Echoes in The Glass

The ruins of the Labyrinth of Oras had barely cooled, its obsidian stones still radiating a low hum from the Threnody Shard's awakening, when Kael and Selan found themselves traveling once more into the heart of Eldrinthia's ever-twisting war.

The Threnody Shard rested in a reinforced reliquary strapped to Kael's back, sealed with spellscript and etched blood wards. It sang faintly at all hours now, even in silence—a sound only Kael could fully hear, a melody no longer merely in his ears, but stitched into his thoughts.

Selan kept watching him with increasing unease. "You haven't slept in two days."

"I don't need sleep." Kael's voice was low, tired but determined.

"That's not strength. That's erosion."

He didn't respond.

They had left the shattered remains of the resistance far behind, leaving Harth and the others to scatter into different safeholds across the borderlands. Kael had chosen a direct path to the capital—Varellion, the golden seat of the Crown—and with the Threnody Shard in his grasp, he would no longer play at rebellion. The time for sabotage was over.

He would raze the world's axis.

Three days later: Outer Varellion,

They reached the outskirts of the city under the veil of a crimson dusk. Massive wards flickered in the air like liquid panes of light, arching over the capital like an invisible dome. Dozens of watchtowers formed a barrier of steel and sorcery.

Selan pulled them into a shelter carved from the roots of an ancient hollow-tree, a remnant from before the Empire's expansion.

She crouched beside Kael, her eyes fierce. "There are thousands in there. Spellforged legions. Watchers. If you walk through that front gate, you're walking into death."

"I've died before," Kael said. "Piece by piece."

Selan shoved him. "Don't give me that ghost routine. I know you're still in there."

He looked at her for a long moment. "Then help me. Not to run. To finish it."

"I will," she said. "But not if you forget what you're finishing it for."

Midnight: Breach of the Outer Ward,

They moved like wraiths.

Selan handled the first layers of illusion and silence, threading them through old service tunnels used by the sewer magi. Kael, meanwhile, used the Eye—still cracked, but alive enough—to predict patterns in patrols and the ebb of magical barriers.

When they reached the final outer gate, Kael placed his palm against the wardstone.

Blood pooled from his hand.

He sang a line from the Shard.

The ward shattered like glass, silently, reverently.

Within Varellion: The Glassen Spire,

The capital was made of alabaster, glasssteel, and symphonic magic. Every window was a lens of dreams, every alley a secret. The people here knew they were the center of the world. Most slept easy.

Tonight, dreams would curdle.

Kael and Selan made for the Glassen Spire—the place where the Crown held its oldest relics, its blood-soaked tomes, and the body of Kael's father, preserved in state beneath the Hall of Ascendancy.

"I need to see him," Kael whispered.

Selan stared. "Your father?"

"He was the start. My wound. The first lie they made sacred."

The Spire loomed before them, its silhouette a tower of refracted stars.

Inside the Hall of Ascendancy,

They broke through with fire.

Kael used the scythe to unravel the mirrored wards. The halls bled light and screamed in harmony. Guardians—half-souled constructs of gold and iron—descended like angels of fury.

Kael spun through them, blood trailing like ribbons.

Selan covered his back with shadowflame, knives of void erupting from her fingers.

When the last guardian fell, Kael approached the sarcophagus.

It was etched with imperial sigils, the kind that mocked the truth.

Kael opened it.

Gaelus lay still inside. Not preserved by reverence, but held in a stasis-field that bound his soul to silence. His body was whole—unaged, untouched.

Selan gasped. "They… used him. As a vessel."

Kael touched his father's hand. "They turned him into an anchor for the Eye. A root for the prophecy. But they forgot—blood remembers."

He let his blood mingle with his father's.

And the Eye began to scream.

Visions cascaded—reality twisted. Kael staggered back as memories not his own poured into him. His father's final moments. Betrayal at the hands of the nobility. A pact made in desperation to protect Kael.

"I was never cursed," Kael murmured. "He made me… to end this."

Selan knelt beside him. "Kael, if you keep going—"

"I have to. Or everything dies for nothing."

The Threnody Awakens.

Kael raised the Shard high.

It shimmered.

He whispered its name. "Threnody."

The song began.

At first, just a hum. Then a chord. Then a symphony of sorrow and wrath.

All of Varellion felt it—the notes weaving through the stones, through the hearts of its people, shaking loose their delusions.

The Crown's towers cracked. The great bell in the temple of Eliora rang out in warning.

Kael's body glowed with threads of light and shadow.

Selan grabbed his arm. "Don't let it take you."

"I won't."

He stared into the sky, where the palace loomed like a final challenge.

"I'm coming for the throne."