Chapter 28 #3
Rian exhales, his voice tinged with awe. “I’ve never seen markings like this before.”
Jarek rakes a hand through his dust-covered hair. “Neither have I.”
Garrick’s gaze sweeps the chamber, his voice low, certain. “Makes sense. No one was ever meant to find them.”
The air shifts. My thoughts snag on one name: Calryx. My heart stutters. I reach out for her, instinctively searching for the steady, familiar presence that has been with me since our bond first awakened.
Nothing.
A cold wave of unease ripples through me. I try again, stretching my awareness outward, reaching through the bond. Silence. The emptiness feels wrong.
I turn sharply to the other riders. “Can you feel them?”
Their expressions darken immediately as they each attempt the same.
Thane exhales, his jaw tightening. “No.”
Jarek shakes his head, his usual smirk absent. “It’s like they’re . . . gone.”
Rian frowns, rolling his shoulders, as if trying to shake off the discomfort. “Not gone. Just—too far.”
We exchange uneasy glances. We knew we were deep underground. But this? We are so far down that we cannot feel our dragons. The thought leaves something hollow inside me.
We stand in the heart of something forgotten. Time thick around us. No one speaks. We take it all in, standing beneath the stars, deep underground.
Then the bond pulses again. Stronger.
It curls deep in my chest—an energy pulling, remembering. I look up. Thane’s arm is still around me. His shoulders tight. Eyes fixed on the wall, jaw locked. Tension in every line.
This place appears to be affecting him. Slowly, I slide my arm around his, a quiet reassurance. A silent I see you. I’m here.
He doesn’t speak. Doesn’t look at me. After a long moment, his breath escapes, slow, measured. Then his body shifts. Just enough. The tension in his muscles eases as he draws me closer.
Thane glances down at me, his grip still firm around my waist. “You steady?”
I take a slow breath, testing my legs. My body is still heavy with exhaustion, but the worst of the weakness has passed. “Yeah. I’m okay.”
His arm slips away, the warmth of his support lingering as his fingers lace with mine. Not holding me up anymore—just holding me.
We move together, stepping carefully through the cavern, our hands still joined as we trace the markings, absorbing the weight of this place.
The chamber hums with a quiet, unseen energy.
The walls glow—soft, steady. A heartbeat beneath stone.
The markings—Shadow Clan script, jagged and deliberate—line the smooth surface, whispering of a past long buried.
The bond pulls. Not painful. Quiet. Insistent. Like it’s done waiting for us.
I turn toward Thane, already knowing he feels it too.
He stands motionless, his breathing steady but controlled.
His eyes stay on the far wall—unmoving. Unblinking.
His posture is tense, but not from fear.
From recognition. His fingers twitch at his side, his body drawn forward, like a thread is pulling him to something unseen.
“Thane?” I murmur.
He doesn’t answer. His feet move, pulling me with him. The bond wants this.
He stops in front of one of the walls, the star-like flecks in the stone shimmering beneath his presence. He lifts his hand. Hovers it over the markings.
For a breath, the wall seems to wait. He touches it. A deep, grinding sound echoes through the chamber, the vibration rippling beneath our feet. I take a sharp breath, my fingers instinctively tightening in his hand.
The wall is moving. A portion of the stone slides aside, revealing a hidden passage. The air shifts the moment the wall groans open, spilling centuries of trapped, stale air into the cavern.
The scent that rushes out is old and heavy—dry and dusty stone, aged parchment, air thick enough to coat my tongue. Underneath it, there’s something else. Something . . . preserved. Like the faintest trace of ink, of leather.
Lyra exhales. “That’s . . . not ominous at all.” The glow from the chamber spills into the opening, illuminating a long corridor beyond—one that has not seen light in centuries.
Valen gapes. “Thane, how did you open the wall? Did you use your magics?”
His face is still, eyes wide with something between awe and dread. “I don’t know. The bond pulled me—” he looks at me, then back at the open passageway. “Pulled us here.”
Valen studies the passage. His eyes harden. “It was hidden here and sealed for a reason.”
Jarek shakes his head. “Yeah, well, guess we’re about to find out why.”
Thane doesn’t move, his gaze fixed on the newly revealed path. His voice is quiet, certain. “This was meant for us.” The bond tightens. Certain.
Like it knew all along.
I drop Thane’s hand and step forward, the ground beneath me softer than I expected, worn smooth by time, untouched by the elements, the others following closely behind. I squint into the dimness, the glow from the cavern spilling into the space beyond.
Shelves. Rows of them. Books—hundreds of them. Old, bound in cracked leather, stacked haphazardly as if whoever left them here was in a hurry. Cobwebs hang like ghosts. Dust softens every surface.
The chamber is vast but not endless, the ceiling arched high above us, carved with more Shadow Clan symbols—their meanings lost to time.
The bookshelves stretch across the space like sentinels, standing despite the weight of the years.
Some are leaning, cracked, their wood warped from time, others perfectly intact, like they refused to decay.
This silence isn’t empty. It’s waiting.
Thane moves beside me, his breathing steady but tense, controlled.
No one speaks at first. We are all taking it in.
Then, Valen lets out a slow breath. “Gods.”
Lyra wipes dust from a shelf, revealing more carved symbols beneath. “This is . . . ” she trails off, shaking her head. “This is incredible. But how . . . ”
I run my fingers over the spines of the books, their leather bindings cracked and peeling. Dust clings, dry and weighty.
Valen’s voice is hushed, reverent. “These aren’t just records. These are personal writings, from the Shadow Clan people.” He pulls a book from the shelf, carefully flipping through the pages. “Journals. Letters. Accounts from the war.”
I stare at him. “Firsthand accounts?”
Valen nods, his brow furrowing. “Not just from warriors. From scholars. Leaders.” He pauses, carefully studying one manuscript. “The people who lived through it.”
Jarek steps forward, plucking a book from the shelf. “This is written in the common tongue.” He flips it open, scanning the inked pages, then grabs another book. And another. He stops flipping. “They all are.”
I glance at Rian and Garrick—both grim, silent.
“How did these survive?” Rian murmurs, running a hand over the cracked spine of a book.
Valen shakes his head. “They weren’t supposed to.” His tone sharpens. “The Fire Clan was said to have burned everything after the war—to erase the Shadow Clan from history. To send a message.”
And that’s when his breath catches. They hear Valen, and the room goes deathly silent. Because there, on a shelf near the back, half-buried beneath dust and time, is a book unlike the others. The leather cover is still intact, reinforced with protective magics that have kept it from decaying.
But it’s not the book that stops Valen. It’s the name written across the spine.
“Sylas Veyne,” Valen whispers.
Jarek stiffens. Rian’s gaze hardens. Garrick inhales sharply.
And Thane—he doesn’t move. Doesn’t speak. But I see the way his fingers twitch, the way his breath has gone completely still.
I don’t know the name. But they do. I glance at Lyra—she looks just as lost as I feel.
“Who?” I ask.
Valen exhales, his voice quiet, but heavy. “One of the greatest Shadow Clan generals of the war.” He swallows. “And according to Fire Clan history—one of the worst war criminals who ever lived.”
The air in the library feels heavier now, charged. The name Sylas Veyne lingers in the space like a wound torn open, raw and waiting.
Lyra folds her arms, glancing between Valen and the others. “Alright,” she says, tilting her head. “I’ll bite. What did he do?”
Silence stretches for a beat too long.
Then, Valen exhales. “The Fire Clan called him the Shadow Butcher.”
I shift, glancing at the journal still in his hands. The words land strangely—like a title too sharp, too deliberate.
Jarek scoffs, shaking his head as he pulls another book from the shelf. “That name was earned.”
Rian leans against the nearest shelf, arms crossed. “We were taught that he was the worst war criminal of the Shadow Wars.”
“Taught by who?” Lyra asks, arching a brow.
Valen doesn’t answer immediately. He just flips open the journal, scanning the first few pages. “By the Fire Clan.”
Jarek gestures toward the shelves. “This is what we were taught growing up in the capital. Every history book, every school. His name was a curse.”
Garrick nods, placing a steady hand against the small of Lyra’s back. He continues to keep a watchful eye on her, even though she is standing and speaking to us. “There was no mercy in him. If he had won, the entire realm would have been drowned in shadow.”
Rian exhales. “His own people called him the Dark Hand. He believed in one thing—power. And he didn’t care how much blood it cost to get it.”
I glance at Thane. He hasn’t spoken, hasn’t moved. Then quietly, without looking up, he speaks. “We learned this in Fire Clan school.”
His voice is calm, even—but I hear the weight behind it. He doesn’t have to explain. I understand. This isn’t just a history lesson for him. This was his history. A history taught to every child in major cities around the realm.
But Lyra and I?
We grew up in a farming village in the Earth Clan region. We were taught many things, but not the detailed history of the Shadow Wars. Our schools prioritized farming, weather, lesser magics. Reading. Math. History of the realm—broad, never deep. The focus was on Earth Clan culture and tradition.