The spiral stair descended deeper than any natural tunnel. It was not carved—it was grown, as if shaped by time itself under command of ancient will. Each step pulsed faintly beneath Kael's feet, responding to his presence like a living thing.
Darkness wrapped around them, not empty but thick, filled with soundless whispers—the kind that moved beneath skin and memory.
The Oracle walked ahead, her pale hair drifting behind like silk caught in slow wind.
"These steps were made for one purpose," she said softly, "to test resolve through remembrance."
Nareus shivered. "I feel like something's watching us, even down here."
"Because something is," she replied. "The Throne watches all who near it."
Suddenly, Kael stumbled.
His foot landed on a stone that flashed red, and in an instant—
—he was somewhere else.
Rain pounded against broken stone. A battlefield. Corpses lay in heaps. And he stood above them—wearing a crown of iron thorns.
His voice, echoing from a memory not his own: "Burn the rest. Let none rise again."
The sky wept blood.
Then—back to the stair.
Kael gasped, staggering against the wall.
Selene caught him. "What happened?"
"I… saw something. Me, but not me."
The Oracle nodded. "The throne does not grant visions. It reveals buried truths. That was a thread of your soul, from another age."
Elira looked pale. "Will we all see them?"
"Only he walks with every soul who wore the Mark," the Oracle said. "Each step deeper, more of them will awaken."
They continued.
Kael's visions came more frequently now.
—A tyrant ordering executions.
—A child standing before a dying dragon.
—A scholar binding a book in human skin.
—A man, weeping, alone in a ruined temple.
All of them… him.
Different faces. Same soul.
Finally, the stair ended at a vast door of bone and bronze, veined with black roots. Symbols burned across it—some Kael recognized from old temples, others from dreams.
The Oracle stopped. "Beyond this gate lies the Throne of Blackened Bones."
"And the truth?" Kael asked.
"And the price," she whispered.
He reached for the door.
And the mark on his arm burst into flame.
---
End of Chapter 29
The throne stirs. The stair has revealed not just the past, but what Kael has always been: a vessel for countless lives, bound by fate and flame. Now, only one gate remains between him… and what he was truly forged to become.