Whispers at the Gate

The door of bone pulsed. Not with light, but with memory. Old memory. Suffering-memory.

Elías stepped forward, scythe dragging against the marble ground. The air thickened like syrup the closer he got. Symbols writhed across the surface of the door, red-hot, changing faster than the eye could follow. One moment they resembled old celestial script. The next—veins. Pulsing, alive.

Behind him, Kael's footsteps echoed in the ruined hall. "I've seen cursed ruins before, but this... this feels like something wants us to open it."

"It's not a door," Aira whispered. "It's a throat."

Juna frowned. "Excuse me?"

"A throat," Aira repeated, softer now. "Something behind it wants to speak. And we're the language it's waiting for."

They all paused.

Kael spat. "Well, f*** that."

Elías turned slowly, his expression unreadable. "If it wants us, then we answer. But on our terms."

He reached forward, his fingers brushing the bone handle. A chill sank into his skin—like plunging his hands into forgotten water. The door breathed. It inhaled him, subtly, gently, like it had waited centuries for his touch.

Kael reached for his sword. "You sure we're not being played?"

"I'm sure we are," Juna said. "But it's not like we have another road."

Elías gripped the handle and pulled.

The scream of the bone echoed down every corridor, a dying animal's wail. Light flared—red and silver—then died, leaving only shadow and the slow creak of a world exhaling its secrets.

Behind the door: a circular chamber. Monolithic. The walls were smooth obsidian etched with shifting runes. Chains descended from the ceiling—some snapped, some hanging taut, others impaled into nothingness.

And at the center stood the throne.

It wasn't made of gold. Not of bone. Nor stone.

It was made of kneeling bodies, twisted in eternal supplication, petrified in agony. Their faces were blank, their mouths open as if screaming. The throne pulsed with dark warmth.

Kael froze. "...That's not a seat. That's a warning."

Juna's breath trembled. "Are those real people?"

"They were," Elías said. "Now they're part of something else."

Aira didn't enter the room. She stood at the edge, her eyes locked on a point above the throne. "We're not alone."

Everyone drew their weapons.

From the walls emerged shapes. Thin as shadows, silent as breath.

They were the Flamebound—creatures of scorched armor and melted flesh, eyes glowing like coals. Around their heads floated broken halos made of black fire. They knelt before the throne without speaking.

A voice bloomed through the chamber.

Not spoken. Not heard. Felt.

"You carry the scythe."

Elías flinched. "Who's there?"

"The one before you. The one who failed."

The throne shuddered.

Suddenly, fire spilled from the throne's base—white, silent, and thick like fog. From it rose a figure in full armor, face obscured, chest glowing with an inner blaze.

Kael shouted, "Get back—!"

The figure lunged.

The room erupted into chaos. The Flamebound surged like a tide. Juna began weaving protection wards, light forming glyphs in the air. Kael met one of the creatures with his blade, sparks flying.

Elías dodged the armored specter and slashed with the Scythe of Death. The blade carved through flame and steel, but the creature reformed instantly, held together by memory and fire.

"You can't kill what's already been chosen!" the voice screamed inside his mind.

Aira hurled daggers that shimmered with black venom. One embedded into a Flamebound's head—it staggered, then exploded in ash.

Elías leapt over the flames and struck the throne itself.

The moment his blade touched it, the world rippled.

He stood alone.

Everything else—gone.

Just him. The throne. And a voice.

"Do you wish to sit?"

He turned. "Who are you?"

"I am what remains when the last name is spoken. When identity burns. I am the inheritance of silence."

The scythe hummed in his hands.

Elías didn't answer.

"Sit, and know truth. Or stand, and keep your soul."

He breathed deeply.

"…Then I choose to kneel—but not to you."

With that, he thrust the scythe into the heart of the throne.

The chamber screamed.

Reality snapped back. The others returned. The Flamebound were gone. The fire had vanished. All that remained was Elías, on one knee, breathing heavily, the scythe buried in stone.

Kael stared. "What the hell happened?"

Elías looked up, and his eyes glowed with red light for a moment. "I… spoke to it."

"To what?"

He stood. "Something that calls itself Inheritance. But it feared me."

Aira finally stepped into the chamber. "The throne's dead. You killed something old."

"Not killed," Juna said. "Bound."

As they turned to leave, the throne began to bleed.

A thick, black ichor that oozed from the mouths of the petrified figures.

And from it, a whisper echoed behind them:

"You will sit. One day. All of you will."

---

Question for the reader:If a throne is made of the dead, is it still power... or a prison?

Would you sit?