Chapter 10: Echoes of the Citadel
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Thornewell rose before them like a wound carved into the spine of the world.
What had once been a gleaming citadel of starlight and order—constructed by the founders of the Accord before memory hardened into law—was now half-swallowed by the mountain itself. Jagged stone spires jutted like broken ribs into the sky. The towers leaned as if the bones of the world had shifted beneath them.
No birds circled overhead. No wind dared pass through its gates.
The expedition stood at the base of the ruins, where twisted gates lay collapsed and devoured by ivy that did not bloom. Even sunlight seemed reluctant here.
Vivienne stepped forward first.
The instant her boot touched the threshold, a vibration rippled up her spine. The Throne’s bond shivered—as if warning her, or perhaps recognizing what lived beyond.
Lucien touched her shoulder. “You feel it too.”
She nodded. “This place remembers everything.”
Inside, Thornewell was not silent.
It whispered.
Not aloud. Not in words. But in memory.
Every corridor Vivienne entered seemed to flicker—images blooming for half a heartbeat: a council of veiled figures debating around an obsidian table; a child screaming as light was carved from her spine; a man casting his crown into fire and weeping for the future.
None of them were her. Yet all of them lived in the air around her.
Malric’s scouts fanned out quickly.
“No signs of Caius yet,” he reported. “But there’s movement deeper in. Arcane residue.”
“What kind?” Vivienne asked.
“Not elemental. Not blood. Something... contractual.”
She exhaled. “He’s begun the rite.”
At the heart of the citadel lay the Vault of the First Bind.
A spiral stair led them down, deeper than the Keep’s catacombs, past broken statues with shattered faces and murals painted in blood and ash. Symbols neither Lucien nor Malric could translate danced across the walls.
But Vivienne understood them.
Not with language. With resonance.
They were the same as those in the throne room.
Only... reversed.
Where the Throne bound, these markings unmade.
At last, they reached a stone gate sealed in seven concentric rings.
And in the center of it: Caius.
He stood with his back to them, arms outstretched.
Before him, the Fragment floated—an impossibly thin shard of black glass, humming softly, tethered in air by threads of pure will.
The moment Vivienne entered the chamber, he spoke without turning.
“Did you come to kill me, or watch me ascend?”
“I came to stop you,” she replied.
He turned slowly.
Caius had changed.
His robes were gone—replaced by simple ash-gray bindings etched with red thread. His eyes glowed faintly, as if lit from within by language itself.
“You’re too late,” he said. “The binding is nearly undone.”
Lucien drew his sword. “Then we unbind you.”
Caius didn’t flinch. “You still believe in swords?”
“I believe in her,” Lucien said.
Vivienne stepped forward.
“What happens if you succeed?” she asked.
Caius gestured to the Fragment.
“Every claim of blood will be dissolved. No more birthright. No more Thrones. Just choice. Finally, choice.”
“And what takes its place?” she asked. “A republic of ash?”
“No,” he said. “A world where anyone can shape power. Not just those who survive lineage and war.”
“Then why bind it to yourself?”
Caius faltered.
“I am a bridge,” he said softly. “Someone must open the door.”
“But you plan to close it behind you.”
The Fragment pulsed.
Vivienne stepped closer. The Throne’s bond screamed in her skull, trying to pull her away. Or push her forward.
“I know what it costs to wield power,” she said. “But you don’t understand what it means to be changed by it.”
Caius narrowed his eyes. “I refuse to be changed by power.”
“That’s why it will destroy you.”
The chamber shook.
The seventh ring split open with a hiss of memory.
Behind it, the original sigil of Dylaxis—an eye formed from linked hands—flared into light.
And the Fragment cracked.
Vivienne acted on instinct.
She lunged forward—not to destroy it, but to hold it. The moment her fingers touched its surface, her mind shattered into a thousand timelines.
She saw herself born of Seraphine. Then of no one.
She saw a kingdom built by fire. Then rebuilt by flowers.
She saw herself die in battle. Or live forever in chains.
She saw Lucien as her enemy. Then her king. Then no one.
And beneath it all, she saw a voice not spoken aloud:
If you claim this power, you must rewrite the story. Yours. Theirs. Mine.
Will you bear that weight?
Her scream brought her back.
Lucien was beside her, holding her steady.
Caius had fallen to his knees, bleeding from the nose, eyes wide with terror.
“I saw it,” he whispered. “I saw everything. I can’t... I can’t be that.”
Vivienne stood, the Fragment now fused into her palm, its lines etched into her skin like veins of obsidian.
“No one can,” she said. “That’s the point.”
They sealed the Vault.
Caius, stripped of the Fragment’s power, did not resist as Malric’s men took him. He did not speak again.
But Vivienne could still feel the Fragment pulsing inside her.
Not as domination.
As choice.
For the first time, she was not bound by the Throne’s memory.
She was shaping her own.
And when she returned to the Keep, the sigils did not flare in warning.
They bowed.
To something new.
To the Hollow Rose reborn.
In the war room, she summoned Isolde.
“You were right,” Vivienne said. “Power must be reshaped.”
Isolde bowed her head. “And you’ll lead that change?”
Vivienne smiled. “No. We will.”
From the shadows of kings, a council would rise.
Not by decree.
But by will.
And in the Hollowlands, a new world began to whisper.
Not in chains.
But in possibility.
To be continued...
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