The sky was no longer a sky.
It was a churning storm of blackened wings, shrieking wind, and bone.
Kael tightened his grip on the parapet of Velmira's shattered wall. Below, the once-silent plains thundered with the march of the Deadbound. Thousands of them—reanimated husks of soldiers and beasts—clattered forward like a single vast organism, eyes glowing with a cold blue fire.
"We have hours," Elira said, pulling her cloak tighter against the storm's edge. Her voice was steady, but her face was pale. "Maybe less."
Beside her, Captain Ryen spat over the edge. "Then let's not waste breath. If this is the last stand of Velmira, let's make it scream."
Kael turned, his jaw set. "It won't be. Not yet."
From his belt, he drew the fragment of the Shadow Crown.
It still pulsed. Still throbbed in his palm like it was alive. It whispered to him in a language he did not know, but understood all the same: Power is not inherited. It is taken.
"I need to go to the Obsidian Well," Kael said.
Ryen looked at him like he'd gone mad. "That place is cursed. What in the Six Hells would you—"
"That fragment," Elira interrupted, pointing to the shard in Kael's hand. "It's reacting. To them." She nodded toward the horde. "You felt it, didn't you? When they rose."
Kael nodded grimly. "The Crown was never just a symbol of rulership. It was a key. And I think the Well is the lock."
Elira glanced at the skies. A massive winged creature broke through the cloud line—a skeletal wyvern, with talons like spears and a rider cloaked in fireless shadow. Her breath caught. "Then we don't have time."
The Hidden Path
They rode hard through the underbelly of Velmira—through forgotten tunnels dug in the First Age when kings feared things older than men. The path to the Obsidian Well lay beneath the ruined Cathedral of Light, buried and sealed for centuries.
"Why was it sealed?" Elira asked as they descended a spiraling staircase carved from obsidian glass.
Kael glanced back. "Because the last person who opened it nearly tore the Veil between life and death."
"So we're doing it again?"
"We're doing it better."
When they reached the bottom, the door was already open. Wind hissed through the gap like the breath of something that had been waiting.
The Obsidian Well
The chamber was vast and round, its walls inlaid with veins of silver and shadowstone. At the center stood the Well—a black pit, rimmed with jagged glyphs that pulsed dimly as Kael approached. The fragment in his hand burned.
"Elira," he whispered, "stay back."
She didn't listen.
When Kael held the fragment over the Well, the glyphs ignited in sequence—one by one—until the entire room glowed with an otherworldly light. Whispers filled the air again, louder now, urgent.
Then a voice—deep and cold—spoke from the Well.
"Bearer of the broken crown...
Do you seek dominion...
Or deliverance?"
Kael's heart pounded. "I seek to end the Deadbound. Whatever it takes."
The Well laughed.
"Then offer what kings fear most—
Not your sword…
But your soul."
The shard vanished into flame.
Kael screamed.
Unseen Chains
He fell—not through the Well, but through memory.
He saw the First King don the Crown, saw the lands kneel before him, saw the day he was betrayed—by the very magic that gave him power. Saw the forging of the Soulbrand, the rise of the Necromancer, the burning of the last Tree of Light.
And then—Kael stood alone in a hall of mirrors.
Each one showed him—a different him.
In one, he was a tyrant, wearing the completed Crown and seated on a throne of bones. In another, he was broken, kneeling in chains. In another still, he walked away, casting the Crown into the sea.
"You must choose," the voice echoed.
The Awakening
Kael opened his eyes.
He stood at the edge of the Well—but now it pulsed with silver light, not darkness.
In his hand was no longer a fragment, but a hilt—dark, smooth, and warm. He raised it, and shadow coiled around it, forming a blade not of metal, but of will.
"Elira," he said hoarsely. "I've changed the Crown."
From above, the first stones of Velmira's outer wall collapsed. Screams echoed.
Kael turned toward the sound, sword in hand.
"Let them come."