The night felt endless, thick with a silence too heavy to be natural. In the safehouse's small courtyard, Jayden sat alone in a worn wheelchair, his bandages glowing faintly under the moonlight.
He couldn't sleep.
The weight of everything — the betrayal, the deaths, the people depending on him — pressed down like iron chains. His body was broken, but it was the wounds in his heart that bled the most.
Footsteps approached quietly behind him.
Wendy dropped a blanket over his shoulders without a word, sitting beside him on a crumbling stone bench.
"You know," she said after a while, "when I first met you, I thought you were just another spoiled heir. Another empty crown."
Jayden gave a tired laugh. "You weren't wrong."
She turned to look at him, her eyes sharp. "No. I was. You're not empty. You're just... carrying too many ghosts."
Jayden closed his eyes.
Sophia's laughter echoed in his mind. His father's dying words. The faces of friends he couldn't save.
"You think carrying them makes you weaker," Wendy said quietly. "It doesn't. It makes you terrifying."
Jayden opened his eyes. "Terrifying?"
Wendy nodded. "Because people who have nothing left to lose... become unstoppable."
---
Inside the safehouse, Matilda knelt at the old wooden altar, lighting a candle with trembling fingers.
She prayed not for miracles, but for time.
Time for Jayden to heal. Time for them to gather what little strength they had left.
The door creaked open behind her.
Elias, the old man who had saved Jayden, stood there with a scroll in his hands.
"It's time you knew," Elias said gravely.
Matilda frowned. "Knew what?"
"The truth about his bloodline... and the real war that's coming."
---
Later that night, Jayden sat at the heavy oak table, surrounded by Wendy, Matilda, and Elias.
The candlelight flickered against their faces.
Elias unrolled the scroll. It was old, the edges torn, the ink faded but still legible.
"You are not just the heir to fortune," Elias said. "You are the Key."
Jayden's heart slowed.
"The Key to what?" he asked.
Elias's voice dropped to a whisper.
"To the Door that should never be opened."
Wendy leaned forward. "What door?"
Elias pointed at the scroll — a strange map marked with seven blood-red seals.
"There is a power sealed away beneath the city," he said. "An ancient legacy your family has guarded for centuries. Sophia doesn't just want your money. She wants this."
Jayden stared at the map, feeling a chill crawl up his spine.
"Why me?"
"Because only your blood can unseal it," Elias said.
The room felt colder now. The walls seemed to lean closer.
Matilda squeezed Jayden's hand under the table.
"You're not alone," she whispered.
Jayden didn't answer.
He wasn't sure if he should feel comforted… or afraid.
Because deep inside him, beneath the pain and anger, something darker was stirring.
And for the first time… he didn't want to stop it.
---
Outside, a shadow watched from the ruins, eyes gleaming with a hunger that promised nothing but death.
The real war had just begun.
And the ghosts Jayden carried... would soon become the soldiers he led.
---