The hall fell silent.
All eyes turned toward the center of the room, where a massive sigil was carved into the stone floor, ancient, circular, its runes aglow with a faint, eerie shimmer under flickering torchlight. At its heart lay something buried and dull, pressed into the middle like the eye of a storm.
Draven stepped forward, his boots heavy on the marble. He knelt, brushing away dust with his gauntlet.
“There,” he murmured, pointing. “Beneath it.”
The soldiers moved in. Steel rang against stone as hammers and axes shattered the silence. Marble cracked. The ground trembled. Dust rose like ghosts disturbed from slumber, curling in the torchlight. The sigil’s lines fractured, glowing brighter for a moment before fading into dim ruin.
Taric turned to the king, and Elric’s eyes flickered with dread. “The Pearl…” Elric rasped. “It was never meant to be found…”
And then, with a deep, splitting crack, the stone split open. Something rolled free.
A dull object, round and caked in dust, came to rest at Draven’s feet. A soldier picked it up, gently wiped it clean with a cloth, and handed it to him.
As the dust cleared, the object glowed red. Slowly. Rhythmically. Like a heartbeat. The Red Pearl pulsed with a quiet, ancient heat. The moment it touched open air, the ground trembled, and a low rumble echoed through the hall like distant thunder.
Taric stared at it, and for all his years and scars he could not look away. “So small,” he murmured, “to be worth a kingdom.” Elric didn’t look away. “Yes,” he said, voice hollow. “But in the wrong hands, it can unmake the world. Twist the winds. Turn fire against its master.”
Outside, the sky obeyed. Clouds churned over the city, boiling red with unnatural fury. Winds screamed through shattered windows, snuffing torches and rattling the old stone pillars. Lightning streaked across the heavens, throwing the hall into flickering white.
Draven’s cloak snapped behind him. He turned toward Shaan and raised a hand.
Without a word, Shaan stepped forward.
Draven held out the Pearl, now glowing brighter, the storm reflecting in its surface. “Take it to Highcrown,” he said. “Ride south. Hand it to Zafar, and only Zafar.” He leaned closer. His voice dropped to a growl. “If anything stands in your way, do not bargain. End them.”
Shaan nodded. “Understood.” The Pearl rested in his hand like something alive, warm, throbbing, dangerous.
“Take thirty riders,” Draven said. “The fastest. The fiercest. Be ready to ride by nightfall.” Shaan wrapped the Pearl in black cloth and bowed. “Yes, my lord.”
He bowed and withdrew to make ready. His voice rang through the corridors as he called for his riders; men sprinted to the stables, armor clanging, horses screaming against the howling wind. The Pearl he sealed inside a lockbox of black steel etched with ancient runes, and waited on the dark.
In the hall, Karan stepped forward beside Draven. “My lord,” he asked, “what shall we do with the king… and Taric?” Draven’s face was iron. “Chain them. Kill their guards.” It was done.
Moments later, at the far end of the hall, King Elric and Taric were slumped against a great stone pillar, bound in iron chains, arms raised above them, chests heaving. Taric’s armor was torn, blood staining his side. His face was bruised, one eye swelling shut. Beside him, King Elric sat upright, unharmed but ghostly pale. Silent.
The storm raged outside. Inside, it was deathly still. Draven approached, his boots echoing across the blood-streaked marble. Torchlight flickered weakly along cracked columns. Karan followed, hammer in hand. The head of the weapon was dark with dried blood.
Draven stopped before the king. “Where,” he asked, voice flat and cold, “are the remaining fragments of the Solarian?” No answer.
Karan took a step forward. The hammer rose.
Taric spat blood on the floor. “You can kill us,” he growled, “but you’ll never find it. Not a single shard.”
Draven’s eyes narrowed. He lifted his hand.
The hammer came down. A sickening crack, and Karan shattered Elric’s thigh. The old king screamed, a jagged, raw sound that tore across the hall. He writhed, blood pooling beneath him. For the length of that scream something moved behind Draven’s eyes, an old thing, a boy beneath a cart listening to a man beg. His hand drifted, without his leave, toward the faint scar along his jaw. Then it stopped. He let none of it reach his face.
Karan leaned closer. “Still no answer?” Taric turned away, jaw clenched, eyes burning. Elric trembled, struggling to breathe.
Draven didn’t blink. “Again.”
The second blow crushed the king’s shoulder with a wet crunch. Elric screamed again, a hoarse, broken sound. Blood dripped from his mouth, staining his beard.
“Stop!” Taric shouted. “Stop, damn you!”
Draven looked at him, silent, expectant. Taric coughed blood, then spoke. “The Solarian is a key… made of three pieces. The Red Pearl. The Solarian Blade. And the Handle.”
Elric tried to stop him, lips moving soundlessly. He could barely lift his head. Draven nodded once. “Continue.”
Taric breathed hard. “The first… You have. It was hidden beneath the Great Hall.” He paused, groaning in pain. “The Blackthorn Empire guards the blade in their vault.” He hesitated. “The third… the Handle… no one knows where it is. Except those of the Zoran bloodline.”
Draven said nothing. He simply turned to Karan and gave the faintest nod. Karan raised the hammer. The final blow crushed King Elric’s skull.
Blood splattered across Taric’s face. Draven did not look away.
“Untie him,” Draven said. A nearby soldier obeyed, unlocking the chains.
Draven stared down at Taric. “Leave,” he said. “I want you alive, to tell the world what’s coming. Tell them the Valen army is coming.”
Taric collapsed to his knees, gasping. His eyes went to the ruin that had been Elric, then to the blood drying on his own hands, his son's, his king's, all of it the same colour now. He had outlived every man he was sworn to. That was the cruelty of it. Draven had left him the one thing he no longer wanted: breath.
Draven turned and walked from the great hall. Karan dragged his hammer behind him. Its scrape echoed like a funeral dirge.
In the evening. Bodies burned in towering pyres outside the city walls. The flames danced against the darkening sky, turning red embers to ash.
Draven stood before the fire, the light flickering in his eyes. Shaan approached, wind whipping his cloak. “My lord,” he said. “We are ready to ride.”
“Ride,” Draven said, “and do not stop until the Pearl is in Zafar’s hand.” Shaan gave a single nod and vanished into the night with his men.
Far away, deep in the Blackthorn Empire.
The towers of Blackthorn stabbed the heavens, their spires looming over cliffs of pine and shadow. Winds screamed past stone gargoyles. Lightning cracked across the peaks, white and violent.
General Cade stood on a high balcony, his black cloak snapping in the gale. His eyes were locked on the storm that churned in the distance, bleeding red into the clouds.
A lieutenant stepped beside him. “What is this? The sky…” Cade didn’t look away. “The Red Pearl has been removed.”
The lieutenant stiffened. “That’s not possible. It was hidden deep in the Talen Empire.”
Cade’s jaw tightened. “Not anymore.”
He turned back to the storm, voice as sharp as frost. “Next… they’ll come for us.”