Chapter 20

  Darkness clung to him, thick and endless, until it didn’t.

  In the void, light unfurled like a forgotten memory: golden fields rolling in a warm breeze; emerald hills stacked to the horizon beneath a sky so perfect it must have been lying. Magic threaded the air, making everything a little too vivid, edges trembling, as if painted on water. And then she appeared.

  Tall. Serene. Robes of liquid silver that took the wind like moonlight turned soft. The world bent around her not by force but by gravity—inevitable, familiar.

  He knew her.

  He’d seen this face at the Primordials’ table in the Temple of Varosha. Syronia, called by mortals the Seer, goddess of prophecy and foresight.

  She spoke, her voice like warm honey—thick and sweet, each word clinging to the inside of his soul.

  When first the Primordial wakes from sleep,

  The fate of gods hangs frail and deep.

  One shall rise to rally kin—

  The final war must now begin.

  We watchers wait with silent breath;

  No god may stay the blade of death.

  The fire, storm, and stone entombed

  Shall rise where ancient powers bloomed.

  To break the chain, cleanse all the land,

  The heart must fight—not godly hand.

  The goddess’s voice unraveled like mist torn by wind. One heartbeat it rang with the weight of ages; the next it thinned to nothing. Only the hush of breeze at his back remained, the dry whisper of unseen leaves, the far cry of distant birds. The fields bled at the edges, color running, and then—nothing.

  Darkness swallowed him whole.

  Pain hauled him back, a hook in his chest. Cold, rough stone grated under his palms; damp grit clung. Water dripped somewhere down the hall, loud in the absence of anything else. A dungeon, he thought.

  His lungs burned; every breath was like a blade carving raw lines down his throat and ribs. He tried to breathe slow, to master the hurt; his body betrayed him. A cough ripped free—violent, tearing. Blood sprayed warm across his lips and chin as he slumped against stone.

  It didn’t last. The floor tilted; blackness took him under again.

  A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

  Everything was black. Not absence of light black but smothering, living black—thick, pulsing, close. His vision swam; blinks stretched into long blurs. No walls, no sky, no sound but his ragged breath.

  Alone.

  And watched. Somewhere in that void, something looked back.

  A thought cut through the haze; the tunic It should’ve taken the edge off Philip’s blows—woven enchantments, layered runes—yet every strike had landed like bone on iron. Why?

  River forced his thoughts to align. He reached for the threads of the garment the way he reached for Calira: by feel, by reflex. Nothing. No warmth, no tug. He only found dead cloth.

  He narrowed his eyes, scraping together the last dregs of essence to sharpen his sight. For a breath, the world sprang into focus. Runes crawled across the tunic’s weave, dormant but intact, faint pulses of bound power ticking like a hidden clock.

  Still there.

  Wake up, then.

  He shut his eyes, steadied his breath, and reached again—not with trust but with will. The bond with Calira was partnership; this was a locked door. No heart to answer, no mind to meet him. He would have to press until the latch gave.

  Something shifted.

  Slow at first—wood swelling in rain—then faster. Power sluiced into him, warmth running through his limbs, easing the fire in his ribs. Breath loosened. Pain dulled to a manageable edge.

  Then the flow cut off.

  “Damn it,” he muttered.

  It had worked—barely. Enough to stand. Not enough to do anything clever.

  Not yet.

  Time smeared; he measured it in coughs and the chess game of trying to lie in a way that didn’t rip breath from him. When it approached, he felt the change before sound: weight pressing the air flatter, a presence darker and more commanding than anything he’d known. The King would have guttered like a candle beside this. His muscles obeyed without permission—stillness took him; not one twitch.

  Clarity flared, as if a veil lifted just to make sure he saw.

  Him.

  The man from Varosha’s vision—the one the gods feared. He was smiling, his mouth too wide and eyes that held nothing but shadow. The smile hadn’t changed: wide, hollow.

  His voice, though, rang warm. Confident. Joyful, even. “I’ve been waiting for you,” he said, brightness at odds with the slow creep of dread that radiated from him.

  Before River could brace or spit a question, the man flicked his wrist. Magic flowed, precise as poured water. It struck River center mass.

  He flinched, braced for pain.

  None came.

  Warmth bloomed behind his sternum, spreading like sunlight after frost. He gasped as his ribs clicked back into place with sharp little pops, bruises paled, cuts knit closed like time had changed its mind. Essence poured in—clean, potent, alive.

  The hurt ebbed. But as essence poured in, the tunic buckled, with a sharp crack, the rune-lattice splintered and went dark. The essence he’d forced through it was poison to the runes that powered his tunic.

  Confusion took its place, stranger and colder.

  This wasn’t kindness. Not from a presence this old and wrong. Power like this did not give gifts.

  Why heal him?

  A voice slid through the dark, answering the thought he hadn’t voiced. ‘I wish to be your friend. My name is Lucius.”