The candle burned low in their cramped inn room, casting a trembling halo of light across the bare stone walls. Ruvan sat on the edge of his straw mattress, elbows on his knees, Solrend lying across his thighs. The broken sword felt heavier with each passing hour, as though it drank from his bones, draining warmth from his blood.
Elion slept near the shuttered window, his chest rising and falling softly under a thin wool blanket. Kellan snored on a straw mat near the door, one hand tucked under his head, the other resting loosely on the dagger strapped to his belt.
Outside, Iron Hold's night sounds drifted through the wooden walls – distant tavern songs, clinking mugs, the bark of watch hounds patrolling the ramparts. Somewhere far below, in an alley hidden from moonlight, a man screamed before the sound was swallowed by silence.
Ruvan ran a thumb along Solrend's fractured edge. The metal thrummed faintly beneath his touch, like a beast sleeping restlessly in its cage.
He should have been exhausted after the day's march, after the endless hours in the Archives searching for answers in dust-choked scrolls. But sleep refused him. Every time his eyelids drooped, a dark whisper licked across his mind:
You will fail them. Like before. Like always.
Finally he laid back, curling his fingers around Solrend's hilt as if it might anchor him to the waking world.
Sleep came swiftly, dragging him into a realm darker than any forest shadow.
He stood in a throne room of charred obsidian, its pillars cracked and weeping rivulets of molten light. Flames flickered in iron braziers but gave no warmth. At the far end sat a throne twisted from blackened roots and rusted chains. A figure slouched upon it, crowned in jagged silver, face hidden behind a mask of bone and shadow.
Solrend pulsed in Ruvan's hand, its glow dimmer here, flickering like a dying candle.
The figure raised its head. Beneath the crown, darkness billowed like smoke. Its voice scraped across the stone floor and echoed in Ruvan's bones.
"You come again, little heir of ash."
"Who are you?" Ruvan asked, though his heart already whispered the answer. The Silent King. The first to wield Solrend, the first to bind the Devourer within himself. The first to fall.
"The question is not who I am," the Silent King said, his mask cracking with faint light between bone seams. "But what you are becoming."
Around them, the shadows thickened. Shapes slithered across the obsidian tiles – flickering illusions of faces Ruvan knew. Master Hevar, eyes burned out. The little girl beneath the forge beam, her skin blackened and splitting. Elion with blood running from his mouth. Kellan's carefree grin sliced open by a jagged wound across his neck.
"No," Ruvan whispered, stepping back. The illusions followed him, their charred hands reaching.
"This is what you bring," the Silent King said. His voice was quiet now, almost mournful. "You who would save them. You who think a blade brings hope."
Ruvan raised Solrend. Its shattered edge flickered pale silver, but it felt heavy, dull, unwilling. The illusions swarmed him, their mouths opening wide, tongues of shadow flicking across his skin.
He swung wildly. The blade passed through them without resistance, like slicing smoke. Their laughter burned in his ears.
"You are nothing without me," a new voice whispered.
The shadows pulled back. Before him stood a towering creature of darkness, wrapped in chains glowing molten red. Its eyes burned like dying suns, hollow and infinite.
The Devourer.
"Your strength is borrowed. Your courage, a child's fantasy. Let me show you truth."
Its chains fell away. Darkness poured forward, wrapping around Ruvan's chest, sinking into his veins like ice and fire entwined. His knees buckled. Solrend fell from his grip, clattering against the obsidian floor with a note like a funeral bell.
The Silent King watched, unmoving, his ruined throne crumbling beneath him.
Ruvan tried to scream but his throat was sealed by the blackness choking him. The Devourer's voice thundered inside his skull:
"You think to master me? Fool. I will consume all you love. I will devour their souls while you watch, bound and powerless."
Visions erupted behind his eyes. Iron Hold in flames. Elion skewered on a spear of writhing shadow, his blood sizzling to mist. Kellan fighting with blades in each hand before being torn apart by invisible claws. Thera kneeling in chains before the Devourer's towering form, her eyes dull and lifeless.
"This is your destiny," it whispered, the sound shaking his bones apart. "This is Solrend's truth. A blade forged from my essence cannot save. It only devours."
"No…" Ruvan gasped, fighting against the black tendrils wrapping tighter around his chest. "I won't… let you…"
The darkness laughed. The throne room cracked apart around him, splitting into a void swirling with silent screams. The Silent King's mask shattered, revealing nothing but an endless pit of stars and ash where his face should have been.
"Rise, heir of ash," the Devourer crooned. "Rise… and serve me."
"Ruvan."
A voice pierced the darkness. Gentle, firm, alive.
"Ruvan. Wake up."
The dream shattered. He jolted upright, drenched in sweat, the candle's dying light painting trembling shadows across the inn room walls.
Elion knelt beside his bedroll, worry etched into his tired face. "You were crying out," he said quietly. "Is it the sword again?"
Ruvan swallowed, his throat raw. His whole body trembled as he reached for Solrend. Its metal was cool, silent now, but it pulsed against his palm like a sleeping heart.
"I saw… them," he whispered. "I saw everyone I care about… dying. Because of me."
Elion rested a hand on his knee. "You are not them. And their lives are not your visions. They are here, now, because you keep fighting."
Ruvan clenched Solrend's hilt until his knuckles turned white.
"But what if fighting is what kills them?"
Elion didn't answer at first. He stared at the cracked ceiling beams, his expression weary. Then he met Ruvan's eyes with quiet steel.
"Then let us die fighting for each other, rather than living in fear apart."
Morning came grey and cold. Ruvan stood at the inn's open window, staring at the city rooftops cloaked in low mist. Iron Hold's towers pierced the fog like spear tips. Somewhere in the distance, a bell tolled, summoning soldiers to drill.
Kellan buckled his swords across his chest, smirking tiredly. "If you're done screaming your nightmares to the entire inn, we've got an archive clerk to bribe today."
Ruvan ignored him. His eyes locked on Solrend's blade, resting across his lap.
Devour everything you love…
He tightened his grip until pain bit his palm.
"No," he whispered to himself. "I'll master you. Or die trying."
Behind him, Elion poured steaming tea into chipped clay cups. Kellan whistled tunelessly, already checking his coin pouch for their bribe.
The day awaited them – and whatever dark truths Iron Hold's Archives held about the blade in his hands.
But for now, for this single breath between night's terrors and dawn's demands, Ruvan let himself believe he still had a choice.