The air trembled with raw, pulsing power.
Kael stood in the center of the chamber, black tendrils of magic coiling around his limbs like living smoke. His shackles—still attached—were cracked and sparking, barely holding his power back.
Across the room, Selene remained calm, her hunters wary but unmoving.
She'd known.
She had wanted this.
Kael's eyes narrowed.
"You brought me here hoping I'd lose control."
Selene didn't deny it. She stepped closer, the flickering torchlight casting sharp shadows across her silver mask.
"No, Kael," she said softly. "I brought you here so you'd finally understand what you are."
Kael's hand twitched.
"A cursed pawn?"
"A king."
Silence fell. Even the whispers in the dark seemed to hush.
Kael's voice was cold. "I'm not sitting on that throne."
Selene stepped aside, revealing it fully: the Throne of Blackened Bones, now pulsing faintly—responding to his presence.
"You already are," she said. "Every time you give in to the curse. Every time it saves your life. That throne… it's inside you now."
Kael felt it. A low hum in his bones. A promise.
Power. Dominion. Blood.
But he wasn't ready to give in.
He raised his bound hands. "You still haven't answered me. Why help me? Why not kill me like the others?"
Selene hesitated. Her voice, when it came, was quieter.
"Because I was supposed to take the throne."
Kael blinked.
"What?"
Selene reached up, removing her mask. Beneath it, her face was pale, angular, and marked with a jagged black scar that ran from her left eye to her collarbone—pulsing faintly with the same curse-sigil Kael bore.
Kael staggered back.
"You're… marked."
"I was the heir to the Vaelthorne line. My blood was bound to the Hollow Throne centuries ago. I trained my whole life to carry it. To control it."
Her eyes were heavy with something like regret.
"But when the curse awoke again… it didn't choose me."
Kael swallowed.
"It chose me."
Selene nodded.
"I hated you for that." Her voice was raw now. "But the throne doesn't make mistakes. It always chooses the one with the strength to reshape the world… or destroy it."
Kael turned away from her, toward the throne.
The bones seemed to whisper his name now, over and over—Kael… Kael…
He gritted his teeth.
"I didn't ask for this."
"None of us did."
A long silence passed.
Then Kael said, "If I sit on that throne, I lose myself. I know it."
Selene's voice was cold again.
"Not if you master it first."
Kael stared at the throne. His cursed eye burned, and his hand twitched again with the pull of its call.
And in the back of his mind, something answered.
"Then sit, and claim what is yours."
---
Kael stands on the edge of destiny. Should he accept the throne's power and risk corruption—or find another path to break the curse?