Chapter 55
Chapter
Fifty-Five
Beneath the Asgar Training Academy, far below the carved towers and polished council halls, the air grew heavy with damp stone and secrets.
Kaen moved through the winding tunnel beneath the eastern cliff, an ancient passage not recorded on any map, once used by the early founders of Asgar during the wars of unification. Now it served a darker purpose.
The walls whispered as he passed, old enchantments stirring in recognition of the blood he carried, the blood of kings.
Yet another power coiled within him now, older and hungrier.
He stopped at the threshold of a hidden chamber, its entrance veiled by cascading roots and a glimmering ward of illusion.
He raised a gloved hand, letting his magic pulse through his palm, and the veil shimmered away.
Inside, the air thickened, touched by soot and spell-oil. Three figures waited within. The tallest stepped forward, wearing a cloak to obscure his face, but Kaen recognized the smooth movements, practiced and patient, the Archmage of the Severed Path, Vaelgor.
“You’re late,” the mage said, voice rasping like wind over bone.
Kaen didn’t flinch. “The Queen delayed the council. She saw something in her visions. I had to be careful.”
Vaelgor tilted his head. “Then she suspects.”
“She senses,” Kaen corrected. “But there’s a difference. And my father still refuses to see anything but the boy he raised.”
“Then the King is more blind than we feared.”
Kaen stepped into the chamber, unfastening the outer clasp of his cloak. Shadows flickered along the seams of the stone floor, runes half-buried under years of forgotten use. In the center of the room stood a vast basin filled with pitch-black water that swirled of its own accord.
“She’ll be weakened after the extraction,” Kaen said, eyeing the scrying pool. “The link with her dragon was nearly severed. We were close.”
“But not close enough,” Vaelgor said coldly. “You failed.”
“She wasn’t meant to be taken then,” Kaen snapped, heat rising to his tone. “That was your move. A gamble to test the skies. And now they’re all watching.”
Another of the robed figures stepped forward, a woman with ink-stained fingers and a half-burned sigil across her neck. “We have waited too long, Prince. The blood moon draws near. The Rift begins to tremble. If she awakens fully, ”
“She won’t,” Kaen said. “Not if we strike now.”
He moved toward the basin, extending a hand over its surface. The black water shimmered, pulling upward into the shape of a long, narrow island surrounded by jagged peaks, a place cloaked by shadow, unreachable by ordinary dragonflight.
“She felt the storm,” he murmured. “But she hasn’t seen the eye yet.”
Vaelgor joined him. “You would bring her to the Hollow?”
Kaen nodded once. “Yes. The Aether girl cannot remain under the academy's protection. They’ve begun to unify behind her, cadets, commanders, even Thorne.” At the mention of the name, Kaen’s mouth thinned.
The old jealousy stirred like embers, though it was no longer personal.
Thorne had become more than a rival. He had become a threat.
“I’ll see her broken before the next moonrise,” Kaen said. “And him with her.”
“And the dragons?”
“We separate them,” Kaen said. “We use the wards you taught me. Cloak the tether. Let her feel abandoned again. That’s when the doubt will begin. When the chaos begins.”
The other robed figure, silent until now, finally spoke. “And if it doesn’t work? If she resists?”
Kaen turned, the candlelight catching the edge of something in his eyes that had not been there once, something old and dangerous.
“Then we burn it all. And from the ashes, we rebuild.”
He turned back to the basin and sliced his palm with a dagger carved from Riftstone. His blood dripped into the pool, and the image darkened. The stone walls began to quake.
“It’s time,” Kaen said. “Ready the Hollow. Ready the gate. Tell the others. We move by nightfall.”
The chamber pulsed once, deep and low. Far above, unaware of what had been set in motion, the Academy readied for another patrol. Cadets laughed. Dragons stirred. And the shadows beneath them waited.
Far beyond the Vale of Sigryn, beneath the charred remains of a forgotten fortress, Kaen stood within a war chamber cloaked in shadow.
The walls pulsed faintly with red sigils, as if blood-sealed.
Around him gathered cloaked figures, their features obscured, their voices lowered to whispers even in secrecy.
"She has returned," one of the hooded figures hissed. "The Aether stirs."
Kaen’s jaw tightened. "Then we strike before the power anchors fully. We allowed her to return; it was necessary to plant doubt. But now we shift to certainty."
A second voice rasped, "The Queen’s protections grow stronger. Her sight reaches beyond even what she reveals to the King."
Kaen turned, hands resting on the edge of a blackened table carved with shifting runes. "Then we take the Queen. Quietly. Swiftly."
A murmur spread among the circle.
"She is too well-guarded."
Kaen smiled coldly. "Not for long. I have a man within her service. He’ll see to her isolation. We do not need a battlefield; we need a whisper in the right corridor, a false scroll, a redirected patrol. She’ll be vulnerable within her own tower."
The tallest cloaked figure stepped forward. "And when she is in our hands?"
"We strip her mind," Kaen said softly. "She holds the last pieces of the prophecy that were never written, never spoken aloud. She’s seen what comes next. I want it. And then, she’ll be the message.
A fallen Queen is more powerful than a vanished one.
" A moment passed in silence before Kaen spoke again.
"Move the plan forward. The dark forces gather at the mountain passes. The moment Thaelyn takes to the sky alone again, we strike with full force."
He looked toward the brazier at the center of the room, where violet flame danced without smoke.
"Let the King believe the war is still months away. Let Thorne guard his little Aether flame. By the time they realize what we’ve done, the Veil will already be breaking."
The cloaked figures bowed low and dispersed into shadow. Kaen stood alone, the fire’s eerie light gleaming in his eyes. And though no one saw it, a tremor passed through his hand. Not of fear. But of hunger.