The chamber of the Stone Council was ancient, older than the throne itself — carved from a single ring of bedrock, veined with obsidian and fireglass, its ceiling a dome etched with the names of every High King since stone first met hammer.
Now, the firelight flickered across scowling faces.
Twelve seated. One standing.
King Rurik.
He bore no crown tonight — only a leather coat singed at the collar, hands calloused, soot still under his nails. He had come straight from the upper forge.
From where the Gem had pulsed like a living heart.
The Runepriests and Clan-Lords muttered amongst themselves as he approached the central dais.
"My King," rasped Master Grevnir, the oldest among them, his beard braided with rusted chains. "We have heard troubling things."
"Aye," rumbled another. "The elves in our halls. The Riftborn walking free. The Gem passed from vault to hand."
"And the Wyrm," spat Lord Maedruk, slamming his fist on the table. "The Wyrm stirs! The mountain shakes! And you ask us to wait?"
Rurik said nothing at first.
He let the echoes die.
Then he stepped into the circle of stone, slow and deliberate, his boots echoing with each step.
"You're right," he said. "You've heard troubling things."
He turned in place, meeting each gaze.
"And every one of them is true."
The chamber erupted — voices clashing like steel, shouts of treason, of recklessness. One priest declared the Wyrm a divine sign. Another called for the Riftborn's immediate imprisonment. One voice—sharp and shrill—cried for war.
Rurik raised a single hand.
The chamber stilled.
"My father ruled with iron," he said. "My grandfather with silence. But I…" He placed his hand over his chest, where the Gem rested under his tunic.
"…have seen what lies beneath that fire."
He paused.
"I tried to wield it. To make it a tool."
Murmurs rippled.
"I thought the Gem… the Wyrm… the Riftborn… could all be bound. Like ore to chain. Like flame to bellows."
He looked down at his hand.
"I was wrong."
Silence fell like a hammer.
"You speak in riddles," growled Grevnir. "Speak plain, boy."
"I saw into the Gem," Rurik said. "Not visions. Not prophecy. Memory. The Forge remembers Mongrim. It remembers the Wyrm's breath — not as a beast of war, but as soul."
He looked up.
"And it remembers fire being betrayed."
Gasps. A Runepriest dropped his staff.
Rurik continued.
"Skarnveil's core was never just power. It was trust. Given to our forebears by something older than language. The Wyrm gave us its breath."
He took a step forward.
"And what did we do? We sealed it. Buried it. Forgetten about it.
Lord Maedruk snarled. "We survived."
"Yes," Rurik said softly. "But we forgot why."
Another pause.
"I will not bind the Riftborn."
His voice rang against the stone.
"And I will not seize the Wyrm."
Grevnir rose, veins bulging in his neck. "You would let him walk free? Let the Forge burn wild?"
"I will let him choose," Rurik said. "And I will trust him not as a weapon… but as a smith."
The chamber fell into stunned silence.
Then…
A voice spoke.
Soft.
Unsteady.
From the youngest among them — a girl no older than twenty-five winters, heir to a minor clan, barely allowed a seat.
"If the Riftborn chooses wrong… what then?"
Rurik turned to her.
"Then we stand. Not behind him. Not beneath him. But beside him. Forge and flame."
After the council dissolved — bitter, shaken, changed — Rurik stood alone in the Hall of Names, beneath the dome.
He looked up at the ceiling.
The names spiraled like a forge-spiral — each rune representing a line, a legacy.
He reached up, fingers brushing the cool stone.
Then slowly — without command, without ritual — he took the Gem from under his tunic and placed it on the anvil at the chamber's heart.
It pulsed once.
Then stilled.
Like it, too, was waiting.