The light from the throne lingered long after the vision had faded. Its runes pulsed faintly, as though still aware of Aric's presence—watching him, testing him, remembering him.
Selene crouched beside one of the skeletal warriors and pulled free a blade still embedded in its chest. It crumbled like sand in her hand. "This place is older than any map. Maybe older than our world."
Aric didn't answer. He stared at the throne, jaw clenched.
Kael stepped between them. "We should leave. Now. We've stirred something we weren't meant to."
"No," Aric said sharply. "I need to know more."
Kael turned. "You sat on Malrik's throne in a vision. You saw a future where you face me in battle. That isn't knowledge—it's a warning."
"I didn't sit," Aric said. "He wanted me to. But I didn't."
"Yet you still saw it," Selene said. "You saw yourself as him."
Aric looked down at his hands, flexing his fingers as if the truth might be hidden in his skin. "What if the throne didn't just show me him—what if it showed me what I become if I lose?"
Kael didn't answer. Not because he disagreed—because he didn't know.
They camped at the edge of the Hollow Scar that night. No one dared sleep underground. Aric sat with his back to a stone pillar, listening to the wind shift unnaturally. Every shadow stretched a little too far. Every branch seemed to whisper.
And in the silence, a soft voice came—not from outside, but within.
"There is no throne without you."
He tried to ignore it.
"The scar calls to its heir. You deny what you are, but you can't deny what's already awakened."
He clenched his fists.
"You came here to stop me, but you were only ever walking toward yourself."
He shouted, "Get out of my head!"
The voice vanished.
Kael and Selene rushed toward him, blades half-drawn.
"I'm fine," Aric said. "He's just… whispering. He's always whispering."
Kael gave him a long, hard look. "He's pressing harder because he's afraid. That means you're closer to something—something he can't control."
"But what if he can't control me because I'm already like him?" Aric asked, voice low. "What if this power I've been using is his? What if it always was?"
Selene stepped forward. "Then use it better than he ever did."
Aric met her eyes, surprised. "You think I still have that choice?"
"I think you make that choice every day you don't sit on that throne."
They didn't sleep.
When dawn came, it brought with it a storm—ashen winds that howled across the Hollow Scar like the cries of the dead. Lightning flashed again, and for a moment, Aric thought he saw a silhouette atop the hill.
A tall figure with a long coat. Watching.
But when he blinked, it was gone.
They left the Hollow Scar behind, but its mark followed them.
A day later, they arrived at a village near the southern edge of the Shadelands. It was empty—doors broken, livestock gone, no bodies. Just scorch marks across the walls and black veins running through the earth.
Aric knelt and touched the soil.
Still warm.
Malrik had passed through.
Inside the village hall, they found something worse than corpses: a message carved into the stone wall in perfect, even lines.
I do not kill. I cleanse. You cannot stop the flood with broken hands. Join me or drown.
Kael stepped back. "He's not hiding anymore."
Selene turned to Aric. "He's baiting you."
"He's showing me what I could become," Aric said. "And daring me to reject it."
As they stood in the hollow ruin, the wind outside shifted again.
And for the first time since this journey began, Aric didn't feel like the hunted.
He felt like the chosen.