The kingdom stretched before them like a wound stitched in ash.
Its streets sprawled beneath a sunless sky, the twilight eternal. Buildings sagged under years of silence. The hollow-eyed inhabitants shuffled aimlessly, their faces slack, their hearts long since extinguished.
Caelen and Elira moved through the hushed city like trespassers in a dream.
The air was thick with despair—dense and cloying. His curse writhed in response, the scar on his chest pulsing with every silent cry he could not fully hear.
At the city's center loomed a palace of black glass. Its spires stretched skyward, jagged and accusing, slicing into the heavens like forgotten sins.
They entered the throne room in silence.
It was cloaked in shadows.
Columns rose like bones from the floor. Tattered banners clung to the walls. And on the throne sat a man who was once a king—but now barely more than a ghost wrapped in flesh.
His crown was forged of iron and silence. His eyes were sharp, ancient, tired.
"Welcome, Ashbound," he said. His voice was a silken thread woven with menace. "I have foreseen your coming."
Caelen's curse recoiled. The scar burned like ice.
"You know me?" he asked.
The king leaned forward. "I was you. Once. A bearer of pain. A light in the dark. I carried the world's sorrow—until I tired of bleeding for those who never thanked me."
Elira's hand found her dagger.
"Peace?" she spat. "Your people are husks."
The king smiled. It was a cold, perfect curve.
"They feel nothing," he said. "No grief. No fear. I spared them. I saved them."
Caelen's gaze swept the room.
The courtiers stood silent. Their eyes were voids. Their souls adrift. It was the boy with no tears. The healer-turned-beast. The marsh reflection—made manifest.
"You didn't save them," Caelen said. "You erased them."
The king stood.
His presence was vast. Empty. Beautiful in its hollowness.
"I can free you, Ashbound," he said. "Sever your curse. Grant you strength without pain. Become what you were always meant to be."
The offer was a whisper against Caelen's soul. A lullaby of silence. An end to the endless ache.
He looked at Elira.
At her fire.
He remembered the cathedral, the spirits he'd freed, the touch of her hand when he'd collapsed.
"I'd rather die fighting," Caelen said, voice low, "than live like that."
The king's laughter rang like a bell struck with bone.
"You will fall to him," he said. "As I did. Eredan-Mir waits for you at the edge of all things."
They left the palace without a word.
Outside, Elira reached for his hand.
Her fingers were warm. Alive.
"You chose right," she said.
He nodded, though inside, something trembled.
The path to the temple loomed ahead, longer and darker than before.
And behind them, the king's crown glinted in the dark—a silent warning of what Caelen could become.