Episode 14:Title:THE NULLSTONE DEPTHS
1060 Words
Episode 14** of *Ashes of the Blackan*, continuing the story into a dangerous mission behind enemy lines:
**Ashes of the Blackan** **Episode 14: The Nullstone Depths**
**1. Into the Fog**
A thick coastal fog blanketed the southern cliffs, hiding the broken shapes of rock and ruin. Beneath it, five shadows moved swiftly—silent, precise.
Kalen led, hood drawn low, his footsteps soundless even on gravel. Behind him, Mira gripped her charm, nerves trembling beneath her skin. Saphira clutched her ring of glyphs, the air around her charged with energy. Silas carried a small satchel of smoke crystals and blade bombs, each marked with black ink. Cassian and Sera flanked the rear, scanning for patrols.
Below them, nestled into the cliff’s edge, was the prison: a sprawling compound of grey stone laced with glowing lines of nullstone. Guards patrolled the walls, their armor crackling with dampening wards.
They didn’t have much time.
**2. The Plan in Motion**
“Thirty minutes,” Silas whispered. “Then the fog starts to clear.”
“Plenty,” Kalen replied.
They reached the drainage tunnel, just as Sera had promised. The grate was old but reinforced with magic-null iron. Cassian stepped forward with a crowbar, but Kalen stopped him.
“Too noisy.”
Instead, Mira knelt. She murmured an incantation under her breath, her fingers glowing softly.
Click.
The grate slid free.
Inside, the tunnel smelled of rot and salt. The walls pulsed faintly with nullstone’s draining hum.
Saphira winced. “Feels like it’s peeling my magic off.”
“Hold steady,” Kalen murmured.
They moved in single file, toward the heart of the enemy’s design.
**3. Unseen Wounds**
As they crawled through the narrow shaft, Mira whispered, “You still haven’t told me why the Maevryn fear you so much.”
Kalen didn’t answer right away.
“They fear what I represent,” he said at last. “That no matter how many of us they kill, the blood of the Blackan still breathes. Still fights.”
“But there’s more,” Mira said. “Isn’t there?”
Kalen’s eyes flashed in the dark.
“When I was a child,” he said slowly, “I broke their strongest curse. From the inside. I *was* the experiment. I wasn’t supposed to survive.”
He looked back at her.
“But I did. And they knew… that meant the old power wasn’t lost. Just sleeping.”
**4. The Core**
They reached the end of the tunnel, opening into a shadowed cavern. At the center stood the nullstone core — a column of dark crystal set in iron veins, humming with pure suppression magic.
Two guards circled it lazily.
Sera mouthed, *distraction?*
Cassian nodded and vanished around a pillar.
A moment later, something clattered.
Both guards moved — just in time for Saphira’s smoke charm to detonate, blinding them. Cassian returned from the side and dropped both with silent precision.
Silas knelt at the base of the core.
“I plant the charge here. Five minutes.”
“Make it three,” Kalen said, glancing toward the stone ceiling. “They’ll feel this collapse coming.”
Silas nodded and worked quickly.
**5. The Vaulted Wing**
Mira and Sera broke from the group, heading toward the holding cells. Sera remembered the layout — there were others here. Prisoners. Witches. Dissidents. Blackan sympathizers.
“We leave no one behind,” Mira said.
They reached the first cellblock. Inside, a woman lay on the floor, eyes shut, barely breathing.
Sera rushed to the bars. “Mother?”
The woman stirred.
“You came back.”
Mira smashed the ward lock. The door opened with a hiss, and Sera caught her mother as she collapsed into her arms.
Footsteps echoed from down the corridor.
“Go,” her mother whispered. “Others… in the south wing.”
“We’ll get them,” Sera said. “I swear it.”
**6. Collapse and Confrontation**
Back at the core, Silas finished the final sigil.
“Now or never.”
They ran.
The charge exploded just as they reached the tunnel — the sound was deafening. Nullstone shards flew like meteors, and the entire compound trembled.
Prison walls cracked. Lights shattered. Magic flared back to life in the air.
Then came the alarm.
Red glyphs blinked across the sky. Sirens blared. Maevryn enforcers poured from the barracks like hornets.
“Too many!” Cassian shouted.
Kalen drew his blade. “Then we hold them off.”
But then…
He saw *her.*
A woman in black robes stepped through the fire.
Tall. Pale. Elegant.
Eyes like frost.
His aunt.
“Hello, Kalen,” she said, smiling.
“Lady Veyra.”
**7. The Last Blackan**
Lady Veyra extended a hand. “Come home, nephew. All of this — it was never meant to be war. Just a proving ground. You’ve passed.”
Kalen’s knuckles went white around his sword.
“You killed my parents.”
“I forged you.”
“You enslaved children.”
“I preserved your bloodline.”
The others stared, tense.
“You're not family,” Kalen said coldly.
Veyra stepped forward, and magic boiled around her — an aura of controlled death.
“You are *mine*, boy.”
Kalen raised his blade.
“I belong to no one.”
And then he struck.
**8. Fire in the Void**
Their duel shook the tunnel — light against shadow, rage against precision.
Kalen fought like a demon unchained. Veyra wielded curse-fire and illusion, warping the walls around them.
Cassian tried to help, but a glyph knocked him unconscious. Saphira dragged him back. Silas pulled Mira and Sera’s mother to safety.
Mira screamed as the roof cracked.
“KALEN!”
With a final roar, Kalen drove his blade through Veyra’s side.
But not before she whispered something in his ear.
A word that made his eyes widen.
A truth.
Then she vanished in smoke — wounded, but not dead.
**9. Escape and Echoes**
They limped back to the cliffs, just before dawn.
The prison burned behind them.
They’d freed over thirty prisoners.
Sera’s mother lived.
But Kalen didn’t speak.
Not on the walk back.
Not as they reached the camp.
Not even when Mira grabbed his hand and whispered, “You did it.”
Because her words haunted him.
Veyra’s whisper.
*You are not the last Blackan.*
**END OF EPISODE 14**
- Writer
