Page 68 of The Book of Legends
This place wasn’t merely destroyed.
It was abandoned.
Kainen brushes his fingers against a charred pillar, and something in the air hums. Beneath the ash, ancient runes pulse—faintly red.
“Why bring me here?” I want to ask, but the words are slow on my tongue.
He turns. And there’s something in his eyes I’ve never seen before. Not quite pain. Not quite hope. Something older. A memory being dragged from the depths.
“This is where the first blood pact was forged,” he says. “Between a dragon and a mortal. This is where it began—for me. And perhaps for you.”
My heart stumbles. “You think I’m connected to this place?”
“I think it’s calling to you.”
It is.
The moment he says it, the air shifts. Thickens. The runes burn brighter, like blood vessels beneath skin. And I feel it—beneath the floor. A pulsing heart. Magic, ancient and feral, awakening because I am here.
Then I fall.
The floor vanishes beneath me, and I scream as the ash rises to swallow me whole.
Ash falls like snow—but not the kind that melts or glitters.
This ash burrows into your bones. Clings to your skin like guilt. Heavy. Suffocating. It makes every breath feel like mourning. Like remembering.
Alone, I follow a winding path through gray-black dust that cloaks Nythia like a funeral shroud. If I listen too long, the wind murmurs things—fractured, bleeding thoughts that almost sound like words.
I fail.
Ahead, the ruins emerge once more—dark spires rising like blades, cutting into the heavens. The House of Ash. The name the guards whisper, their eyes flicking to Kainen when they think I’m not watching. The place Malachi circles before each descent.
The place no one else dares to enter.
Kainen hasn’t been the same since the border battle. Not fully. His body moves through the castle halls. His voice still commands. But something inside him has gone quiet. And whatever he saw that day carved new edges into his soul.
Sharper. Colder.
More dangerous.
I follow the dragon sigil etched into a stone marker outside the gate. It's old—older than the tongue I’ve heard speak. Older than Nythia itself. It warms beneath my palm, and it feels wrong.
“You shouldn’t be here.”
The voice is familiar, edged with ancient heat.
I turn. “Neither should you, Malachi.”
He pauses. Then his wings stir behind him, a great hush of wind and tension. His scaled hide crackles faintly, the scent of brimstone clinging to the air between us.
“This house doesn’t like your kind,” he says, his voice low thunder.
“What kind?”
He says nothing. That tells me everything.
I press forward. The iron gate groans open on rusted hinges, the sound like protest from the bones of the estate itself.
