plea rang out, raw and desperate.
Alric managed one word through clenched teeth—"Run—"
The seer did not. She struck the butt of her staff against the marble, light blossoming from the blow. Sigils ignited across the floor, curling into a circle around the king. For an instant the whispers dimmed, and Alric sagged, gasping for breath.
Her voice shook as she spoke: "This is no mere curse. This is the shadow of Salomon, bound to the First Ring. He is the heir of ruin."
Riven's face twisted. "Then break the ring—cut his hand if you must!"
The seer did not move. She stared at Alric with hollow eyes. "If we sever the flesh, the shadow will only search for another vessel. And if it does, there will be no containing it."
As if in answer, the ground trembled. The sigils cracked. Black veins spidered outward from Alric's body, shattering the runes as though they were brittle clay.
The seer screamed, staggering back. "It feeds on his will!"
The black fire erupted.
The circle split apart, and in the space above the shattered runes, something clawed its way into the world.
A figure.
No body, no face—only a form of writhing shadow, armored in the memory of blood. Chains dragged from its limbs, clattering like bones. Its voice was thunder swallowed by the abyss.
"I am Dafros. And I remember."
Riven's sword was in his hand before the words finished. He leapt, steel flashing, and drove the blade straight through the shadow's chest.
The blade did not pierce. It vanished into the darkness like water swallowed by the sea.
Chains lashed out.
Riven was hurled across the chamber, slammed into a pillar that cracked from the force. His sword clattered uselessly to the floor.
Alric's scream tore free—not from pain, but from the terror of recognition. He knew what Dafros was. He had seen it in his vision. This was no servant. No guardian. This was the purest will of his ancestor, unbound and unrelenting.
A curse that wore chains like a crown.
Dafros bent low, though it had no face to leer with. Its voice filled every corner of Alric's skull:
"Your forefather promised me vengeance. His death chained me to the bloodline. You wear his ring. You wear his crown. You are mine until the last kingdom burns."
The seer crawled to her knees, eyes wide with terror. "The chain is complete…"
But Alric—shaking, gasping, on the floor—found words.
"No. I will not be you."
His hand, still bound by the ring, rose trembling against Dafros's shadow. "I am not Salomon. I am not your king. I am—"
The words cut. His heart convulsed. The ring burned.
Dafros hissed, the sound like iron striking stone:
"Then you are nothing."
The chains surged forward.
And the throne room vanished in a storm of black fire.
The chains surged forward, their black weight crashing down like an avalanche, ready to drag Alric into nothingness.
But then—
A sound split the chamber.
Clang.
The chains recoiled. Dafros froze.
From the center of the palace court, where marble had shattered and fire still burned, a sword stood upright in the stone—its blade gleaming with a light no torch could match. It had not been there a moment before. It had appeared, sudden and absolute, as if the world itself had coughed it out in defiance.
The glow from the blade wasn't holy or radiant. It was harsh, primal, edged with something older than gods. The air around it rippled like the surface of a storm-tossed sea.
Dafros stepped back. For the first time since his return, the shadow hesitated.
Its voice cracked like splitting mountains, heavy with disbelief.
"Impossible…"
The black fire dimmed. The chains rattled nervously, as though they too feared the steel before them.
"That sword… breaks the will itself." Dafros's whisper rose into a snarl. "I know that fang. Forged from the tooth of the dragon of disaster—Kayssel."
The seer, half-collapsed on the floor, gasped at the name. Even Riven, bleeding against the pillar, dragged his head up with wide, uncomprehending eyes.
The sword vibrated, humming with power, its light spilling across the shattered chamber.
Alric, trembling on his knees, felt the ring burn against his skin—hotter, angrier. The chaos within him recoiled from the weapon, as if the very essence of the blade was poison to it.
Dafros's voice rose, deeper, almost feral.
"That weapon was lost. Destroyed. No forge, no hand, no will could bring it back."
And yet there it was—waiting.
The shadow trembled with fury.
"Do not touch it, heir. If you claim that sword, you choose war not only with me, but with every power that ever feared the dragon's name."
Alric's eyes locked on the blade. Sweat ran down his face, his body shaking, but somewhere in his chest—beneath the fear, beneath the chains—something stirred.
Not chaos. Not Dafros. Something else.
His will.
Slowly, he rose. Step by step, dragging himself toward the sword that had no right to exist.
And Dafros, for the first time, did not move to stop him.