The bodies were gone by morning. Burned, bones crushed, ashes fed to the serpent altar in the temple's lower sanctum.
Raelith watched the smoke rise in silence. Kaelen sat beside him on the jagged edge of a bloodstone ledge, barefoot and chewing a black root to ease the ache in his jaw. Neither spoke of the trial. There was nothing to say. They had killed. They had survived. That was all.
Until the summons came.
A red scroll, inked in living venom, delivered by a priest with no eyes.
"Report to the Grand Archive," the priest croaked, voice brittle as dried leaves. "The Fang of Lore awaits."
Kaelen looked confused. "We have a library?"
Raelith said nothing. He already knew.
The Grand Archive was hidden beneath the temple, accessible only through a tunnel that smelled of old blood and bitter herbs. It spiraled downward into the dark, deeper than even the punishment halls. The walls were lined with carved snakes whose mouths whispered things in dead languages if you listened too long.
When they arrived, the doors opened with a groan of bone and stone. Inside, the air was thick with dust and candle smoke. Books. Scrolls. Relics sealed in glass. Dark tomes that pulsed with breathing ink.
At the center stood a single figure.
Tall, hunched, robed in ash-gray robes that dragged across the floor. His face was half-covered by a mask shaped like a coiled serpent, but his mouth was visible—thin-lipped, stitched at the edges. When he turned, Kaelen took an unconscious step back.
The man radiated old power. Not the brutal kind they were used to, but the quiet, crushing sort. Like a cave that might collapse if you breathed too loud.
"You are Raelith and Kaelen," he said. His voice didn't echo. It seemed to bypass sound altogether and crawl into their ears. "Twins of ash. Blood-born to Karn of the Outer Lineage. Marked by the serpents at birth. And now, killers."
Kaelen straightened his spine. "We passed the trial."
The man chuckled. "You passed the first breath of a lifetime of trials. Do not mistake a single kill for strength, boy."
Kaelen bristled. Raelith said nothing.
"You are here because you have killed," the man continued, "and because now, you must understand what you are truly part of."
He raised a bony hand and gestured toward the dark ceiling. It shimmered, then melted away to reveal a map made of light and shadow—twisting land masses, shifting kingdoms, floating fortress cities, cursed forests, seas black as ink.
"This is the known world," the Fang of Lore said. "The continent of Ozyrion. One of five. And you have never even left this mountain."
Kaelen blinked.
Raelith stared hard at the glowing map. So much land. So many names.
He saw empires carved in steel and fire: The Crimson Dominion, ruled by flesh-binding magi who stitched souls to their armor. The Kingdom of Varross, where kings were chosen by crows that ate their predecessors. The Dead Spiral, a labyrinth nation built inside the corpse of a god. The Tower Cults, whose members were said to ascend into living storms.
All of it impossibly vast.
And in the mountains to the far north, barely marked—The Coiled Night. A symbol no larger than a beetle.
"You serve a god of silence and poison," the Lore Fang said. "But your god is not the only one. Not even the strongest. The world is full of old things. Dying things. Hungry things. And worse—men who think themselves gods."
He waved a hand. The map dissolved into images.
A masked knight riding a horse made of crows. A sorceress with black fire bleeding from her veins. A boy no older than Kaelen, his eyes stitched shut, floating above a pit of screaming souls.
"These are your peers. Your enemies. Your future."
Kaelen stared, unable to speak.
Raelith's voice came low. "We are nothing."
"Correct," the Lore Fang replied. "You are vipers still in the nest. Barely hatched. The world will not fear you. Not yet."
He turned, walked toward a massive book sealed in red chains.
"But knowledge is the first weapon. And now you must learn. Not to read like peasants. But to understand your place."
He snapped his fingers.
The chains uncoiled.
The book opened, and pain rushed into their skulls.
Not physical pain—but the kind of pressure that came from trying to fit oceans inside a cup. Images. Names. Dates. Bloodlines. Wars. Maps. Symbols. Memories of things they hadn't seen. Histories they hadn't lived.
Raelith staggered back. Kaelen dropped to one knee, clutching his head.
The Fang of Lore watched them bleed from their noses with disinterest.
"This is the knowledge of the Serpent Moon," he said. "We do not read. We absorb."
The wave passed. The book slammed shut.
Both boys were panting.
Kaelen growled. "What was that?"
"A drop," the Fang said. "Of a sea."
Raelith's hands were still shaking.
He understood what the man had done. Not taught them—but implanted them. Etched the history of their world into their minds like fire into stone.
The names still echoed.
The Twelve Death Choirs of Yllm.
The Chained Ocean Kings.
The Night Heralds of Orzen.
The Three Blades of Pale Light.
The Last Magus of the Hollow Gate.
Monsters. Powers. Living cataclysms.
And yet, something burned hotter beneath it all—a whispered pattern. As if all of history was circling a drain. Collapsing toward something. Chaos.
"You are not special," the Fang of Lore said, stepping away. "But you were born at a special time."
He turned toward the wall and tapped it once.
It cracked.
From the stone emerged a mural. A serpent swallowing its own tail—bleeding from the mouth. Around it, the world burned.
"The Coil is tightening. Across every kingdom, things are awakening. Seals are breaking. Empires are trembling. The gods do not sleep as well as they used to. And assassins… assassins are needed once more."
He looked back at them.
"But only the strongest. Only those who learn to see through silence. To strike at more than flesh. To kill names, not just men."
Raelith nodded, slowly. "This is why we train."
Kaelen clenched his fists. "Then we need to train harder."
"Good," the man whispered.
He raised his hand again, and the room dimmed.
"Return to your chambers. Your next trials will begin at dawn. But remember what you've seen. Because now, your journey begins not with the next kill, but the next question."
Raelith tilted his head. "What question?"
The Fang's stitched lips smiled faintly.
"What does it mean… to be feared by gods?"
---
They left in silence.
But the world was no longer a mystery.
It was a monster. And they were two fangs in its throat.