Chapter 9: The Crimson Reckoning
1012 Words
The night was thick with fog, muffling sound and cloaking the forest in a silence so complete it rang in Kaelin’s ears. Beneath the canopy of gnarled trees, the air was still. Too still. The kind of stillness that came before something dreadful.
Kaelin stood at the edge of the glade with Ren and Marra flanking him, both cloaked and armed. The three had traveled in silence for days, following rumors of a Dominion Seer performing dark rites in the ruins of Elenhal—once a great temple to the Old Flame, now reduced to black stone and whispering ghosts.
Ren adjusted the wrappings on his hand, hiding the growing, pulsing mark along his palm—a gift from his duel with the Dominion enforcer. It had been growing darker, more vibrant, almost alive.
“You don’t have to come inside,” Kaelin said without turning. “What waits within will reach into your mind and tear at your memories. I can shield you, but not entirely.”
Ren lifted his chin. “I’m not afraid. You said the Seer might have answers. I want them.”
Marra’s hand dropped to her curved dagger. “And I want to see what the bastards fear enough to keep hidden out here in the dead woods.”
Kaelin didn’t smile. He hadn’t smiled in days. The rebirth had left him cold, the fire within him slow to return. But something stirred now—an ember of something long buried.
They stepped into the ruins.
Elenhal was shaped like a great circle, carved from obsidian-like rock veined with crimson. Great statues had once stood in its heart—guardians of the sacred fire. Now they were shattered, toppled by Dominion hands, their faces weathered and eyes hollow.
In the center, cloaked in swirling tendrils of dark mist, stood a single figure.
The Seer.
He wore red robes etched with gold runes that shimmered unnaturally under no light. His face was veiled, but Kaelin knew he was being watched—measured.
“I wondered when you’d come, Kaelin,” the Seer said in a voice that echoed not in the ears, but in the bones.
“You know who I am.”
“You never truly died. The Master’s essence clung to the world like a sickness. The Dominion felt your stirring before the rebels did.”
Ren stepped forward, fists clenched. “If you know who he is, then you know what he can do. Tell us what you’re hiding.”
The Seer turned slightly, as though amused. “Do you even know what you carry, boy?”
Ren faltered. “I—”
“The mark on your hand,” the Seer murmured. “It is no mere scar. It is a tether. A piece of Kaelin’s soul forged into you. Accidental or not, it binds your fate to his.”
Kaelin stepped between them. “That’s enough. You’ve revealed what I needed.”
“But not all,” the Seer said softly, lifting one hand.
Suddenly, the mist around them thickened, and the statues—broken and crumbled—shuddered. Pieces of stone rose, reassembling. Guardian constructs, dead for decades, began to stir with unholy life.
“Go,” Kaelin said to the others, eyes burning with a faint orange glow. “Now.”
Ren refused. “No. I’m not leaving.”
Kaelin didn’t argue. His hand ignited with flame, a brilliant white fire not seen since the War of the Cracked Crown.
The Seer flinched.
“Even reborn, you are dangerous,” the Seer hissed. “But you are not whole.”
“No,” Kaelin admitted. “But I don’t need to be to burn you down.”
The constructs charged.
Marra danced between two of them, slashing at joints and exposed cores, her blades hissing with poison. Ren followed her, calling on the latent flame within him, shaping shields of heat to block crushing blows.
Kaelin leapt straight toward the Seer.
The two collided in a burst of magic and memory. Visions surged into Kaelin’s mind—his students slaughtered, the final betrayal, the fire that consumed his body. He staggered, fighting the intrusion.
“You buried your pain,” the Seer whispered. “But it lives inside you still.”
Kaelin roared and blasted the Seer with a wave of white fire, breaking the mental hold. The Seer reeled back, robes smoking.
“You were meant to stay dead!” he spat.
“And you were never meant to live.”
Kaelin surged forward and drove his hand through the Seer’s chest. Not physical—but magical—his essence pierced through the Seer’s heart and soul.
The Seer screamed as his body shattered like glass, fragments dispersing into mist.
The constructs collapsed.
Silence returned to the ruins.
Marra was breathing hard, clutching a wounded side. Ren knelt beside a shattered statue, the mark on his hand glowing softly.
Kaelin stood amidst the fading mist. “He was only one. There are more.”
Marra coughed. “And they’ll be stronger.”
Ren looked at Kaelin. “He said the mark binds me to you.”
Kaelin hesitated. “Yes. I suspected. I didn’t want to believe it.”
“What does that mean?”
“That our fates are entwined. If I fall again, you may fall with me. But if you break—you may pull me down as well.”
Ren stared at his hand. “Then we better not break.”
Kaelin turned to the north. “There’s more ahead. The Masked General gathers his legion in the ash fields of Kareth. If he revives the Obsidian Gate, this world burns again.”
Marra wiped blood from her blade. “Then we make sure he doesn’t.”
The sky above the ruins of Elenhal broke, revealing a moon like a pale eye watching the world. For a moment, it seemed to flicker—like a lid blinking—before vanishing behind cloud once more.
Kaelin watched it and muttered, “Even the sky remembers.”
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