Page 67 of Empire of Wrath and Ruin
The tunnel stretched on ahead of us, leading deeper into the mountain's heart, and with each step, I felt myself slipping further away from the light. We descended further for what felt like hours, though it might have been minutes—time had lost all meaning in this place where the mountain's weight pressed down like a living thing. The torches flickered, revealing walls lined with symbols I recognized as the old script but couldn't read. The air grew colder, heavier, and I could taste something metallic on my tongue—blood, perhaps, or the lingering essence of old magic.
The pressure in my skull was becoming unbearable. Each step felt like walking through deep water, fighting against a current that wanted to drag me under. The voices were screaming now, a cacophony of rage and hunger that made it nearly impossible to think.
They painted vivid pictures of what I could do to the people walking beside me—how easily I could wrap shadows around Livia's throat, how satisfying it would be to hear her gasp for air. How I could crush Tarshi's bones one by one while he screamed. How Aytara's blood would look splattered against these ancient stones.
Stop, I commanded myself, but the word felt weak, pathetic. A child's plea against forces beyond comprehension.
Why fight it?the darkness crooned.You know this is your nature. You know this is what you were born to do. Kill them all. Start with the old woman. She's the one who's been keeping secrets. Wrap your shadows around her throat and squeeze until—
"Stop," I gasped, pressing my free hand against my temple. "Please, just stop."
Livia's grip on my other hand tightened. "What are they saying?"
I couldn't tell her. Couldn't voice the increasingly violent fantasies the darkness was painting in my mind.
I squeezed Livia's hand tighter, desperate for the connection to keep me grounded. Through our bond, I could feel her concern, her determination to somehow pull me back from the edge I was sliding toward. But I could also feel something else—a flutter of fear she was trying to hide, the memory of my hands on her with violence burning between us like an open wound.
She was afraid. She should be afraid.
We reached a heavy iron door set deep into the stone. Ancient runes were carved into its surface, and I could feel power radiating from them—old magic, older than anything I'd encountered before. Aytara produced a key from her robes, her hands shaking slightly as she worked the lock.
"What is this place?" Tarshi asked, his voice echoing strangely in the confined space.
"The heart of our history," Aytara said, her voice heavy. "The source of our curse. And perhaps... our salvation."
The door swung open with a groan that seemed to come from the mountain itself. Beyond lay a vast chamber, far larger than should have been possible this deep in the stone. The wallscurved away into darkness, and I could sense rather than see the enormous space we'd entered.
A pool of water—or what I thought was water—stretched before us, perfectly circular and black as midnight. The surface was so still it might have been polished obsidian, reflecting nothing. Around its edges, more of those ancient runes were carved into the stone floor, and I could feel power emanating from them like heat from a forge.
But it was what lay in the centre of the pool that made my breath catch in my throat.
A crystal sat on a simple stone plinth, perhaps the size of my closed fist. At first glance, it looked almost like iron pyrite, that fool's gold the miners sometimes found. But where pyrite gleamed with false promise, this thing seemed to absorb light. It was clear, yet dark grey, and as I stared at it, I could swear I saw shadows writhing within its depths. Black fire twisted and coiled inside the crystal like living smoke, hypnotic and wrong.
Every instinct I possessed screamed at me to run.
Beautiful,the voices whispered, suddenly unified in their hunger.So beautiful. Can you feel it calling to you? Can you feel how it wants to welcome you home?
"No," I breathed, but my feet had already taken a step forward.
Livia's torch flickered as we entered the chamber, casting dancing shadows on the walls. I could see symbols carved in concentric circles around the crystal's pedestal—dozens of them, maybe hundreds, layered one atop another in a desperate spiral of magical workings.
"What is this place?" Livia asked, her voice small in the vast space.
Aytara set her torch in a bracket near the entrance, the flame seeming dimmer here, as if the crystal devoured even light itself. "This is where it all began," she said. "Where the shadow magic was born."
I couldn't take my eyes off the crystal. It pulsed with a rhythm that matched my heartbeat, and with each pulse, the voices in my head grew stronger. My hands were shaking, and I realized I had taken another step toward it without conscious thought.
"Taveth." Tarshi's hand landed on my shoulder again, and I jerked back to awareness.
"It's calling to me," I said, my voice hoarse. "I can feel it pulling at something inside my chest."
"That's because it recognizes you," Aytara said grimly. "You carry a piece of it within you. All shadow mages do."
She moved to stand between me and the crystal, her expression grave. "Thousands of years ago, our ancestors told of a rain of fire that fell from the skies. Great burning stones that destroyed entire villages, ripped up forests, and crumbled mountains to dust. The impact was so great that darkness fell for weeks—ash and debris blocking out the sun. Hundreds of settlements were wiped from existence."
I forced myself to listen, though every fibre of my being wanted to push past her and reach for that beautiful, terrible thing.
"For centuries afterward, stories were told of the darkness that lay over these mountains. The Talfen people avoided them, called them cursed. Until the Empire came." Her voice hardened. "War drove our people up into the heights, into lands we had sworn never to touch. Within two generations, children were being born with abilities we had never seen before. Shadow magic."
