The scent of incense lingered faintly in the dim chamber. Kael sat slumped against the obsidian wall, wrapped in a silence that felt too heavy for even him. His skin burned, not from fever, but from something far deeper—like reality itself was trying to reject his existence.
He stared down at his arm. The mark—the inverted Eye—hadn't faded. It pulsed faintly, as though mocking him with each breath.
He hadn't told the Thorns. Not yet.
He could barely trust himself.
When he closed his eyes, the whispers came. Not voices, not words, but memories that weren't his—emotions he couldn't place. Blood on his hands. Screams echoing in a place he'd never seen. A crown of bone. A throne made of kneeling corpses.
He hadn't done those things.
Had he?
Eclipse stood at the gates of Dreadhold, the wind snapping at her cloak. She returned alone—Luna remained with Lyra in the human kingdom, by Kael's orders.
But Eclipse had seen enough. She was a creature of instinct, and everything in her bones screamed that something was wrong with their king.
When she entered the war chamber, the Thorns fell quiet.
Valdran stood first. "Where is Lady Lyra?"
"She stayed. The princess is investigating the ancient libraries with Luna. They found something. Something about the Eye."
Valdran's brows furrowed. "And Kael?"
Eclipse hesitated, then said plainly, "He's unraveling."
Far from the Dreadlands, Lyra sat hunched in the candlelit archives, the scent of old parchment and dust thick in the air. Ancient human texts lay spread across the table, some in languages even the scholars of the royal court could barely decipher.
And then—she found it.
Scrawled in ink that shimmered faintly red when the light hit it just right, in a tome bound in scale and bone.
"The god without chains, the one whose soul was sealed and name devoured: N'therak, He Who Devours the Self."
"His Eye does not see flesh. It sees the soul. And in seeing, it rewrites. Memory. Purpose. Fate."
Lyra's hand trembled.
If the Eye had seen Kael's soul…
Could it be rewriting him?
No—no. She wouldn't let it. She would drag him back if she had to walk through fire.
She turned to Luna. "We have to return. Kael—he's not just in danger. He is the danger."
Back in Dreadhold, Kael stood on the balcony of his tower, watching the gray skies churn over his kingdom. He could feel it now, deep in the stone and the bones of Dreadhold. Something ancient stirred beneath the citadel.
Something hungry.
Valdran approached him from behind.
"You haven't called the Thorns in two days," he said quietly.
"I can't face them like this," Kael murmured.
"They're your family. Let them carry some of this."
Kael turned, shadows crawling at the edge of his expression. "What if I'm not me anymore?"
Valdran met his gaze. "Then we fight to get you back."
That night, Kael dreamt again.
But this time, he remembered the dream.
A shattered mirror. His own face, cracked and bleeding, mouthing words he couldn't hear. A voice—his own?—speaking from inside the Eye.
"You were not chosen. You were made."
He awoke, gasping, blood on his tongue. His nails had cut into his own palms.
At dawn, Eclipse called an emergency council.
The Thorns gathered in the war chamber, tension thick in the air. Murmurs. Questions. Doubts.
"He's not himself," said Serana the Shadowblade. "He wanders alone. He stares at things that aren't there."
"He's dying," whispered Magnus, the stone-armored Juggernaut. "And something's taking his place."
Valdran silenced them with a glance. "He hasn't fallen. Not yet."
"And when he does?" Eclipse's voice was ice. "Are we ready?"
The question hung in the air, unanswered.
The final blow came at twilight.
A servant was found unconscious in the hallway outside Kael's room, blood leaking from their ears. No sign of trauma—just raw fear etched into their face.
Inside Kael's chamber, the walls were marked with symbols—drawn in his own blood.
Kael didn't remember writing them.
He only remembered a voice, calm and ancient, whispering from the center of his soul.
"You are mine, Kael of Dreadhold. Not by pact. Not by force. But because I was always there."
"And now... so are you."