The inn room was small, cramped, and smelled of stale ale. Elara spread the Keeper's parchment across the uneven table, its edges curling from the damp night air. The map showed no cities, no roads—only a series of jagged symbols drawn in what she hoped was ink.
Kael leaned over her shoulder, his breath warm against her ear. "That's not a map. It's a death warrant."
She elbowed him away. "It's a trail. Each symbol marks a place where a fragment of the God-King's power was hidden."
He tapped the closest mark—a twisted spiral that made her eyes ache to look at. "And this one?"
"The Shattered Peaks. Where the first Silverthorn betrayed the God-King."
A pause. Then, dryly: "Charming family history."
Elara rolled up the parchment with more force than necessary. "We leave at dawn."
The Shattered Peaks lived up to their name. The mountains looked as though some giant hand had smashed them apart, leaving behind jagged spires of black stone that clawed at the sky. The wind here didn't howl—it whispered, carrying voices just beyond understanding.
Kael adjusted the crown's glamour, his face drawn. "This place is wrong."
Elara flexed her marked hand, feeling the magic here twist around her like vines. "It's not just wrong. It's angry."
They found the entrance hidden behind a waterfall of freezing mist. The cave beyond was too perfectly round, too smooth—as if something had bored through the mountain with deliberate, terrible purpose.
And at its center, floating above a pedestal of bone, was a shard of silver.
The third fragment.
They'd taken three steps inside when the bones moved.
Rib cages snapped together. Skulls rolled into place. Vertebrae slithered like serpents until a towering skeleton stood before them, its eye sockets burning with violet fire.
Kael's blackfire ignited. "I hate necromancy."
The skeleton spoke with the voice of a thousand dead:
"Only the worthy may claim the shard."
Elara raised an eyebrow. "Worthy by whose standard?"
"By mine."
Then it attacked.
The skeleton fought like nothing Elara had ever seen. Its bones shifted mid-swing, reforming into weapons—a blade one moment, a whip the next. Kael's blackfire barely singed it; her silver vines shattered against its ribs.
They fought back-to-back, their movements falling into sync without thought. When the skeleton lunged, Elara ducked while Kael struck. When it turned on him, she harried its flanks.
Still, it wasn't enough.
The skeleton drove Kael to his knees, a bone dagger at his throat. "Unworthy."
Elara saw red.
She didn't think. She moved, throwing herself between them—not with magic, not with steel, but with her bare hands.
And the dagger stopped.
The skeleton tilted its head. "Why?"
She bared her teeth. "Because I said so."
A beat. Then the skeleton laughed, the sound like grinding stones.
"At last. A thief with conviction."
It stepped back, dissolving into a pile of bones. The shard floated gently into Elara's waiting palm.
The moment her fingers closed around the shard, the cave shuddered.
The walls cracked, veins of violet light spreading like spiderwebs. Kael grabbed her arm, yanking her toward the exit as the mountain began to collapse around them.
They barely made it out before the entrance sealed behind them with a thunderous crash.
Elara gasped for breath, the shard clutched tight in her fist. It was warm, almost alive, its edges too sharp to be natural.
Kael eyed it warily. "That's not just a fragment."
She knew. She could feel it—the shard humming in tune with the amulet's chain around her wrist, with the crown on Kael's brow.
It was another piece of the key.
And it wanted more.