Darkness cracked.
It wasn't sound. It wasn't light. It was something else—a pressure at the base of the skull, a weight behind the eyes. Keiran felt it before he saw it. Like glass fracturing behind his thoughts.
He sat hunched in the far corner of the cell, arms clutched tight to his sides. His breath came in shallow gasps, throat raw. Selara knelt beside him, murmuring his name—but her voice was distant now, waterlogged and buried beneath the tide.
The mark on his arm had erupted in a storm of crimson light.
It wasn't just glowing—it bled, the sigil splitting open like a wound, dripping threads of glistening black ichor onto the stone floor. Each drop hissed against the stone, as though alive.
Selara reached for him.
"Keiran. Stay with me."
He raised his head—and his eyes weren't the same.
They gleamed like shattered mirrors, reflecting things that weren't in the cell: a throne of rusted gold, oceans boiling beneath a blood moon, a crown buried in bone.
His voice came low. Hollow.
"They remember me."
Selara froze. "Who?"
"The drowned. The forsaken. The ones who served before the first flame was lit." His gaze met hers, and for a heartbeat, his voice was his again. "I think I was one of them."
Then the stone walls trembled.
Not from footsteps. Not from any physical quake. But from something beneath them unfurling—ancient and impossible.
Chains clattered in the distance. Screams echoed down the corridor.
The prisoners stirred again—this time with a collective terror. Some whispered prayers. Others simply wept. The man across from them, the one who'd returned broken, now gibbered quietly and rocked back and forth.
And from beneath the floor, through cracks long buried and forgotten, water began to seep upward.
Selara stepped back. "Keiran—what's happening?"
He stood, unsteady at first. His body shook like a wire pulled taut. But with each second, a new presence stirred within him. A terrible stillness. Command.
The whispers now sang.
Oath of the Shattered Crown.
Oath of the Everdrowned.
And with the first breath he took—truly took—as something more, the air folded around him.
Far above, in the chapel chamber, Armon froze mid-step.
He felt it. A ripple through the threads he'd woven. A fracture in the bindings he'd sealed beneath the throne. The chains—they were loosening.
He turned toward the iron brazier, watching as the smoke twisted unnaturally, spiraling downward into a perfect point.
"…No," he whispered.
A robed servant approached, trembling. "S-sire… the cells. They've begun to flood. There is—there is chanting. And one of the prisoners—he is glowing."
Armon's expression curdled.
"Seal the gates. Kill anyone near the deep cells. Now."
"But, sir—"
"I said now."
The cell bars exploded.
No fire. No force. Just pressure. The kind of weight that crushes the deepest ocean trenches, that pulverizes cities under the weight of forgotten grief.
Keiran stepped through the ruined threshold, barefoot, marked by ash and blood. Water pooled at his feet, but where it touched him, it swirled—obeyed.
Prisoners stared. Some backed away. Some fell to their knees, weeping.
Selara followed, sword in hand—taken from a fallen guard. "Keiran…?"
He turned. His voice was no longer hollow. It rang with something ancient and regal.
"We're leaving. Now."
Chains snapped in the distance.
A dozen guards rushed into the corridor, shouting, weapons drawn. But as they neared, the water at Keiran's feet surged—no longer clear, but black, thick, riddled with rot. It surged up the walls like living tendrils.
And when he raised his hand, the water obeyed.
It struck like a fist from the abyss, folding bodies into the stone. Metal screamed. Bones shattered. Screams cut short. Then silence.
Only the water remained—still, like the surface of a forgotten well.
Keiran staggered, panting. The glow in his eyes dimmed slightly, flickering like a candle threatened by wind.
Selara grabbed his arm, steadying him. "You're burning up."
"I can feel them," he rasped. "Too many voices. Too many memories."
"You're not alone," she said, and for a moment, the ocean quieted.
Above, Vael slipped through a rusted grate, heart pounding. Smoke from Armon's brazier still clung to the rafters. But the guards were distracted now—rushing toward the sublevels, shouting about floods and madness.
He moved fast, blade tucked against his wrist, map etched behind his eyes.
And as he descended into the depths, the whisper that met him was not Keiran's voice—but something deeper. Ancient.
One has returned. The bloodline bleeds again. The throne calls.
Keiran stood at the edge of the prisoner block.
Dozens stood behind him now—some freed, some too stunned to speak. The water had reached their ankles, but it no longer surged. It waited.
Selara whispered, "What now?"
Keiran looked ahead, down the long corridor where chains swayed and shadows curled.
"We go deeper," he said. "There's something they've buried. Something they're afraid I'll find."
The mark on his arm flared again, twin sigils now—crowned and drowned.
Mark of a Shattered Crown
Mark of a Everdrowned Crown
And somewhere in the dark, a throne of chains cracked open.