The door opened completely.
A man stood beyond it, dressed in a black royal coat embroidered with silver. His blond hair was tied behind his neck, and a narrow sword rested at his side.
Two knights stood behind him.
He looked at me as if he had been expecting someone else.
Then he smiled.
"Welcome to Blackmere, Veyr."
I knew his face.
Not from the memories I had left.
From the one the road had taken from me.
He had stood beside my father in the snow, watching the royal soldiers drag him away.
The man raised one hand.
"Your brother has been waiting for you."
A figure stepped out from behind him.
He was around my age, perhaps a little younger. His silver hair fell over his forehead, and a white coat covered his body from the neck to the knees. A golden mark shaped like a rising sun burned above his heart.
His eyes were the same color as mine.
The sight of him made something twist inside my chest.
I did not remember his name.
My body did.
"Arden," Lyra whispered.
The blond man glanced at her.
"Lady Lyra. You were supposed to be dead."
Lyra raised her bow.
"So were you, Varis."
The man’s smile disappeared.
"Still angry."
"Still alive."
She drew the string.
Varis moved faster.
His sword left its sheath and struck the arrow before she could release it. The broken shaft fell between us.
Kaelen stepped in front of Lyra.
His sword was already in his hand.
"Everyone back."
Arden looked at him.
"You’re Kaelen."
Kaelen’s expression tightened.
"You know me?"
"Everyone knows the knight who refused to kneel at the southern gate."
"I’ve been called worse."
Arden’s eyes shifted to me.
"And you’re Veyr."
"I’ve been called worse too."
The answer came out dry.
Seris glanced at me.
I ignored her.
Varis moved aside, giving Arden a clear path into the hall.
"He knows what you are," Varis said.
Arden’s gaze stayed on me.
"Do you?"
I felt the black mark under my collar burn.
The ring pulsed.
A pale screen appeared before my eyes.
> Target detected: Arden Draven.
>
> Bloodline: Draven.
>
> Fate connection: Hero.
>
> Threat level: Rising Sun.
The system recognized him as the hero.
The person who had been meant to kill Veyr.
The person who was supposed to take the power hidden inside this body.
Arden drew his sword.
It was not large or decorated. Its blade was white, almost transparent, and light gathered along its edge.
Kaelen took one step forward.
Arden did not look away from me.
"I want to speak with my brother."
"You can speak from there," Lyra said.
Varis lifted his hand.
The two royal knights moved.
Kaelen met the first one.
Their swords collided, filling the hall with a sharp metallic sound. Kaelen’s injured side moved slower than before, but he still drove the knight backward.
Lyra fired at the second.
The knight raised his shield.
The arrow struck the metal and split.
Seris raised her hands.
The blood from her wrists gathered into thin red threads, but she swayed before they could form.
I caught her shoulder.
"Stay back."
"I can fight."
"You can barely stand."
She looked at me.
"You’ve said that to everyone today."
"It keeps being true."
Arden moved.
He crossed the hall in a flash of white light.
I drew my sword.
His blade struck mine.
The impact drove me backward across the stone floor.
My arm went numb.
Arden followed without hesitation.
He was faster than the armored creature from the fortress and more precise than the masked church woman. Every movement had a clear purpose. He did not swing wildly. He cut toward my throat, my wrist, and the gaps in my coat.
I blocked the first strike.
The second cut my sleeve.
The third grazed my shoulder.
Blood ran down my arm.
Arden paused for half a breath.
"You’re weaker than I expected."
I stepped away from his next strike.
"I’ve had a long night."
He attacked again.
His blade carried white fire.
I twisted aside, but the light brushed my ribs and burned through the coat.
The black mark beneath my skin responded.
Abyssal Sense opened.
The hall changed.
Blue lines appeared beneath Arden’s feet, running through his sword and toward the golden mark over his heart.
His power came from the same source as the door beneath Draeven March.
Not the same kind of power.
The same blood.
I tried to strike the mark.
Arden saw it.
He blocked me and drove his knee into my stomach.
I bent forward.
His elbow struck the back of my neck.
I fell to one knee.
The edge of his sword rested against my throat.
"Stop resisting."
I looked at the blade.
"Do you always introduce yourself by trying to kill people?"
Arden’s eyes hardened.
"You killed the original hero."
The sword pressed closer.
"What?"
His expression changed.
"You don’t remember."
"No."
"Of course you don’t."
He pulled the blade back and struck downward.
I rolled aside.
The stone floor cracked where the sword landed.
I kicked his knee.
Arden stumbled.
I swung at his shoulder.
He blocked, but the force pushed him back several steps.
Kaelen shouted behind me.
The royal knight had forced him against a pillar.
Kaelen’s white sword was trapped beneath the knight’s shield.
The knight lifted his other blade.
I could not reach them.
Seris could.
She raised her hand.
The red threads around her fingers shot across the hall and wrapped around the knight’s wrist.
The knight froze.
Kaelen pulled his sword free and drove it through the gap beneath the man’s armor.
The knight dropped.
The second royal soldier charged Lyra.
She fired at his eye.
He turned his head.
The arrow struck the side of his helmet.
Lyra drew another.
The knight reached her before she could release it.
I saw Kaelen move toward her.
Arden blocked him.
The hero’s blade struck Kaelen across the chest.
Kaelen stumbled backward.
His injured ribs gave way.
He fell against the wall.
"Kaelen!"
Arden turned his sword toward him.
I attacked.
My blade struck Arden’s back.
The black metal fragment fused into my ring flared red.
The blow pushed him away from Kaelen.
He turned slowly.
The calm expression was gone.
I stood between him and Kaelen.
"Don’t touch him."
Arden looked at the blood on my sword.
"You protected him."
"I protected someone who wasn’t trying to kill me."
"That makes you different from the Veyr I knew."
"I keep hearing that."
Arden attacked again.
This time, I was ready.
Abyssal Sense showed me the path of his sword before it moved. I blocked the first strike, shifted away from the second, and cut through the edge of his coat.
He stepped back.
I pressed forward.
My sword struck his shoulder.
White light exploded from his body and knocked me away.
I hit the wall.
The ring burned.
A message appeared.
> Fate connection active.
>
> Hero’s power reacting to hostile claim.
>
> Predator’s Claim available.
>
> Target resistance: Extreme.
I stared at the message.
Predator’s Claim could take his power.
The power I had been destined to lose.
The power that had made him the hero.
All I needed to do was reach him.
Arden raised his sword.
His golden mark was brighter now.
The floor beneath him filled with white lines.
Varis stepped backward.
"Arden, don’t use the Crown here."
Arden ignored him.
The hall began to shake.
A white blade of energy formed above his head.
Lyra’s face tightened.
"He’s going to bring the whole chamber down."
Kaelen tried to stand.
He failed.
Seris moved toward him, but Varis crossed the room and blocked her path.
His broken spear was gone. He held a short silver dagger instead.
"You’re coming with me," he said.
Seris looked at him.
"No."
He struck.
Seris raised a blood shield.
The dagger pierced it and cut her palm.
She hissed and stepped back.
Varis moved to strike again.
Lyra fired.
He turned, and the arrow cut across his cheek.
Blood appeared beneath his maskless face.
Lyra lowered the bow.
"That was for my mother."
Varis touched the wound.
His eyes became cold.
"That woman was dead before I arrived."
"Then you won’t mind joining her."
She reached for another arrow.
Varis rushed toward her.
I could not stop him.
Arden’s white blade was still forming above us.
The hall shook harder.
I looked at the blue lines under his feet.
The power was not only flowing through his body.
It was feeding the chamber.
The old royal road was reacting to him.
He was not just the hero.
He was a key.
I ran toward the center of the hall.
Arden saw me.
"Stay back."
I kept moving.
He brought his sword down.
The white energy above him followed.
I raised my hand.
The ring opened.
Predator’s Claim reached toward the golden mark on his chest.
The energy struck me.
Pain filled every bone in my body.
My arm burned black from the fingertips to the elbow.
The system flashed in front of me.
> Claim rejected.
>
> Target possesses superior bloodline authority.
>
> Forced absorption will result in death.
The attack threw me across the hall.
I struck the ground and rolled.
Arden lowered his sword.
"Why did you do that?"
I tried to stand.
My arm did not move.
"Curiosity."
"You’re lying."
"I do that sometimes."
He raised the blade again.
The white energy above him grew larger.
The ceiling cracked.
A piece of stone fell between us.
The hall began collapsing.
Varis grabbed Seris from behind.
She struggled, but he twisted her arm against her back.
"Your brother is losing," he said to Lyra.
Lyra aimed at him.
"Release her."
"Drop the bow."
Lyra hesitated.
Varis pressed the dagger against Seris’s throat.
I looked at her.
She stared back.
Do not surrender, her eyes said.
I did not know if she meant the bow or the situation.
Arden stood in front of me, his sword glowing.
"You said you were my brother."
"I am."
"Then why did you attack me?"
"Because you’re standing with the people who destroyed our family."
"I didn’t destroy anything."
"You stood beside Father when they took him."
Arden’s expression changed.
"I was eight."
The words came out quietly.
The chamber shook again.
A memory surfaced.
Not the one the road had taken.
A different one.
A boy with silver hair standing behind a stone pillar.
A younger Veyr pushing him down.
"Don’t look."
Their father kneeling in the snow.
A royal soldier grabbing his hair.
Veyr shouting.
No.
The memory ended.
My chest tightened.
Arden watched my face.
"You remembered something."
"I don’t know."
"You always said that when you wanted to avoid the truth."
"I’m not the person you remember."
"Then who are you?"
The question struck harder than the sword.
I looked at the black mark on my hand.
At the ring.
At the power waiting between us.
"I’m the one who survived."
Arden’s blade lowered slightly.
That was enough.
I moved.
I kicked the stone between us into his legs and rushed past him.
The white blade missed my head by inches.
I reached Varis before he could react.
My sword struck his wrist.
The dagger dropped.
Seris twisted free and drove her elbow into his face.
He stumbled.
Lyra released her arrow.
It entered his shoulder and pinned him to the wall.
Varis looked at the arrow.
Then at Lyra.
"You should have stayed hidden."
"I tried."
She reached for another arrow.
Varis pulled a small black device from his coat and crushed it.
Red light exploded across the room.
The royal soldiers outside the chamber heard it.
Footsteps thundered beyond the iron door.
More soldiers were coming.
Varis smiled through the blood on his mouth.
"You’re out of time."
The hall ceiling cracked open.
Arden’s white energy blade began falling.
"Arden!" Varis shouted. "Finish him!"
Arden looked at me.
Then at the collapsing ceiling.
His sword shook.
He had not intended to destroy the chamber.
He had lost control.
The white blade struck the floor.
The hall exploded.
I grabbed Seris.
Kaelen reached for Lyra.
The four of us ran toward the lower staircase as stone and white fire crashed behind us.
Arden remained in the center of the hall.
The last thing I saw before the dust swallowed him was his sword buried in the floor and his golden mark burning brighter than the sun.
We reached the bottom of the stairs.
The old road collapsed behind us.
A wall of stone sealed the hall.
For a few seconds, there was only darkness and breathing.
Kaelen leaned against the wall.
Seris sat on the ground, holding her injured hand.
Lyra stared at the blocked passage.
"He didn’t follow."
"He may be trapped," Kaelen said.
"He won’t stay trapped."
I looked at the black ring.
The system appeared again.
> Fate confrontation completed.
>
> Hero identified: Arden Draven.
>
> Main objective updated: Survive the Hero’s Ascension.
>
> New condition: The hero has recognized your existence.
>
> Warning: The royal family will begin the succession hunt.
I closed the screen.
Seris noticed.
"What did it say?"
"The hero knows I’m alive."
Kaelen wiped blood from his mouth.
"That was obvious."
"The crown will hunt us harder now."
Lyra looked toward the sealed passage.
"They will hunt all of us."
I turned to her.
"You can stay here."
She stared at me.
"That’s what you want?"
"I’m giving you a choice."
"You don’t get to give me one after abandoning us."
The words landed cleanly.
I had no answer.
Lyra looked away first.
"The old royal road continues beneath the city. It will lead us to the lower cathedral."
"What’s there?"
"The church’s main vault."
Seris stood slowly.
"The place where they found the heart."
Lyra nodded.
"If we reach it first, we may learn why Arden has the hero’s power."
Kaelen looked at me.
"And if we don’t?"
I looked back at the collapsed hall.
At the brother who had tried to kill me.
At the man who had believed I was dead.
At the power I had failed to steal.
"Then the hero reaches it first."
The tunnel ahead opened into darkness.
Far above us, bells began ringing across Blackmere.
One.
Then another.
Lyra listened.
"The crown has announced the hunt."
Kaelen picked up his sword.
"For us?"
"For Veyr."
I looked toward the dark passage.
The city had just learned that the dead villain was alive.
The hero had found his brother.
The crown wanted my head.
And beneath Blackmere, the church was hiding a power connected to both of us.
I started walking.
"Then we reach the vault before they do."
Behind us, the sealed stones cracked.
A white light appeared through the gaps.
Arden was still coming.
And this time, he was not coming to talk.