Chapter 29 – The Voice That Shapes Reality
Keal left the castle in silence.
No commanders.
No guards.
Not even Astrili to question him.
Only the echo of the woman's warning rang in his mind. Someone who could be of good use to you.
His Cosmic Eyes had already traced her location — far to the east, where the land was nothing but twisted ruins swallowed by shadow. A place even monsters avoided.
The journey took him across plains where the grass had turned to black glass, through forests where the trees had petrified mid-sway, and finally, to a gorge where the wind sang like a mourning choir.
At the bottom lay a ruin — vast, sprawling, and ancient, like a fortress built for gods but abandoned for eons. Its towers had collapsed inward, bridges hung broken like snapped chains, and great stone statues lay face-down in the dust, their faces eroded into nothing.
And at the heart of it…
She stood.
A lone figure, wrapped in a dark cloak that clung to her like the night itself. Not too tall, not too short — the perfect height to disappear into a crowd, and yet here, she was impossible to ignore. Her hood cast deep shadows over her face, and the faint glimmer of something — perhaps her eyes — flashed and vanished when she moved.
She stood perfectly still. Not waiting, not guarding — expecting.
Keal stepped forward, his voice even. "You were expecting me."
The air shifted. Her reply was calm, but something in the tone bent the world around it.
"I knew you would come the moment you became king."
It wasn't prophecy.
It wasn't a guess.
Her words carried weight — a weight that pressed against reality itself.
Keal stopped a few paces away, studying her. "There's someone else I've met. A woman… she warned me about my world, said it was in danger. I have a feeling you know her."
The woman tilted her head slightly. "I know of her."
Keal's eyes narrowed. "Then tell me—"
"She is older than the first stone," the woman interrupted, her voice soft, but her words spilling into the air like a ripple through still water. "Her hands have guided kings, broken empires, and burned suns into ash. If she spoke to you, it was not by accident."
For a moment, the ruin itself seemed to bend closer, like the broken walls were leaning in to listen.
Keal folded his arms. "And you? Why hide here in the dark instead of playing her games?"
She stepped forward just enough for the light to catch the edge of her lips — faintly curved in something that was almost a smile. "Because when I speak… the world obeys."
Keal felt it instantly. Not just power — but the raw ability to reshape existence with a mere sentence. His Cosmic Eyes flared, and what he saw in her was terrifying. The threads of reality around her didn't simply bend — they danced to her words.
"Then why wait for me?" he asked.
"Because your war is coming," she said, and this time her voice sharpened, sending invisible tremors through the ruin. "And when it does, you will need someone who can turn victory into inevitability."
Keal smirked. "And what makes you think I'd trust you?"
"You won't," she replied without hesitation. "Not at first."
Then she leaned closer, her voice low, dangerous. "But I will still fight beside you, because the enemy you face is not yours alone."
The wind stirred, and the ruined castle seemed to exhale. For the first time, Keal felt the faintest pull — as though some invisible part of him was already bound to this woman's fate.
He stepped back, turning to leave. "Then I'll decide if you're worth keeping alive."
Her reply followed him, her words carrying a strange, unshakable certainty:
"When that day comes, you'll already know my name."
And just like that — she was gone.