Chapter 28 – The Weeping Sepulcher
The summons came at dawn. There was no pretense of courtesy this time, only the sharp, authoritative rap of a royal guardsman on their chamber door. Prince Strelm awaited them in the cold, formal atmosphere of the Royal Shadow Hunters' headquarters. The wine and charming smiles were gone, replaced by the stark reality of their new dynamic. Strelm stood before a large map, his posture rigid, his expression a mask of regal impatience.
"Lord Adraels," he began, his voice devoid of warmth. "A situation has developed that requires your... unique talents. An ancient tomb, known to the locals as the Weeping Sepulcher, has been unearthed by recent tremors north of the city. It is emanating a corrupting energy that has driven my royal mages back. They claim it is laced with the signature of the Pale Wraith."
He tapped the map with a gloved finger. "This is not a task for common soldiers. It is a rot that must be cleansed by a purer fire. Take your team. Enter the sepulcher, identify the source of the corruption, and neutralize it. The Crown has given you a mandate; this is your first opportunity to prove its wisdom. Do not fail." It was not a request. It was a command, delivered with the cold finality of a death sentence.
The journey to the Weeping Sepulcher was short and grim. The tomb was a scar on the landscape, a gaping maw of black stone half-swallowed by an old, gnarled forest. A palpable cold radiated from its entrance, a chill that had nothing to do with the morning air. Long before they reached the threshold, Don felt a strange emptiness. The familiar, reassuring warmth of the Flamebound Medallion against his chest was fading, replaced by a disconcerting coolness, like a dying ember.
"Something is wrong," he murmured, his hand instinctively going to the relic. "The flame... it's quiet."
Caria, her senses attuned to the flows of magic, felt it too. "There's an arcane field here, Don. It's not aggressive, it's... hungry. It feels like it's drinking the magic from the very air."
They pressed on, entering the oppressive darkness of the tomb. The moment Don stepped inside, the chill intensified. The medallion went utterly cold, a dead weight on his chest. A wave of profound weakness washed over him, leaving him feeling drained and strangely vulnerable. He was, for the first time since the Mire, cut off from the source of his ancestral power.
The sepulcher was a maze of hewn stone and unnerving silence. Their torchlight seemed to be swallowed by the shadows just feet from them. It was in the first grand chamber that their enemy revealed itself. It rose from the dust and bones on the floor—a hulking figure of stone and spectral energy, a Sepulcher Warden, its eyes glowing with a malevolent, ethereal light.
"Protect Don!" Leinara shouted, drawing her blade as the creature charged, its heavy footfalls shaking the very ground.
The battle was a desperate, chaotic dance. The Warden was relentlessly powerful, and Don, without the explosive force of his flame, was forced into a purely defensive role, his sword skills barely enough to deflect the crushing blows.
Dvrik became a wall of muscle and steel, roaring as he met the Warden's charge head-on, his axes scoring deep but ineffective gouges in its stony hide. "It feels no pain!" he yelled, staggering back from a powerful blow.
"Its energy is anchored to the tomb itself!" Caria cried out, planting her staff. A bolt of brilliant lightning lanced out, striking the Warden. The creature recoiled, but the magical energy in the air seemed to weaken her attack, the lightning dissipating almost as soon as it struck. The dampening field was affecting her, too.
Leinara moved like a phantom, her blade a silver blur searching for a weakness, a joint, a crack in its stone armor. She darted in and out, her precision and speed the only thing keeping the creature from focusing its full might on any one of them.
Don, fighting off the encroaching weakness, saw it then. The Warden was not a single entity; it was animated by spectral energy flowing from a large, unadorned stone set into the chamber's far wall. It was a dull, non-reflective black, and it seemed to drink the very light from their torches. The Null-Stone.
He knew, with chilling certainty, that this was the heart of the trap.
"The stone!" he shouted, his voice strained. "It's the source!"
But the Warden was between them and their goal. It swatted Dvrik aside and turned its baleful gaze on Don. As it raised its massive stone fist for a final, crushing blow, Don, with no flame to command, acted on pure instinct. He closed his eyes, not reaching for the power of the medallion, but for the memory of it—the certainty of the flame, the resolve he had forged in his trials. He channeled all of his focus, all of his will, into a single point.
He did not erupt in fire. Instead, he slammed his boot onto the stone floor and shouted a single, ancient word from a half-forgotten memory. A tiny, concussive wave of pure force, no bigger than his fist, shot from him, striking not the Warden, but a precariously balanced stone pillar beside it.
The pillar groaned and began to topple, crashing down directly onto the Sepulcher Warden. The creature was crushed, its spectral energy dissolving with a final, mournful shriek.
Silence fell, broken only by their ragged breaths. They had survived.
---
Don stood before Prince Strelm once more. Between them, on a velvet cloth, sat the Null-Stone, now contained within a runic cage Caria had hastily constructed. It still seemed to drink the light from the room.
"The source of the disturbance has been contained, Your Highness," Don said, his voice level.
Strelm stared at the stone, his disappointment a barely concealed flicker in his cold eyes. "Impressive. You have done the Crown a great service, Lord Adraels."
"Indeed," Don replied, meeting the Prince's gaze. "The tomb's primary threat was not spectral. It was arcane. An artifact designed to suppress ancestral power. A fascinatingly specific kind of trap." He let the words hang in the air, heavy with unspoken accusation. "It seems we must be wary of not only the Wraith's agents but also the forgotten tools of past wars, and those who would seek to wield them again."
The Prince's jaw tightened. There was no more room for games, no more need for veiled threats. In the silence of the chamber, a new understanding was forged. Don knew Strelm had tried to have him neutralized, and Strelm knew that Don had survived. The cold war between them had just turned hot.