50. Rylan
50
RYLAN
T he cave trembles as I stand.
My pulse is rage, raw and untamed. The darkness is making me lose my senses.
Only rage.
The shadows flicker as I lunge—a predator locked onto its kill.
Nhilian turns, his lips curling into something between a sneer and a snarl. He knows he’s lost.
Still, the bastard raises his blade, stance sharp, desperate.
"You don’t—" he begins, but he never finishes.
I’m already on him.
My dagger sinks into his gut.
The sickening, wet crunch of steel through flesh echoes in the cavern.
I twist.
He chokes, gurgles, body seizing.
But I’m not done.
I rip the dagger free and slam him back against the ancient altar.
His blood splatters across the stone.
A fitting place for him to die—at the feet of something greater, something far beyond him.
Nhilian wheezes, his hands clawing at my arms.
"Rylan," he rasps.
His breath stinks of rot and old lies.
"Wait—"
I don’t wait.
I drive my blade into his throat, cutting the words from his tongue before he can spew more filth.
His body shudders, twitches.
Then stills.
His lifeless eyes stare at the ceiling—empty.
Finally.
It’s over. So quick. So simple. Empty.
The silence that follows is thick and unnatural.
The cave groans, as if it has witnessed something it was always meant to see.
The blood on the stone seeps into the cracks, sinking deep, as if the cavern itself is drinking it.
A shift.
A pull.
Something opens.
The altar shudders and splits apart.
Dust erupts into the air as a hidden chamber is revealed behind it—a narrow archway leading into a place that should not exist.
A place built by my father.
My breath catches.
Something calls to me.
Not in words.
In need.
I step forward, my boots echoing against the stone.
Beyond the archway, a room waits.
Not like the cave.
This place is preserved.
Untouched by ruin, by decay.
The walls are carved with symbols I don’t recognize—etched in silver, pulsating faintly.
And at the very center, atop a raised pedestal of obsidian and bone?—
A book.
It is massive.
Bound in something dark and ancient.
Not leather.
Something worse.
The edges of its pages gleam with silver runes, shifting, changing, breathing.
I know what it is.
I know what my father was searching for.
A way to break death.
A way to undo the final price.
An unfinished ritual.
I reach out, my fingers hovering over the worn cover.
The air around it is thick, charged, waiting.
A single drop of blood from my fingertips falls onto the surface.
The book shudders.
The runes flare brighter.
And the whispers begin.
They slither through my mind—a thousand voices, a thousand promises.
A spell meant to cheat death.
This is what Lartina meant.
A spell meant to bring back the lost.
Seraphina.
I swallow hard, my pulse hammering against my ribs.
I still feel her blood on my hands.
Her warmth fading.
Her breath gone.
But if this book is what I think it is?—
If it holds the power my father died searching for?—
Then maybe, I can bring her back.