Lighting the Way

Time had not been kind to the structure.

The once-grand spires of the Vellorien Temple had long since crumbled, leaving jagged silhouettes against the pale sky. Vines curled like fingers through broken stone, creeping over archways and columns as though nature itself had tried to cradle what remained.

The main archway, once the proud entrance to the temple, stood half-collapsed. Faint, ancient symbols still clung to the surviving pillars, worn down by wind, rain, and time—but they were still there.

As soon as I saw it, something shifted in me. Something buried.

It started as a whisper—soft, barely noticeable. But then it surged through me, blooming in my chest like a sudden intake of breath.

This place... felt like home.

Not like the palace, not the marbled halls filled with polished glass and heavy silks. No, this was older. Sacred. This was the kind of home etched into your bones.

The air here felt charged. Not magical, not dangerous—just... full. As if the walls, even in ruin, still remembered everything they'd ever held.

I stepped forward slowly, reverently. My fingers brushed along the stone, wiping away layers of dust. My breathing quickened.

The scent of parchment and ink rose from the back of my mind. The echo of Master Aldric's calm voice guided me through texts too heavy for my small hands. The sound of my footsteps racing through the halls, barefoot and determined, trying to memorize every verse before the sun rose.

Then—the memories shifted.

The smell of smoke.

The screams.

The heat.

The blood.

My throat tightened. I clenched my jaw.

Not now. Not here.

But the ghosts of the past didn't care where I was. They came anyway.

They reminded me that I was the only one left.

If I had just known about my powers sooner... if I had just been stronger...

I could've saved them.

I felt my fists curl. My jaw locked. The familiar weight of guilt coiled around my chest like iron.

Then, at the center of my own storm, I felt his presence behind me, approaching.

I heard the shuffle of his boots and the clink of something metallic. From the side of the ruined archway, he pulled free a torch. It was long, iron-handled, and nearly lost beneath moss and dust. It looked like it hadn't been touched in years.

He held it up, examining the dryness of the old wood, and then, to my surprise, struck a piece of flint against steel with practiced ease.

Sparks scattered.

After a few firm strikes and adjustments, flame finally caught on the resin-coated head of the torch.

It flared to life with a low hiss.

He turned, arm extended, and offered the torch to me.

But I didn't take it.

Because the moment I saw it—the flame dancing above the torch's head, casting flickers across the stone walls—my body locked up.

Just like that night.

The torches that illuminated the corridors as burned. The flames threw shadows over the blood-stained walls. The faces I couldn't save. The smoke that clung to my lungs for days.

Valtor's brows lifted slightly at my hesitation, and then his expression shifted—cool and sharp. He narrowed his eyes.

"Afraid of a little fire, Knowledge Boy?"

I didn't answer. Just looked away, pressing my lips into a thin line.

He scoffed under his breath, like he was expecting a comeback that never came. But then, strangely, he didn't push it. Didn't mock me further.

Instead, he stepped beside me.

And without a word, he held the torch higher, letting the light fall forward—not on his path, but mine.

Lighting the way for me.

For a while, neither of us said anything.

And then, breaking the stillness like a careless wind through glass, he murmured, "Are you wearing lavender?"

I blinked. "What?"

I turned to him, brow furrowed. He wasn't even looking at me—just pinched the bridge of his nose with a frustrated sort of grace, like the question had escaped before he could stop it.

I subtly brought my shoulder to my nose.

Lavender. Subtle. Calming.

Right.

I shrugged. "Must've been the soap I used from earlier."

He didn't respond immediately, just muttered something under his breath and turned away.

"Damn it."

"What?"

I wasn't able to capture what he said, but I saw the tension in his jaw, the flicker of something unreadable in his expression.

I narrowed my eyes, unsure if he was irritated, distracted, or something else.

"You good?" I asked, my voice cautious.

He ignored the question entirely and started toward the remnants of the temple doors.

"Did you find anything?" Valtor's voice broke the silence, it was low and clipped.

He didn't look at me, but I could feel the weight behind the question.

I opened my mouth to answer, then paused.

Something had caught my eye!

Nestled within the collapsed archway of the ancient temple ruins was a doorway.

It was narrow, cracked at the hinges, and half-covered in ivy and rubble. But it wasn't the doorway itself that made my breath catch. It was what lay just beyond it, barely visible through the dim light and creeping vines.

A summoning circle.

I stepped forward, every movement deliberate.

The others must have noticed the shift in my posture because footsteps echoed behind me—

Others? Footsteps behind me? Wait—I thought—

I blinked, thrown for a moment.

"You couldn't bear the creepiness outside, huh?" I asked, trying to keep my tone dry, my focus steady despite the tight coil forming in my chest.

Seraph smirked, arms behind his head as if strolling through a garden instead of a ruin.

"What can I say? Haunted ruins are only fun when everyone's included."

Herold, of course, contradicted that entirely. "I voted we stay outside. I was overruled," he deadpanned, adjusting his scarf higher up his face like it might protect him from the cursed air. "For the record, I still think this place wants us dead."

"Elara?" I asked, raising an eyebrow.

She shrugged. "You're not going in there alone. Someone has to keep you alive."

I almost smiled. Almost.

But the flicker of warmth faded as something else caught my eye earlier. Something was etched into the ground just beneath the collapsed archway, half-buried in dirt and shadow.

A pattern. A shape.

I stepped toward it slowly, my boots crunching over the debris. The ruins around us seemed to press in tighter, colder.

Then Valtor moved—just a small adjustment of his arm—and the torch in his hand cast a new angle of light across the floor.

And just like that, the shadows receded.

The markings emerged beneath the flame's glow, like ghosts being summoned back into the world.

What I saw made my breath catch.

A circle—complex, layered, and old. Far older than the ruin that housed it. The lines were thin but deliberate, carved deeply into the stone with a precision that no casual traveler could replicate.

Despite the erosion of time, I could see them clearly now. Not because they were waiting to be seen.

But because Valtor had lit them for me.

I knelt beside the circle, the chill of the stone bleeding through my trousers and settling deep into my bones. I didn't notice. My fingers reached out, hovering just above the etched grooves. I didn't dare touch them. Not yet.

"I recognize these spells," I murmured, tracing the air above a faint line.

The ancient glyphs spoke to something I hadn't read in years but still remembered—like a half-forgotten prayer rising to the surface.

"These circles... they're not just for channeling magic."

My voice dropped lower.

"They're for summoning."

Silence fell like a shroud.

I could feel the others behind me, their gazes tightening with unease. The air had gone still—no wind, no rustling leaves, only the steady flicker of Valtor's torch and the distant creak of stone.

I leaned in, eyes scanning the edge of the circle. Some of the symbols were familiar—refined, almost elegant in design. Priesthood scripts are meant to connect a caster to ethereal forces. Forms of communion. Ancient spells of knowledge.

But others...

Others weren't just foreign. They were wrong.

The angles were jagged, warped in ways that made my skin crawl. I didn't need to study them long to know: these were corrupted glyphs.

Forbidden.

Tainted.

These weren't meant to summon guidance or knowledge. They were meant to summon something else.

Something darker.

"Impossible."

I did not turn my back as I felt their presence as they finally stepped closer, drawn by the heaviness in my voice.

I heard Elara's soft intake of breath behind me.

She knelt on the other side of the circle, her bow still slung across her back, but her hands clenched into fists.

"The shadows," she whispered. "Someone's summoning them."

That was my initial deduction—there's no way everything happening in Erin or even in other parts of the kingdom is just a coincidence.

Her voice was steadier than mine, but I could see the way her eyes lingered on the corrupted glyphs.

Seraph crossed his arms and shifted his weight onto one foot, eyeing the markings like they were some sort of puzzle.

"So much for the Queen saying this region had more disturbances than the others," he said with a forced grin. "Sounds like we got the only interesting mission."

His voice was light—too light. But his posture betrayed him. Shoulders stiff. Jaw tight. He wasn't fooling anyone.

Elara wasn't having it. "Once again, Seraph, this isn't a competition." She rose to her feet, her voice firm. "If someone is calling these things into existence, then this isn't just an attack on scattered villages or cities. This is a war waiting to happen."

Herold let out a low breath behind them. "Or the beginning of one."

I pressed my palm flat against the cold stone, staring into the heart of the circle.

"And if the kingdom isn't prepared..." I didn't finish the sentence. I didn't have to.

The silence that followed said enough.

Valtor stood at the edge of the torchlight, gaze fixed on the summoning circle. He hadn't moved since I spoke. Then, finally, his voice cut through the air like the first crack of thunder before a storm.

"Can you tell who is doing this?"

I shook my head, reluctantly pulling my hand back. "No. The spells are old. And they've been rewritten so many times that it's impossible to tell the original source."

"Great," Seraph muttered, running a hand through his unkempt hair. "So we know someone's behind this, but not who or why."

Herold pulled his scarf closer to his face, the fabric shadowing his tired eyes. “Then let’s do some digging. Maybe there’s something inside. Maybe whoever used this circle left a trail.”

But the unease had settled into all of us now—thick and unshakable.

"This is a forbidden spell," I said softly, more to myself than the others. "It shouldn't exist outside the Main Temple—not unless someone stole it. It was sealed away in Varethiel. The City of Scholars. My home."

My chest tightened, the weight of memory pressing down with cruel precision. I hadn't spoken of Varethiel this openly before—not until I shared some of its pieces with Valtor.

However, if this would pave a way for us to know further….

If this forbidden spell had resurfaced here… had it been used recently?

And if so, was it possible that the same force that destroyed Varethiel, that razed the only home I’d ever known, was the very darkness now unfurling its claws across the kingdom?

The thought hit me like a blade to the spine.

My jaw tightened. My hands curled into fists, trembling not from fear but from the storm building inside me. A storm I had kept buried for far too long.

This wasn’t a coincidence. Not a scattered threat or a rogue curse.

This was deliberate. This was orchestrated.

And for the first time since I had donned the title of Thirteenth Prince, I knew exactly what I was fighting for.

I wasn’t just chasing shadows anymore.

I was hunting the truth. And in this crumbling ruin, where magic and memory collided, I felt it—just beneath the surface, clawing to be unearthed.

The truth about what happened that night.

The truth behind the fall of the Priesthood of Knowledge.

The truth about who I really was.

And if answers were buried in the dark—then I would walk straight into it, with fire in my chest and vengeance in my blood.

Because someone had taken everything from me.

And I was ready to take it back.