They didn't return the way they came.
The sea behind them churned with soft keening, as if the city itself mourned its final ruler. The ruins of Kaelruhm had begun to sink, drawn downward by the weight of memory released.
Dhera limped beside Valen, arms wrapped around the ancient Chronicle. Her fingers were blistered from even touching it.
"It's... alive," she muttered.
"It remembers," Lyra corrected.
She hadn't spoken much since breaking the Drowned King.
But her presence felt larger now.
Even Valen noticed it.
She moved like a flame learning it could burn.
They traveled north.
Toward the Skycleft Range, where the next Mark was said to slumber beneath the frost-temples of Ghal'Sevrin.
No map marked it.
Only the Chronicle did.
Valen turned pages each night—pages that bled when opened. Inside: names long forbidden, etched in sigils that crawled across the skin when read aloud.
"King Arroval, the Raven Crowned.""Queen Vershal, who folded time.""King Solon, who ate his lineage.""The Nameless Flame."
That last one had no face.
Just a black sigil.
And underneath it:
"Marked by ash. Wielded by wrath. Bound to no throne."
Valen looked to Lyra.
He didn't need to ask.
She already knew.
Two days into the journey, a messenger found them.
Not a person.
A thing.
A horse made of wax and braided sinew, dragging a shattered bell behind it. It stumbled through the snow-cracked forest path at dawn, trailing smoke from its hooves.
Upon seeing them, it stopped.
Its neck snapped back, revealing a mouth carved into its chest.
The mouth spoke.
"You have slain one of the Court's own."
"The Hollow Court remembers."
"You are summoned."
Then it melted.
Into a pool of white grease.
Lyra stepped forward, still silent.
She picked up the bell.
Held it to her ear.
Listened.
Then said, "It's a trap."
Valen smirked. "Most summons are."
Dhera looked between them. "We're not seriously going, are we?"
Lyra's eyes flashed silver. "We don't run."
"But it's the Hollow Court," Dhera hissed. "Even the Dreamkeepers fear them. They're not kings. They're something older."
"Exactly," Valen said. "And they've stayed quiet for centuries. But now they speak."
He touched the Chronicle.
"They know something. Or they fear something."
Lyra added, "Maybe both."
They left the forest that night.
The bell guided them.
It didn't ring. It shivered. As if afraid of its own voice.
By dawn, they reached the edge of a grey valley, where trees bent inward and the wind moved without sound.
There was no path.
No gate.
Just a black stone, carved with the word:
Hearthmourne.
Dhera whispered, "This isn't a place."
"No," Valen agreed. "It's a sentence."
Inside Hearthmourne, the rules of the world frayed.
Footsteps didn't echo.
Voices took seconds to arrive.
The air smelled of old ink and burnt feathers.
Buildings curved inward like melting teeth, and ravens sat still in the sky—unmoving, frozen mid-flight.
At the valley's heart, an amphitheater of bone waited.
No roof.
No sun.
Only thrones—twelve in all.
And in them?
No kings.
Only shadows.
They had no faces.
Only cloaks of silence.
Valen stepped into the center.
He didn't bow.
One of the shadows leaned forward.
Its voice was not heard.
It was inferred.
"You carry the Chronicle."
Another voice echoed, sharper.
"You slay what was meant to be forgotten."
A third:
"You wake the Unnamed."
Valen smiled. "It's a pleasure to be noticed."
A fourth:
"And you mock us."
Lyra stepped beside him.
"I remember your crimes," she said.
"You named yourselves kings."
"You erased the others."
"You fed the world lies."
All twelve shadows hissed.
Then the fifth one stood.
Its voice tore the amphitheater in two.
"SILENCE, FLAME THAT SHOULD NOT HAVE BURNED!"
Lightning cracked overhead.
But no thunder followed.
Dhera flinched.
Valen didn't.
He drew Sorrowfang.
Its steel gleamed black in the dead light.
"You summoned us."
"What do you want?"
The shadows wavered.
Then one of them tossed something into the center circle.
A name.
Carved into a skull.
"Lazarin."
Dhera paled. "That's a warlock's name."
"Not just any warlock," the sixth shadow spoke.
"A traitor. Like you."
"He was cast into the Sable Mire before the Great Unraveling."
"But he escaped."
Lyra frowned. "You fear him?"
"He seeks the Eighth Throne."
"The one that was never built."
Valen blinked. "You mean… there was a throne missing?"
"Yes."
"Because we never found it."
"But he has."
The Court fell silent.
Then the twelfth shadow spoke.
Softly.
"If he claims it, all memory will burn."
"Even yours."
They turned to Lyra.
"We do not offer forgiveness."
"We offer warning."
"Kill Lazarin."
"Or the world forgets even its bones."
Then the shadows vanished.
And the bell cracked.
They left Hearthmourne in silence.
Even the air seemed too afraid to whisper.
Dhera broke the quiet. "So... what now?"
Valen turned to Lyra.
"Do we believe them?"
She shook her head.
"They lied about the Seventh Throne."
"But the Eighth?"
She touched her palm.
The Mark was pulsing—unsteady, like it feared what came next.
Then she said:
"Lazarin was once my master."