The ruins of the Forgotten Temple whispered with voices older than time. Moss curled around broken pillars, and faded murals of kings long dead stared down with hollow eyes. Kael stepped forward, the ground echoing under his boots, each step feeling like a betrayal to everything he had once believed.
Lyra followed in silence, her gaze locked on the golden glyphs etched across the far wall. They pulsed faintly, like a heartbeat trapped in stone.
"Here," Kael said, his voice rough, "is where the first oath was made."
He brushed dust from a carved sigil—a crown split in two by a sword. A memory flickered. He was younger, bleeding, kneeling before a masked figure cloaked in midnight. The man's voice was like gravel dragged across steel: "You are not born to rule, boy. You are forged for it."
Kael flinched. That voice—he hadn't heard it since the night everything changed.
"You okay?" Lyra asked, stepping beside him.
"No," Kael admitted. "And I don't think I've ever been."
A strange energy stirred in the air. The temple trembled. Stones groaned above their heads. And then, the glyphs began to glow, brighter and brighter until the entire chamber was bathed in crimson light.
From the shadows, a figure emerged.
Old robes clung to skeletal limbs. Eyes like sunken embers locked onto Kael.
"You carry the crown's curse, boy," the specter rasped. "And now, the blood that binds it will claim what is owed."
Kael stepped back, but his feet wouldn't move. His hands shook. The scar on his chest—where the sigil had once burned—began to throb.
Lyra drew her dagger, but the ghost paid her no mind.
"You were never chosen," the spirit hissed. "You were sacrificed."
The words hit Kael harder than any blade. The memory surged back—he wasn't crowned out of honor, but to seal a dying oath. A boy meant to bleed so others wouldn't.
"I won't carry it any longer," Kael said, through clenched teeth. "I'll break it."
"You will try," the voice said, vanishing in a swirl of ash. "But the pact remembers."
Suddenly, Kael collapsed. A searing light burst from his chest, casting wild shadows across the temple walls. He screamed, clutching at the mark now blazing like fire.
Lyra ran to him. "Kael!"
But when his eyes met hers… they were no longer his.
They glowed—deep, ancient, inhuman. The temple shuddered. A wind howled from nowhere. The chains that bound the throne had shifted… and now, something else had awakened within him.
End of volume Two