Chapter 14: The Fall of the High Tower

The storm was gone. Not a wisp of its once-impenetrable veil remained. For the first time in centuries, the Spire stood exposed beneath an open, cloudless sky. But where there should have been stars, there was only the glow of fire and the creeping shadow of death.

From the ruined outer gates, the Wraithborn horde surged forward like a relentless tide, sweeping through the city's districts with merciless precision. Screams echoed through the air, swallowed by the clash of steel and the inhuman shrieks of the undead.

The last remnants of the Stormguards, once the Spire's most feared warriors, formed a desperate final line at the entrance of the Inner Bastion, where the remaining survivors had taken refuge. They were outnumbered a hundred to one. Their leader, Vaelen Strake, was dead—abandoned by the same Council he had once served. Now, there was no commander and no strategy.

Only survival.

Kieran stood among them, his sword slick with blackened ichor, his breath ragged. He was tired. The kind of exhaustion that seeped into his bones, making his hands heavy, his thoughts slow. But stopping wasn't an option.

Beside him, Elias panted heavily, his face smeared with soot. "We can't hold this position." He looked at Kieran, desperation in his eyes. "They're breaking through faster than we can kill them."

Kieran didn't respond. He knew.

But the men behind him—the Stormguards who had refused to abandon their people—needed something to believe in.

A dying warrior, his armor shattered, grabbed Kieran's arm. His grip was weak. "Tell me we can win this."

Kieran swallowed. He didn't have the heart to lie.

"We fight," he said, tightening his grip on his sword. "As long as we stand, we fight."

The soldier gave a hollow chuckle and nodded before turning back toward the horde.

It wasn't the answer he wanted, but it was enough.

The Wraithborns came like a flood, pouring through the broken barricades in an endless onslaught. The Stormguard met them with everything they had—blades, spears, fire. The first line of Wraithborns fell quickly, but for every one slain, three more took its place.

One of the creatures lunged for Elias, its flesh warped, its eyes burning with unnatural light. Kieran drove his blade through its throat, twisting sharply before kicking it back. The creature collapsed, but its whispering voice still curled through the air.

"You will join us soon."

A chill ran through Kieran's spine. He didn't have time to dwell on it.

A Stormguard soldier beside him screamed as a hulking Wraithborn tore through his armor, dragging him into the mass of the undead. Another warrior, missing an arm, collapsed to his knees, whispering prayers to gods that would not answer.

"FALL BACK!" Elias shouted.

They were being pushed back—inch by inch, street by street.

A Stormguard captain, Captain Oris, the last of the ranking officers, wiped blood and sweat from his face as he stumbled toward Kieran. His blade was shattered, his once-pristine armor dented and scorched.

"We can't hold," Oris said, grief raw in his voice.

Behind them, the High Tower loomed—the last defensible position. If the Wraithborn reached it, the Spire would truly be lost.

Kieran met Oris's gaze. "Then we buy time."

Oris gave a grim nod. Without another word, he turned to the remnants of his warriors. "Stormguards! With me!"

The last fifty soldiers left standing formed a shield wall, locking together in one final stand. It wouldn't last. It couldn't.

But it would be enough.

The Wraithborns slammed into them, their claws scraping against steel, their inhuman wails filling the air. One by one, the Stormguards fell—but they held long enough for Kieran and the others to pull the survivors back toward the High Tower's gates.

The last thing Kieran saw before the gates slammed shut was Captain Oris, fighting alone, drowning beneath a tide of blackened hands.

And then he was gone.

Inside the High Tower, hundreds of terrified survivors huddled in the shadows. Their faces were streaked with dirt, blood, and hopelessness.

Elias turned to Kieran, his voice quiet. "That was it, wasn't it?"

Kieran closed his eyes.

The Stormguards were gone.

The city was burning.

The Wraithborns were inside.

And no one was coming to save them.

He exhaled, steeling himself.

"No," he said. "We're still here."

For now.

The streets of the Spire were unrecognizable. Once, they had been lined with towering stone buildings, their banners fluttering high above the common folk, symbols of the city's might. Now, they were a wasteland of fire and corpses.

The air reeked of death—a thick, acrid stench of burning flesh and rot. Ash rained from the sky like gray snow, sticking to Kieran's sweat-soaked skin. The distant howls of the Wraithborns echoed through the ruins, a chorus of hunger and rage.

He crouched in the shadows of a collapsed tower, his chest rising and falling in controlled breaths. The survivors were still inside the High Tower, safe for now, but for how long? The Wraithborns had overrun the lower city, and soon, they would find the way inside.

He glanced at Elias, who crouched beside him, gripping his sword with white-knuckled fingers. Rhea was across from them, eyes sharp, a bloodied dagger clutched in her hand.

"We can't stay here," Elias muttered.

"We're not," Kieran said. He turned his gaze up the shattered street, where the main bridge to the Council's chambers loomed in the distance. "We have to get to the council chambers."

Rhea scoffed under her breath. "What's left of them."

Kieran didn't argue. The Council was either dead or hiding—it didn't matter. What mattered was the Spire's inner vaults, where the city's most dangerous relics were locked away. If there was anything left that could turn the tide, it would be there.

But getting there was another problem.

The three of them moved carefully through the wreckage, weaving through crumbled walls and collapsed bridges, avoiding the open roads where the Wraithborns hunted.

Kieran kept his sword drawn, his breath even, his senses sharp. Every shadow felt alive. Every flicker of fire sent his pulse spiking. The Wraithborns weren't mindless—they hunted with patience, moving through the ruins like ghosts.

A shade of movement.

Kieran froze.

Ahead, just beyond a charred archway, a group of Wraithborns stood in the rubble. Their twisted forms twitched unnaturally, their burning white eyes scanning the darkness. Some dragged fresh bodies, their fingers curling around broken limbs, pulling them into the void. Others simply waited, their heads tilting, as if listening for prey.

Elias cursed under his breath.

"There's too many," Rhea whispered.

Kieran nodded. A direct fight was suicide. They needed a way around.

His gaze turned to the side—there. A collapsed merchant hall, its walls broken but intact enough to move through without drawing attention.

"Through there," he whispered, pointing.

Rhea and Elias followed as they slipped through the wreckage, stepping carefully over shattered glass and broken wood. The remnants of the shop's old stock—fine silks and rare incense—now nothing but ruin.

They were halfway through when they heard it.

A whisper.

No—not one.

Many.

Kieran paused. The whispering wasn't coming from outside.

It was inside the ruins with them.

A shadow shifted in the farthest corner. Then another.

Slowly, figures began to emerge from the rubble. Not Wraithborns—not entirely.

They were half-changed, their flesh still clinging to human features, their bodies caught between life and death. Some still wore fragments of their old armor, the symbols of the Spire barely visible beneath the black rot spreading through their skin.

Former Stormguards.

These weren't the mindless husks outside. No, these were different. They watched him, their empty eyes filled with something worse than hunger.

Recognition.

"Kei...ran..."

The voice was hoarse, barely human. A soldier stepped forward, his body still holding onto its original shape, but his veins pulsed with black decay, and his mouth curled into something wrong—a mockery of speech.

Kieran raised his sword. He didn't want to see their faces.

They weren't people anymore.

The half-changed Wraithborn moved.

The Fight in the Shadows

Kieran moved first, slashing through the closest enemy, his sword slicing clean through its throat. The creature staggered back, but it didn't die—not fully. It gurgled, its head tilting at an unnatural angle before it charged again.

Elias struck another in the chest, but it barely flinched before its clawed hand lashed out, tearing through his sleeve. He grunted in pain, driving his dagger into its skull.

Rhea moved, her daggers flashing in the firelight, cutting through tendons and throats, moving before they could react.

But there were too many.

The room became a whirl of steel and blood, the whispers growing into a chorus of madness, until—

"GO!" Kieran shouted.

They broke through, bursting into the next alleyway just as the half-turned Wraithborns screeched behind them.

The moment they were in the open, Elias slammed a battered metal gate shut, locking it in place. The creatures threw themselves against it, their rotting hands reaching, clawing.

Kieran turned away, his breath shaking.

Elias wiped blood from his face. "That wasn't normal."

Rhea nodded, breathing hard. "They were different."

Kieran gritted his teeth.

The storm had never just kept the Wraithborns out.

It had kept some of them inside.

Something that had already started to change the people of the Spire.

They needed to reach the vaults—fast. Because if those things were spreading, then the city wasn't just lost.

It was already dead.

The High Tower emerged ahead, its once-pristine walls now scarred by battle. Fires burned along the upper levels, smoke curling into the sky like the breath of a dying beast. The grand gates—thick iron reinforced with runes of protection—stood battered but unbroken. For now.

Kieran ran toward them, Elias and Rhea at his heels. His muscles screamed with exhaustion, but there was no time to stop. The roar of the Wraithborns horde behind them sent shivers through his spine.

The storm had collapsed entirely, and the Spire's last sanctuary was about to fall.

From above, arrows rained down, streaking through the night with deadly precision. Some found their marks in the shrieking creatures, but it wasn't enough.

The Wraithborns did not die easily.

They climbed the walls, their spiky claws sinking into stone, their ghastly forms twisting and contorting as they scaled toward the battlements.

Kieran reached the gate and slammed his fist against it.

"Open the gate!" he shouted, his voice raw.

For a moment, there was nothing. Then—a voice.

"Who goes there?"

Kieran barely had time to respond before Elias turned and loosed an arrow, the shaft burying itself in a Wraithborn that had charged for them.

"Open the damned gate, or we're all dead!" Rhea snapped.

The heavy gears groaned, and the iron doors creaked open just wide enough for them to slip through. The moment they were inside, the gates slammed shut again, a massive bolt locking into place.

Kieran turned, chest heaving, as he took in the horrifying sight before him.

The grand halls of the High Tower were filled with survivors—wounded soldiers, desperate citizens, children clutching their mothers' hands. The once glorious seat of power had become a refuge of the damned, its grandeur lost beneath the weight of fear and exhaustion.

Figures moved among the injured—healers working feverishly, warriors too wounded to fight murmuring last prayers.

Commander Ronan Vael stood at the center of it all, his armor dented and smeared with blood—some of it his, most of it not. He turned sharply as he saw Kieran.

"You survived."

"Not for lack of trying," Kieran said grimly.

Vael's gaze narrowed as he took in the blood on their weapons, the soot on their faces. His jaw tightened.

"The gates won't hold much longer," he said. "And when they fall, we fall."

Kieran wiped the sweat from his brow. "Then we make sure they don't fall."

A shout echoed from above.

"They're coming!"

The Siege Begins

The outer gates shuddered as something massive slammed against them.

BOOM.

A second impact.

The barricades trembled as the Wraithborns horde threw their full weight against the defenses.

Kieran and Elias raced up the stone stairway to the battlements, Rhea close behind. The moment they emerged, a gust of cold wind cut through them, carrying the stench of rot and blood.

And below them—

The horde stretched as far as the eye could see.

Hundreds of Wraithborns swarmed the base of the High Tower, their twisted forms bathed in flickering firelight. Some were massive, hulking creatures that once had been men. Others had gaunt faces that looked barely human.

They clawed at the stone, ripping away chunks with every strike.

Then, from the depths of the horde, something moved.

A titanic figure, clad in cracked black armor, stepped forward. Its face was hidden behind a helm, but its burning white eyes pierced through the night. The ground trembled beneath its approach.

"Reven," Kieran whispered.

Reven's Demand

The Wraithborns warlord stood at the base of the tower, staring up at the defenders. His voice was a whisper and a roar all at once, echoing across the battlefield.

"Spire-folk." His voice was cold, filled with something beyond hatred—something patient, inevitable. "You are already dead."

Silence fell across the walls.

"You stole your lives from the storm. Hid beneath its veil. But now..." Reven raised a massive, clawed hand toward the tower. "...now, your time has come."

BOOM.

The gates cracked.

Screams erupted from the lower halls.

"We need to hold them back!" Vael barked. "Archers—FIRE!"

A hail of arrows rained down upon the horde. Some found their marks, piercing through the Wraithborn's ashen flesh, but it wasn't enough. Reven raised a single hand, and suddenly—

The shadows moved.

A pulse of black mist surged forward, curling up the walls, extinguishing torches and swallowing the defenders in pure darkness.

The first screams rose.

Kieran grabbed Rhea's arm, his heart hammering. "We have to get to the lower vaults. Now."

Elias spun to face him. "We can't abandon them!"

"We won't." Kieran's gaze burned with determination. "But if we don't find something—anything—down there, this city is already lost."

Another massive impact. The gates groaned, splitting at the center.

Reven lifted his hand once more.

"Burn it," he said.

And the horde surged forward.

The High Tower's great gates exploded inward, sending shards of iron and stone cascading through the halls. The force of the blast threw soldiers off their feet, their bodies crashing against marble pillars and shattered walls.

Kieran barely had time to duck behind a toppled brazier before the first wave of Wraithborns surged through the breach.

Screams filled the air. The defenders—those who still stood—rallied in a last, desperate stand, swords flashing, arrows loosed in rapid succession.

But the horde was endless.

The Wraithborns moved like a tide, flowing through the corridors, their shrieks a chorus of hunger and malice.

A Spire guard—barely more than a boy—swung his blade wildly at the nearest creature. A Wraithborn, its face twisted in a permanent snarl, caught the blade mid-swing and snapped it in two. The boy's scream was cut short as the creature drove its claws into his chest.

Kieran was shocked to his guts.

There was no saving everyone.

Not anymore.

"We need to fall back!" Rhea shouted over the chaos.

Kieran looked around—there was nowhere to go.

Then Elias grabbed his arm, eyes burning. "We don't fall back," he growled. "We end this."

Kieran followed his gaze toward the center of the great hall—where the Council's throne stood, untouched.

Of course.

The Council's secret vaults were beneath the throne room, filled with artifacts and relics of the old Spire—weapons that had been hidden away for centuries.

The answer wasn't to run. It was to dig in, arm themselves, and fight like hell.

He met Rhea's gaze. "We go to the vault."

Rhea's lips pressed into a thin line, but she nodded. "Then we make a path."

They fought their way back, cutting through Wraithborns as they went. The halls ran slick with blood.

By the time they reached the Council's chambers, only a handful of defenders remained. The great marble doors stood ajar, as if the Council had left in a hurry.

Kieran pushed through—only to stumble to a halt.

The throne room was empty.

No Council. No leaders.

And in the center of the room—

A single figure stood, waiting.

The Wraith King turned as Kieran entered, his massive frame draped in broken armor, his helm wreathed in shadow.

"Too late," Reven rumbled.

Kieran's fingers tightened around his blade. "Where are they?"

Reven tilted his head. "Gone. They fled long before the first gate fell. Abandoning you. Just as they abandoned the world beyond the storm."

A deep, burning rage unfurled in Kieran's chest.

"All this time…" His voice was low, seething. "This was never about vengeance, was it?"

Reven took a slow step forward. "No," he said. "This was justice."

Kieran stared at Reven—the monster, the warlord, the fallen Stormguard.

Then he let out a slow breath.

"You want justice?" he said. His voice was quiet, deadly. "Then come and take it."

And he charged.