The ruins of Sable Hollow lay in silence, save for the crackling embers of the dying fire and the echoes of Varyn’s laughter, still lingering in the air like a curse.
Kael stood frozen, his chest still aching from the Rift energy that had slammed into him. His body wanted to collapse, but he forced himself upright, his mind racing with everything that had just happened. Varyn was gone. Not just gone—teleported. He had opened a rift in space itself and stepped through it, appearing at the one place Kael had been dreading since his visions began.
The Shattered Throne.
Kael’s breath came fast and unsteady. He looked at his companions—Lirien, Mira, Sylas, and Rhea—all staring at him with varying degrees of shock and unease. None of them spoke. None of them moved. They had all just witnessed something they couldn’t fully comprehend.
Then, finally, Lirien broke the silence. “Kael.”
His name sounded sharp, like a blade through the tension. He turned, meeting her gaze—her expression hard, unreadable, but her eyes burning with a question he knew she didn’t even need to ask.
What the hell just happened?
- The Truth Laid Bare
Kael exhaled slowly, trying to gather his thoughts, but there was no point in lying anymore. The game was over. Varyn had exposed everything.
“He’s been leading us here from the start,” Kael admitted, voice low but steady. “He’s not just a warrior. Not just some wanderer. He’s… something else.” He hesitated, then forced himself to say it aloud. “He has the Void Manifest. A corrupted mirror of my flame.”
Mira tensed. “That energy… that wasn’t magic.”
“No.” Kael shook his head. “It was something worse.”
Sylas swore under his breath, rubbing a hand over his face. “So let me get this straight. Not only have we been walking straight into his trap, but he also has a goddamn Rift ability? And he’s already at the Throne?” Kael gave a slow nod. “Yes.”
Sylas laughed, a hollow, humorless sound. “Well. That’s just fantastic.”
Lirien ignored him, stepping forward. “What does he want, Kael?”
Kael met her gaze, his stomach twisting. He knew. He had known for a while now, ever since his dreams first showed him the dark future that awaited them.
“The same thing I do,” he admitted. “The Throne.”
Mira’s face darkened. “You’ve seen it in your visions, haven’t you?”
Kael hesitated, but nodded. “It wasn’t just the throne. It was him, sitting on it. Ruling from it. Breaking the world.” He swallowed hard, his throat dry. “I don’t know how I saw it… but I did.”
This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.
Lirien’s voice was quiet. “And what happens if you get there first?”
Kael clenched his fists. “I don’t know,” he admitted. “But I have to. Because if I don’t… he will.”
The decision wasn’t one they needed to discuss.
Varyn had teleported, using a power none of them could counter. He was already ahead, and if they didn’t move now, they would be walking into his kingdom, not just his trap.
Lirien didn’t hesitate. “We ride. Now.”
Rhea cracked her knuckles. “Finally. Something straightforward.”
They moved quickly, throwing supplies onto their horses and leaving the ruined town behind them. The road ahead stretched for miles, winding through dead forests and broken canyons, a path carved from old wars and forgotten history.
Kael rode at the front, his jaw tight, his mind spinning. He could still feel where Varyn’s Rift energy had struck him, a lingering cold that wouldn’t fade. It wasn’t like his own flame. His power, the Flame Unseen, was something that existed beyond the physical realm. It burned with the force of the moons, something celestial and unexplainable.
But Varyn’s Void Manifest?
It wasn’t just an absence of light. It was erasure.
Kael gritted his teeth. If Varyn could summon a Void Beam—like his own Moonfire Beam—then nothing would be able to stop him.
The only question left was—was he already strong enough to do it?
They rode through the night, pushing their horses hard. The path ahead grew twisted, the very land seeming to change as they approached the Rift-scarred mountains.
Kael felt it before he saw it—the energy in the air shifting, growing heavier, thicker.
Mira slowed her horse beside his. “Do you feel that?”
Kael nodded grimly. “The Rift is stronger here.”
Sylas scanned the darkened cliffs. “If Varyn’s already ahead of us, he’s had time to set up whatever nightmare he’s got planned.”
Lirien rode up alongside them, her voice low. “Then we move faster.”
But before they could, the sky split open.
A deep, violet glow burst through the clouds, a gaping wound in the heavens.
Kael’s breath caught. “Oh, gods,” Mira whispered. “It’s starting.”
Above them, the Rift expanded, energy spiraling outward. And at the heart of it—A beacon of darkness.
A pulse of pure void energy, radiating from the direction of the Shattered Throne.
Rhea muttered a curse. “I don’t think we’re gonna like what happens next.”
Kael’s pulse thundered. Varyn wasn’t waiting for them.
He was already making his move.
By the time they reached the final stretch of their journey, the land was dead.
The grass was gone, replaced by dry, cracked earth. The sky was wrong, shifting between night and something else entirely, like reality itself was struggling to exist here.
And ahead of them—
The Shattered Throne.
It loomed in the distance, perched atop a ruin of broken spires and jagged cliffs. Kael had seen it in his visions, but seeing it in reality was worse.
It wasn’t just a throne. It was a wound.
A wound in the world itself.
Sylas pulled his horse to a stop. “So. That’s it, huh?”
Mira swallowed hard. “It looks… cursed.”
Lirien didn’t hesitate. “It doesn’t matter what it looks like. We’re going.” Kael stared at the throne, heart pounding.
Varyn was waiting. And now, there was no more running.
No more games.
No more pretending. Kael turned to the others.
“This is it,” he said. “Whatever happens next… we end this.”
Lirien nodded, gripping her sword. “Together.”
Rhea cracked her knuckles. “Let’s kill that smug bastard.”
Sylas grinned, twirling a dagger. “Now that’s a plan I can get behind.”
Mira smirked, flipping a knife in her palm. “Let’s go make history.”
Kael inhaled deeply. Then, without another word—they rode forward.
Toward the Shattered Throne.
Toward Varyn. Toward the end of everything.