A Crown of Shattered Thrones

The storm had clawed its way inland from the Sundered Sands, staining the sky the color of a fresh bruise. Alaric leaned against the archives' iron door, his lungs burning as though he'd swallowed glass. Fira's warning hissed in his mind: The dead don't weep for nothing. He'd dismissed it as northern superstition, but the blood on Lyrra's mural had dried black, leaving trails like cracks in the stone. Cracks that seemed to widen every time he blinked.

Fira stood at the far end of the vault, her dagger tracing idle patterns in the dust. She hadn't left his side since the vision, her silence a blade poised at his throat. When he finally spoke, his voice sounded foreign, frayed.

"Why are you really here? The Syndicate doesn't employ Hollowreach clansmen as nursemaids."

She turned, her ash-pale eyes glinting. "You think I serve Malvar?" A bitter laugh escaped her. "The Syndicate butchered my family for a vein of icefire. I'm here to bury them. Starting with him."

Alaric's gaze dropped to the shadowglass shard, still glowing faintly on the pedestal. "And this?"

"A means to an end." She stepped closer, her breath misting in the chill. "Malvar believes the Eldersong is a weapon. But you and I know better. It's a cage. And whatever the Syndicate dug up in that glacier is picking the lock."

Before he could reply, the door shuddered. Three Syndicate guards barged in, their mirrored masks reflecting the violet light of the glass. "The Syndic demands your progress," the lead guard barked. "Now."

Alaric's fingers brushed the hidden page in his tunic. Lyrra's final words. "Tell him I need more time. The dialect is—"

The guard seized his arm, yanking him forward. "You'll work in the Heart. The Syndic's patience is spent."

Fira tensed, her hand drifting to her dagger, but Alaric shook his head. Not yet.

The Heart of Blackspire was not a forge. It was a tomb.

Carved into the volcanic bedrock beneath the keep, the chamber pulsed with heat, its walls streaked with veins of raw shadowglass. Alaric had read of this place—Lyrra's sanctum, where she'd tempered the first shards—but the texts hadn't described the sounds. A low, rhythmic thrum, like a heartbeat magnified a thousandfold. The air tasted of metal and decay.

Malvar stood at the center of the room, his sleeves rolled to the elbow, arms coated in lumen ink up to the wrists. Before him lay the Frozen Warden's corpse, its chest pried open to reveal the knot of glowing threads. They pulsed brighter now, writhing like serpents.

"Ah, historian." Malvar didn't look up. "Tell me what you see."

Alaric swallowed. "A dead man."

"Look closer."

The threads shifted, their light coalescing into shapes—a crown, a flame, a serpent devouring its tail. The same symbols from Lyrra's page.

"The Eldersong isn't in the blood," Malvar murmured. "It's in the bones. The earth remembers. And we will make it sing again." He pressed a hand to the corpse's ribs. The threads lashed upward, slicing his palm. Blood dripped onto the shadowglass veins in the floor, and for a moment, the entire chamber shuddered.

Alaric staggered. "You're mad. This isn't power—it's a plague."

Malvar smiled, his teeth red in the hellish light. "Plagues make kings of survivors. Now translate the glyphs, or I'll feed your corpse to the song."

Rain lashed the windows of Kaelthar Manor, but Veyra barely noticed. The Silent Sisters' ash-smudged warning—Hollow—burned in her palm, the letters blistering her skin. She'd scrubbed it raw, but the mark remained, black and iridescent as corrupted shadowglass.

The door creaked open. Ser Joron entered, his armor streaked with soot. "The convoy was ambushed, as planned. No survivors."

"And the Cultists?"

"Gone. But they left… something behind." He hesitated. "A man. Or what was left of one. His armor was unlike anything I've seen. Dynast-era, maybe. And his eyes—"

"Glowed," Veyra finished flatly.

Joron's jaw tightened. "You knew."

She didn't answer. The desert spire from her dream loomed in her mind, its shadow stretching across the sands. Hollow. Not a warning. A destination.

"Prepare a retinue," she said. "We ride for the Sundered Sands at dawn."

"My lady, the Syndicate will see it as a provocation—"

"Let them." She rose, her head swimming. "Whatever they're hiding in those crates, it's worth dying for. And I intend to take it from their corpses."

As Joron left, she slumped against the desk, blood trickling from her nose. The Silvertongue's hunger gnawed at her, sharp and insistent. She'd pushed Eryk too hard, demanded too much. Now the power recoiled, carving its price into her veins.

A knock. Eryk stood in the doorway, his face gaunt, bandages gone. The scar on his throat pulsed faintly, as though something moved beneath the skin.

"You called?" he said, his voice hollow.

Veyra froze. She hadn't.

He stepped closer, his movements jerky, unnatural. "You wanted the manifests. The truth. Let me… show you."

Before she could scream, he seized her wrist. His eyes flooded with fractured light, and the room dissolved into visions—a desert canyon, a spire of twisted glass, and beneath it, a vault sealed with Lyrra's sigil. Inside, a thousand corpses stirred, their mouths open in a silent chorus.

"The song is waking," Eryk—or the thing wearing him—hissed. "And you will kneel when it roars."

The storm broke by midnight, leaving the sands glazed in moonlight. Veyra rode at the head of her retinue, her mare's hooves kicking up plumes of ash. The mark on her palm throbbed with every mile, a compass needle pulling her toward the Sundered Sands. Eryk rode beside her, silent and stiff, his eyes glazed like frosted glass. He hadn't spoken since the vision—hadn't blinked.

Ser Joron eyed him warily. "He's not right, my lady."

"No," Veyra said. "But he's useful."

They camped in the shadow of a sandstone arch, its curves worn smooth by centuries of wind. Veyra ordered no fires. The desert night was alive with sounds—scuttling claws, distant drums, the whisper of sand shifting over buried bones. She waited until the others slept before slipping into Eryk's tent.

He sat motionless, staring at the dark. "You shouldn't be here."

"You showed me a spire," she said, kneeling before him. "A vault. What's inside?"

His head tilted, joints cracking. "You already know."

She gripped his chin, forcing him to meet her gaze. The Silvertongue's power surged, bitter and metallic. "Tell me."

Eryk shuddered, black veins spidering across his face. "The first Blooded. The ones Lyrra couldn't kill. They sleep. But the song is… loud now. It whispers to them. To you."

Veyra's breath caught. "To me?"

His hand shot out, cold as grave soil, and pressed against her marked palm. The world dissolved.

She stood in the desert spire, its walls pulsing with violet shadowglass. Below her, the vault yawned open, and thousands of eyes stared back—Dynast faces, frozen in agony. At the center stood a throne of serrated glass, and on it sat a figure clad in Lyrra's armor, their features obscured by a helm of screaming wolves.

"You're late," the figure said, their voice Veyra's own.

She woke gasping, Eryk's hand still clamped on hers. His eyes were fully black now, his smile a rictus of broken teeth. "You'll join us. Or you'll burn."

She slit his throat before he could say more.

Beneath Blackspire Keep, the Heart's thrum had escalated to a scream. Alaric worked under Malvar's gaze, translating glyphs as the Syndic's blood dripped onto the shadowglass veins. The chamber trembled with each drop, the floor warming like a living thing.

Fira lingered near the entrance, her dagger loose in her grip. "This is suicide," she muttered as Malvar retreated to consult his surgeons.

"You're still here," Alaric said, not looking up.

"I need him dead, not exploded." She nodded to the Frozen Warden's corpse. The threads in its chest had multiplied, weaving into a lattice that hovered above the body. "Whatever that is, it's not magic. It's a parasite."

Alaric glanced at Lyrra's hidden page, now stained with Malvar's blood. "She warned us. 'The song cannot be controlled. It can only be survived.'"

A rumble shook the chamber. Dust rained from the ceiling as the shadowglass veins flared, their light painting the walls with jagged shadows. Malvar returned, clutching a scroll. "The final glyphs. Translate them. Now."

Alaric read aloud, the words ash on his tongue. "'The Sunderer's pact: flesh for silence, blood for chains. Break the seal, and the song devours all.'"

Malvar's eyes gleamed. "The seal. Where?"

"Here," Alaric lied. "Beneath the Keep. But it requires a sacrifice. Dynast blood."

The Syndic's smile turned feral. "Fortunately, we have a surplus." He snapped his fingers. Guards dragged in a prisoner—a young woman in cultist robes, her mouth sewn shut. A Silent Sister.

Fira's dagger flashed. "No."

Malvar ignored her, slitting the woman's throat. Her blood hit the shadowglass, and the chamber erupted.

The desert shook. Veyra's mare reared as the sands split ahead, the earth cracking open to reveal the spire. It speared the sky, its shadowglass surface alive with swirling gold and violet. At its base, the Syndicate's crates lay shattered, their contents spilled: Dynast armor, frozen corpses, and one empty lead coffin.

Ser Joron cursed. "We should turn back."

Veyra dismounted, drawn toward the spire. The mark on her palm burned, and the Silvertongue's power writhed in her chest, eager and ravenous. She pressed her hand to the glass.

It sang.

A thousand voices, layered into a single chord, tore through her mind. Visions flooded her—Lyrra weeping over a dying child, Malvar's corpse choking on shadowglass thorns, Alaric kneeling in a storm of ash. And beneath it all, the vault. Her vault.

"Claim it," the song urged. "Claim your throne."

Behind her, Eryk's corpse twitched.

In Blackspire's Heart, the sacrifice's blood ignited the shadowglass. The chamber walls shattered, revealing a hidden catacomb lined with lead coffins. They burst open, and the corpses inside—Dynast soldiers, their eyes glowing—rose with a collective gasp.

Malvar laughed, madness and lumen ink dripping from his hands. "At last. The song returns!"

But Alaric saw the truth. The soldiers didn't kneel. They turned toward the Syndic, their jaws unhinging into voids of light.

Fira grabbed his arm. "Run. Now."

As they fled, the Heart collapsed, and the song followed—a roar that shattered every window in the Keep. Far to the south, the desert spire answered, its shadowglass flaring like a beacon.

Veyra watched the horizon burn, Eryk's corpse twitching at her feet. "Too late," she whispered.

The song had begun.