Chapter 51: The Unbound
The chamber had not gone still.
Even with the mirror fractured, even with the creature impaled and writhing beneath Vaerin’s blade, the chant continued. Faint. Distant. The voices, now reducing. Each voice dying like a candle snuffed in a storm.
But the light that remained did not fade.
It twisted.
Marien pressed her back to the broken wall, breath heaving. Blood dripped from a gash along her ribs. "It’s not dying!."
Leon stepped between her and the creature as its limbs cracked again, reforming from smoke. His blade trembled in his grip—not from fear, but from the resonance still threading through the floor.
Ashveil pulsed with every heartbeat.
Vaerin staggered back. The First Lord’s armour peeled like old bark. His form faltered, flickering with each breath. He did not fall, but neither did he rise again.
"You must destroy it," Vaerin rasped. "Before it forms again."
Leon looked to the shattered mirror—and the fracture lines now spidering across the chamber walls. The reflection was gone. But the memories it stole had not dispersed. They hung in the air like ash, whispering truths Leon had buried.
He saw his father’s face. His own hands, bloodied. The night he swore he would not repeat the legacy he’d inherited.