Chapter 24: The Green Choice
Aric Blackthorn stood motionless, his eyes locked on the ancient script carved into the stone tablet. Serpentine lines danced between the letters like runes imbued with sentient spite. The riddle glared back at him.
A sun without light. A river without water. A fire without flame.
His mind was already dissecting each line like a surgeon filleting myth from meaning.
'A dead star,' he thought, narrowing his crimson eyes. 'A dry bed. Smoke. Emptiness without essence. Illusion wrapped in metaphor.'
His silence was deep, but not empty. Aric’s thoughts ran like wild current beneath a frozen lake — sharp, fast, invisible. His childhood, scarred by injury and solitude, had gifted him one habit: reading. When his body broke, his mind trained harder. Philosophy, met
