The Cursed King

3

For a long moment, Kaiden didn’t breathe.

The ancient king’s movement was impossibly slow, like stone remembering how to be flesh. The fabric of the burial shroud slid down the figure’s shoulders in a whisper of dust. Beneath it, the body was not fresh—far from it—but neither was it the brittle skeleton a tomb that old should have held.

It was something in between.

Preserved by the Void. Animated by the curse.

Eyes black as starless space.

Skin pale as marble and cracked like old ice.

Artos Ashfall—the first king, the bargain-maker—tilted his head, studying Kaiden with a stillness that felt too deliberate, too aware.

The crypt was silent.

Kaiden stood frozen, breath thin and shaking, feeling as though the air around him had thickened into something heavy and watchful. The shadows clung to his arms and shoulders like cold oil.

Artos moved first.

He bowed.

It was slight, stiff, the motion of someone unused to motion at all—but unmistakably a bow. A gesture of acknowledgment. Submission, even.

Kaiden swallowed hard.

“I… didn’t expect that,” he whispered.

A voice like winter scraping stone slid into the air—not from the corpse’s lips, but through the crypt itself.

“You are the prince.”

Kaiden jerked slightly. The words vibrated through the bones of the chamber, thin and echoing, as though spoken by a throat that hadn’t used sound in centuries.

Artos lifted his gaze again.

“You called. I answered.”

His mouth didn’t move. Shadows carried the voice.

Kaiden stepped back, nearly stumbling over a raised stone.

“That shouldn’t be possible,” he said hoarsely. “You’re… you’re dead.”

“A minor inconvenience,” the old king replied.

“For those of our line.”

The crypt whispered agreement.

Kaiden stared, trying to force his thoughts into order. He was speaking to a centuries-dead ancestor—one who had bound their bloodline to something ancient and terrible. One who had flooded his head with battle instincts and memories he didn’t understand. One who had bowed.

“Why me?” Kaiden asked, the question cracking open inside him. “Why answer me and not—anyone else? There were generations between us. Kings, queens. People stronger than me. Smarter. Better.”

Artos rose fully from the stone slab.

As he stood, the shadows pooled at his feet, veins of darkness running along the grooves in the floor like rivers seeking him. His height was imposing—even in death, he towered over Kaiden by more than a head.

He looked down at the young prince.

“Because you are the one who needed us.”

Kaiden blinked, stunned. “Needed—?”

“Yes.”

The old king stepped forward. The stone groaned under his weight.

“We felt you die. And felt you claw your way back. Not with strength. Not with skill. But with refusal.”

The crypt seemed to pulse with that word.

Refusal.

Kaiden’s jaw tightened.

“I didn’t claw back,” he murmured. “I fell.”

Artos tilted his head.

“And still you rose.”

Kaiden’s breath caught.

The crypt seemed smaller suddenly, the walls closer, the air colder. He rubbed his arms, trying to ground himself.

“I’m not ready for any of this,” he whispered. “I don’t even understand how I’m still alive.”

Artos gave a sound that might have been a humorless exhale.

“Few understand their own survival. Fewer still deserve it.”

Kaiden looked away, fingers curling around his side where pain still radiated.

“I don’t deserve this,” he muttered.

The shadows stirred.

Artos lowered his hollow gaze.

“Then earn it.”

A shiver ran through Kaiden.

The dead king took one more step toward him—close enough that Kaiden felt the cold radiating from him like a second skin.

“Your father fell with honor.”

“Your mother died with courage.”

“Your sister’s voice calls still.”

Kaiden’s head snapped up.

“What?” he breathed. “My… sister? Lysa? She—she was in the palace. She—”

“Her flame did not go out.”

Kaiden’s heart lurched.

He grabbed Artos’s arm—his fingers meeting skin as cold as iron under snow.

“Where is she? Is she alive? Tell me!”

Shadows rippled around Artos’s shoulders.

“The living are beyond my sight.”

“But her soul has not passed these halls.”

“The world has not claimed her.”

Kaiden staggered, hand dropping.

Alive.

His little sister was alive.

A spark of something fierce and desperate ignited in his chest. He didn’t fully believe it—not yet—but the possibility alone slammed into him like a fist.

He gripped the stone wall to steady himself.

“Then I have to go,” he said, voice trembling. “I have to find her.”

Artos’s head lifted faintly.

“You will.”

Kaiden nodded, breath shaking.

Then Artos continued:

“But not alone.”

The crypt stirred.

All around them, faint white glows flickered—more bodies rising beneath their shrouds, shifting, sitting up, turning their heads toward him.

Kaiden stumbled back.

“No. No—stop!”

Their pale faces glowed faintly.

Eyes emptied of life fixed on him.

Each voice layered into the air in overlapping whispers:

“…prince…”

“…call us…”

“…command us…”

“…we hear…”

Kaiden’s pulse thudded wildly.

“I didn’t mean—I wasn’t calling all of you!”

Artos regarded him with something like cold amusement.

“You are Voidmarked. You do not choose who hears.”

“I—I can’t lead an army of the dead,” Kaiden said, voice breaking. “I’m not… I’m not that.”

Artos stepped closer.

“You must become that.”

The whispers swelled.

Kaiden’s legs weakened. He pressed a hand to his forehead, breath harsh. The crypt, the bodies, the glow—everything felt too close, too heavy.

“I’m just a boy,” he whispered. “I’m no king. I’m no leader. I couldn’t even save—”

He tasted smoke and ash.

His father’s dying face flickered in his mind.

His mother’s scream.

His sister’s hand slipping from his as the world shook.

Artos reached out with a hand like carved frost and touched Kaiden’s chest, right over the place where the curse pulsed faintly beneath his ribs.

“This is not the heart of a boy.”

Kaiden squeezed his eyes shut.

“You don’t know me.”

“I know what you are.”

“What if I don’t want this?”

“Then the throne falls.”

“My parents… my sister… everything—”

“Falls.”

The word was final, inexorable.

Kaiden’s breathing quickened.

Artos lowered his hand.

“Stand, Kaiden Ashfall.”

“Heir of my blood.”

“Bargain-born.”

“Voidmarked.”

Kaiden’s spine straightened despite himself.

“The kingdom died tonight.”

“But death does not end our line.”

“We end death.”

The shadows swelled, cold and certain.

Kaiden lifted his chin.

“What do I have to do?” he asked, voice steadying despite the shaking in his hands.

Artos did not smile. The dead rarely did.

But something like approval flickered in the darkness behind his eyes.

“Step into the world again.”

Kaiden blinked.

“That’s it?”

“For now.”

The dead king lifted his arm and pointed toward a far wall—one that looked solid stone.

“Behind that lies a passage to the river caves. From there, you can escape the capital unnoticed.”

Kaiden stared.

A way out.

A way to find his sister.

A way to survive.

A way to carve back everything Varos had stolen.

He nodded slowly.

“And them?” he asked, gesturing at the dozens of risen ancestors watching him in absolute silence.

Artos’s voice dropped, low as a shifting grave.

“Call when you need us.”

“The dead do not march lightly.”

“But they will march.”

Kaiden swallowed, the weight of that truth settling into his bones like fresh frost.

“I will,” he said.

Artos inclined his head.

Kaiden turned toward the blank stone wall, heart pounding.

Before he took the first step, he hesitated and looked back.

His ancestors—dozens of them, maybe more—watched him with hollow eyes and motionless patience.

The crypt felt less like a tomb now.

More like a throne room carved from death.

He tightened his jaw.

And walked toward the wall.

Shadows peeled away from the stone, revealing a narrow, ancient passage behind it—black as night and leading downward.

Kaiden stepped inside.

The darkness closed behind him like a curtain.

As he descended, he whispered a single vow to the stone beneath his feet:

“I’m coming for you, Lysa.”

The shadows answered, whispering his name as he walked into the unknown.