The subterranean passage gave way to a chamber that smelled of mold and stale air. Spiders and pests skittered into the shadows as Va'lerius reached up, pulling himself through the opening above them. The space had clearly been built as a functional room, though its true purpose eluded the trio. But as they looked around the dark, crumbling stone, one thing was undeniable.
This chamber was ancient.
Darius and Va'lerius reached down, helping pull Mia up to the steady ground of the chamber.
At the far end of the room, a heavy wooden door hung loosely on its rusted hinges. Va'lerius took point, pushing it open with a slow, echoing creak. The doorway led into a long passage. The stone walls held rows of ornate metal frames that must have once displayed grand portraits, but now only the empty, oxidized metal remained—skeletons of a forgotten history.
The corridor eventually gave way to another door connected to an adjacent hallway. Mia pointed past the King's shoulder, directing Va'lerius toward the torn doorframe.
Inside, the grand rotunda was abandoned, bathed in the pale, dusty light of centuries of neglect. But the temperature in the room was entirely wrong. An unnatural cold hung in the air. It was the frost that accompanied a Dragon-Oath entering the Void.
Then, the shadows in the center of the room began to bleed upward.
The darkness coalesced, pulling itself into the tall, translucent silhouette of a man. He wore the spectral echoes of ancient scholar's robes, his form drifting in and out of the physical realm like smoke caught in a draft.
Mia's breath hitched, her eyes widening in shock as she stared at the face formed in the mist. Her hand instinctively went to her belt, drawing her long dagger. "How—how are you here?"
As if answering the question, a voice whispered in her mind, emanating from the black shard she carried. Dak'nor.
Unwittingly, Mia spoke the name aloud. "Dak'nor?" The spectral figure paused. "I have not used that name in eons," the apparition whispered, its voice echoing as if spoken from the bottom of a deep well. "That man is no more. I am only the duty to hold the veil."
King Va'lerius froze, staring at the translucent figure. According to the most guarded lore of the Dragon Line, Va'lerius knew of the First Dragon—the guardian who locked the gate to the dark. But the histories had never claimed that this...Shadow... was the First Dragon.
"You..." Va'lerius breathed, profound awe bleeding into the monarch's voice. "You held back the shadows?"
"It is all that I am now," the Last Shadow replied. The apparition turned its fathomless gaze upon the King, immediately sensing the familiar burden of leadership and the shared blood of the 'nor family running in his veins.
"You understand the weight, child," the Last Shadow intoned, appealing directly to the King's martial heart. "Your lessers would doom this world, risking the survival of all merely to hold on to the body of a child already lost to the dark."
"Father, do not listen to him!" Darius interjected, stepping fiercely between the King and the apparition. "We cannot trust this shadow! He tried to take me. He is trying to take my child! It is a monster of the dark that will smother the light of the world and call it duty."
But Va'lerius's eyes remained locked on the ghostly figure, his mind betraying his son's desperate warning. The King of Beh-REET was a man who understood the mathematics of sacrifice.
"If you speak truth," Va'lerius said, his voice hard and uncompromising, "tell me how to stop what is coming."
The Last Shadow slowly raised a translucent arm, pointing a single, smoky finger directly at Mia.
"She holds the permanent key to ending the constant debt of life required to lock the cage," the Shadow declared. "You would need to give your soul to be the guardian of the veil, but the debt will always come due again. Life for light is the only bargain to be made."
Mia tightened her grip on the hilt of her long dagger with taut knuckles of defiance.
"You failed," Mia spat, her voice trembling with rage. "And now you ask me to sacrifice my child for your failure? No. We will find the way you couldn't."
"You will taste the same failure," the Last Shadow whispered, the temperature in the room plummeting further. "But the cost will be higher."
The physical walls of the Val'dora seemed to dissolve. The room violently transformed, plunging them into a terrifying vision of the future. The sky above them burned a sickly ash-gray. The world of men was reduced to burning ruins and shattered stone, where the remnants of humanity were driven to near extinction, hunted mercilessly by roaming packs of Shadow Sworn seeking the last sparks of light.
The despair of the vision was suffocating.
"Stop!" Darius roared.
Frustration and panic boiling over, Darius unsheathed his Dragon-Etched sword and lunged at the apparition, swinging his heavy black steel in a desperate bid to shatter the illusion.
He expected the blade to pass harmlessly through the mist.
Instead, there was the sickening sound of steel biting into flesh. The physical blade carved a deep, glowing gash across the Last Shadow's translucent sternum.
The vision of the apocalyptic future instantly shattered like broken glass, returning them to the dusty, ruined council chambers.
The Last Shadow staggered backward, letting out a sharp, vibrating hiss of physical pain. It looked down at the wound on its chest, shock registering on its spectral features.
"The veil..." the Last Shadow murmured, its voice no longer an echo, but grounded and real. "It is weaker than expected. The Void and the realm of men overlap."
The apparition raised its hand. The freezing air curled around its palm, compressing until a blade of solid, black mist formed in its grip. The Last Shadow looked up, its eyes burning with terrible resolve.
"I will take what is needed to save the world you fail to protect."
The ring of steel echoed through the chamber as King Va'lerius drew his own Dragon-Etched longsword. The monarch stepped forward, placing himself squarely beside his son.
Without looking back, Va'lerius extended his free hand, gesturing firmly. "Mia. Stand back."
Ash and Ice
Darius and Va'lerius—king and prince, father and son, teacher and pupil—moved as one. They shifted seamlessly into the ancient forms of the Dragon Line, turning their torsos to limit their exposed profiles. They held their twin, Dragon-Etched blades with the points leveled straight at the apparition, the hilts tucked tightly near their far hips.
Mia had never seen this stance from either of them before. It radiated a cold, practiced elegance, honed with an absolutely lethal edge.
Darius struck first. Va'lerius held his ground, waiting, allowing his son the opening volley to test the enemy's guard.
The measure and speed with which Darius flowed into Storm Touches the Gods was obscene. He moved so fast the air itself seemed too slow to part for him, causing the blackened steel of his blade to hum and glow in motion.
The Last Shadow did not flinch. Drawing on the impossible speed of the Void, the apparition parried the blinding strike as if swatting away a slow, drifting leaf. In the same fluid motion, the Last Shadow slipped inside the prince's guard and drove its mist-forged blade cleanly into Darius's abdomen.
He's hurt bad—in the very first exchange? Mia's mind reeled in panic.
Before the Last Shadow could twist the blade, Va'lerius moved to intercept. The King crashed into the creature's flank, forcing the Last Shadow's follow-up attack completely off-line and limiting the fatal damage to his son.
"You cannot win this, child," the Last Shadow's voice echoed in the freezing air, sounding more weary than malicious. "Defeating me would only allow the darkness into the world."
Va'lerius read the apparition's movements. He knew instantly that no mortal man, no matter how skilled, could fight a being unbound by physical limits.
The monarch's eyes rolled back in his head.
Suddenly, the biting, unnatural cold in the room began to recede, warming noticeably. Va'lerius was actively siphoning the Stillness directly from the Last Shadow and the surrounding air. When the King's eyes snapped back into focus, the whites were gone, replaced by pools of pitch black.
The Last Shadow did not speak, but its posture shifted. It understood the challenge the King now posed.
Va'lerius melted into The Hawk Rises to the Sun, launching a devastating, rising slash from below his natural guard, aimed squarely at the apparition's torso. But the Last Shadow moved like a breeze, effortlessly evading the upward arc. It countered with a brutal overhead horizontal slash.
Va'lerius dipped sharply under the whistling mist-blade. Enhanced by the Void coursing through his veins, the King turned his evasion directly into Dragon Pierces the Veil, lunging upward and burying his sword deep into the Last Shadow's sword-arm.
The apparition hissed, actually feeling the physical pain of the blackened steel. But it didn't retreat. Instead, the Last Shadow dissolved its weapon into mist, instantly reforming the smoky black blade in its off-hand.
Va'lerius's head snapped to the side, tracking the weapon as it reappeared. He ripped his sword free from the creature's arm and threw it up in a desperate parry. The misty blade slammed against the Dragon-Etched steel, causing the King to stagger backward, leaving his guard wide open.
The Last Shadow dragged its blade in a searing, diagonal slash straight across Va'lerius's chest.
Darius watched in shock. The Last Shadow was good. It was the absolute best he had ever seen with a blade.
I have no choice, Darius thought, closing his eyes.
The temperature in the rotunda warmed slightly again as Darius pulled the Stillness into his own body. The deep puncture in his gut began to aggressively knit itself shut. He stepped up to his father's side. Beside him, Va'lerius was pulling on the darkness as well, the parted flesh of his chest slowly stitching itself back together.
Across from them, the Last Shadow reached across its body. Black mist oozed into the wound left by the King's blade, completely sealing the opening.
The three warriors clashed again, a blur of steel and shadow.
Darius saw a gap in the apparition's defense and lunged, driving his blade in a vicious thrust aimed directly at the creature's neck. The Last Shadow dropped its weight, grounding itself perfectly into Beh-REET Defends the Stone. Using the prince's own momentum against him, the Last Shadow deflected the thrust and sliced its own shadowy blade across Darius's throat.
Darius choked, blood spilling over his lips. He was forced down to one knee, dropping his sword to violently clutch his ruined throat as he desperately drew on the Void to keep himself alive.
Seeing his son fall, Va'lerius roared. He abandoned all restraint, drawing deeper and more violently on the Void than ever before.
In the exact moment the King pulled so deeply on the Stillness, the Last Shadow bypassed the physical world and struck directly at his mind.
The rotunda of the former Val'dora vanished. Ash and Ice swallowed Va'lerius whole. The King of Beh-REET felt the crushing weight of a war fought without hope. He stood on a mountain of shattered spears and broken men, looking out over a horizon consumed by writhing black frost.
For a man who had spent a lifetime mastering the calculus of battle, the vision was a psychological violation. Va'lerius saw the reality of the Shadow Sworn.
They did not tire.
They could not die.
When he cut one down, the dark simply reknitted the severed flesh and sent it forward again.
Va'lerius felt Dak'nor's exhaustion—a bone-deep, fatigue that spanned millennia. He saw centuries of humanity reduced to hunted animals, their cities burning, their children suffocating in the dark. He realized with clarity that every swing of his sword in the world did nothing to hold back the dark.
You cannot stab the night. Would you allow these events to happen again? the Last Shadow's voice echoed, cutting through the din of endless slaughter. Stop this, child. Do you not see? I am here to carry your burden.
The King's mind fractured. There was no military victory to be won here.
But as the Last Shadow showed him the ash-choked end of the world, the Void loosed his deepest repressed memory, peeling back the iron discipline of the monarch to expose the man beneath.
Through the smoke of the apocalypse, a sunlit chamber materialized. Lying on a bed of silk was a face Va'lerius had locked away in the darkest vault of his heart for decades.
His wife, D'af-na.
As the King looked down at his hands, youth surged through his limbs. He was young again. Where am I... when am I? He raised his eyes to capture the glow of the woman that had ruled his thoughts the decades before Darius's birth. The slight swell of her belly caused the monarch to smile in the memory.
"Do not wear the crown to bed, my love," D'af-na whispered, her voice a soothing balm against the cold of the Void that rippled around the edges of the vision.
She looked up at him, her eyes shining with quiet joy. "He's kicking. Come feel your boy."
Va'lerius drifted to his bride, placing his hand over her stomach and feeling the firm shift of the child beneath. "How do you know it's a boy?" he asked, half-laughing through a large grin.
"I just know," D'af-na replied. A slight pause followed. Her eyes scanned the King, instantly sensing a burden on her husband's shoulders he had yet to disclose.
"The light I feel growing inside me..." she started in a softer, more intentional tone, "this child will change the world. You must guide him, Va'lerius, and you start by leading the way you will want him to lead."
Her presence had made him more man than monarch. The Last Shadow ruthlessly shifted the memory to show the cost of that softness.
The vision twisted, the sunlight bleeding directly into the war chambers, warming the stone the two generals stood on.
"The kingdom is struggling with these raider attacks, Va'lerius. Send me to clear the route. Any tribe near our trade path with the Oasis can be removed, and the threat to our supplies gone with them." The stern, battle-hardened voice of then-Oath-Blade Kael shattered the warmth.
"What would be the cost to life?" Va'lerius fired back. "You would have me burn the desert just to protect a few supplies. This action will cost the souls of innocents. No. We find the guilty and punish only the guilty."
Kael slammed a heavy gauntlet against the war table in frustration. "You are young, Va'lerius, and you do not see the world as it truly is. Your hesitation to shed the blood of men will cost this kingdom the blood of its own."
"I respect your counsel, Kael, but I am your King. We will wait until we find the guilty."
The vision violently snapped to D'af-na's birthing bed. The sheets were soaked crimson. She was hemorrhaging rapidly after delivering Darius. The healers stood by with empty, trembling hands—the very medicine needed to stanch the bleeding and slow her blood flow had been on a transport from the Oasis. A transport lost in a raid.
"My hesitation has killed you, my love," Va'lerius muttered under his breath, his heart tearing open.
"Protect him," D'af-na begged, her skin ashen. Her fingers gripped the collar of his armor with the last of her strength. "Make him a great king. Promise me... protect our son."
The memory dissolved back into the icy dark of the Val'dora rotunda.
Darius was on his knees, choking, thick, dark blood leaking fiercely through the fingers clamped over his ruined throat.
His son was bleeding out on the stone, exactly as D'af-na had bled out that day. The apocalypse of the Void was bearing down on them, and once again, Va'lerius was watching the light of his world die because he could not stop the bleeding.
He would not fail her again. He would not let the child she died for perish in the dark.
"Take my life to seal the Void," Va'lerius projected directly into the Stillness, his will absolute. "Allow my child and my people to live*."*
In the smoke of the vision, the Last Shadow slowly nodded.
Back in the physical world, King Va'lerius dropped his sword. The Dragon-Etched steel clattered uselessly against the marble. He fell heavily to his knees, his hands flying to his head, his fingers clawing desperately at his own face as the ancient transfer of power ripped his humanity away.
"Father, no!" Darius gutted out, choking on the words as blood bubbled in his throat.
The translucent form of the Last Shadow dissolved, whipping into a vortex of black mist. The cyclone surged forward, forcing itself into the kneeling King.
It poured down Va'lerius's throat, flooded his eyes, and seeped directly through the half open wounds on his chest. The King's body convulsed violently, his Dragon-Etched armor groaning as his muscles locked into agonizing rigidity.
Then, the screaming stopped.
The silence that followed was suffocating. For a long moment, the King remained on his hands and knees, perfectly still. Then, slowly, painfully, the body of Va'lerius rose to its feet.
When he lifted his head, the King of Beh-REET was gone. His eyes were bottomless pools of obsidian. He raised his hands, flexing his gauntleted fingers with stiff, jerky, unnatural movements. The physical weight of a body—the gravity pulling on flesh, bone, and steel—was completely alien to a being who had existed as pure spirit for millennia.
The possessed King looked down at Darius, who was still clutching his bleeding throat on the floor.
"I will honor your father's request," the Last Shadow spoke.
The voice that came out of Va'lerius's mouth was a horrifying amalgamation. It was the King's deep, authoritative baritone, hollowed out and overlaid with the echoing, ancient wind of the Void.
The possessed King took a clumsy, heavy step forward, his boots dragging awkwardly against the marble. "He bargained his life for yours. You will live. But with a chance to seal the Void for good, I cannot allow this chance to pass."
The possessed King's dark eyes snapped to Mia, who stood frozen near the exit.
"Mia," the Last Shadow commanded, reaching out a trembling, uncoordinated hand. "Give me the child. Do not let Va'lerius's sacrifice be in vain."
"Never," Mia spat, her maternal instincts completely overriding her terror.
She lunged forward, grabbing the collar of Darius's armor. Hauling her husband to his feet, she wrapped his arm around her shoulder. Darius grunted in agony, the Void still desperately trying to stitch his torn throat together.
The Last Shadow roared, a terrible, vibrating sound, and lunged to stop them. But the ancient spirit misjudged the mechanics of mortal muscle. Va'lerius's legs, heavy with armor and fatigue, betrayed the entity. The possessed King stumbled hard, crashing awkwardly into a stone bench and tearing a chunk of masonry away with his gauntlet as he tried to catch his balance.
Mia didn't look back. Supporting Darius's weight, she dragged him out of the grand rotunda, fleeing blindly down the dark, adjacent corridor they had discovered earlier.
The sound of heavy, dragging footsteps echoed behind them as the Last Shadow slowly fought to master its new physical vessel.
They rounded the sharp corner leading to the adjacent passage toward the Val'dora entrance.
"Hold!" a fierce voice commanded.
Mia raised her Red Dunes dagger, ready to fight, until her eyes adjusted to the light.
Standing in the corridor was Ny'all, her Dragon-Etched blade drawn. Flanking her was a formidable contingent of veiled Anai warriors and armored Dragon-Oath guards. Their weapons were raised, their faces tight with panic.
"Ny'all!" Mia gasped, nearly collapsing in relief.
"Mia? Darius?" Ny'all rushed forward, catching the heavy weight of their shared husband that Mia could not fully support. She looked at the blood soaking Darius's neck, then stared down the dark hallway behind them. "We heard the clash of steel. We heard the King scream. Where is Va'lerius?"
"He's gone," Mia choked out, her voice breaking as she looked back into the pitch-black corridor. The heavy, uncoordinated footsteps were growing louder. "We have to run. Now."
Ny'all's eyes locked onto the towering figure emerging from the pitch-black corridor. The torchlight flickered against the familiar, regal plates of King Va'lerius's armor, but... obsidian eyes wept thick, oily smoke, and the King's limbs moved with heavy, violent jerks, as if an invisible puppeteer were aggressively testing the joints of a corpse.
For a fraction of a second, complete horror paralyzed the corridor. The Anai and Dragon-Oath stood frozen at the sight of the possessed monarch.
But Ny'all's mind processed the lethal reality of the moment. She refused to commit to a static, suicidal defense against a Shadow Sworn in a confined passageway. She read the uncoordinated momentum of the Last Shadow and instantly commanded the retreat.
"Fall back!" Ny'all roared, her voice shattering the trance of her contingent.
Ny'all slung Darius's heavy, armored arm over her own shoulder, taking the brunt of her husband's weight off a staggering Mia.
"Head for the front entrance!" Ny'all commanded, her voice tight.
The possessed King lunged, falling again as the coordination of flesh still eluded the being that possessed the ruler of the Dragon Line and the capital of Beh-REET.
The Anai were the first to erupt from the front entrance, falling into a defensive attack position in the garden to cover the retreat of the Dragon-Oath and the royal family. Ny'all and Mia, taking an arm each, supported Darius's heavy weight between them as they followed. The blood from his neck was slowing to a drip, his eyes sporting the blackness of the Void as he desperately channeled the Stillness to heal. The Dragon-Oath were the last to exit, covering the rear.
The echoing, heavy feet of the Last Shadow could be heard ringing through the stone. Soon, King Va'lerius emerged into the open air, his eyes mirroring the pitch-black pools of the Prince.
Stepping into the open of the once-forgotten garden of the Val'dora, Ny'all fully took on the mantle of Oath-Blade.
"Use the Void. He is beyond any mortal man," Darius's voice was a guttural, wet choke.
As if triggering a failsafe, the eyes of every Dragon-Oath guard snapped to solid black. But instead of the air freezing, an unnatural thermal inversion occurred—the temperature in the garden actually warmed as the mortal warriors and the Last Shadow violently competed to siphon the same dark energy. Ny'all's eyes were the last to blacken.
She raised her Dragon-Etched blade, pointing the blackened steel directly at the possessed King.
"We defend the Stone!" Ny'all roared, her voice echoing with authority. "If we shatter today, the future falls with us! Hold the line!"