The ruins groaned as the sun disappeared behind jagged cliffs, casting long shadows over the training field. The trial had begun.
Groups split off — tasked with recovering relic shards planted across the ruins. Kael's group moved in silence, tension thick. Even the nobles were subdued.
Only Ryn Valcor smiled.
"I do hope no one falls again," he said, loud enough for Kael to hear. "The lower levels seem to favor the weak."
Kael ignored him.
But Naya didn't. She stepped between them, eyes sharp. "Maybe the lower levels are just too high for the likes of you."
Gasps. A few stifled laughs.
Ryn's jaw clenched, but he said nothing. He had a reputation to keep. For now.
---
Their section of the ruins was older — black stone corridors that twisted unnaturally. Kael led the group quietly, not by command, but instinct. Something about this place hummed in his bones — like a second heartbeat.
He could feel the shards. Not with his eyes — but with something in him, deeper.
The book's glyphs had whispered about this place.
"Where memory sleeps, blood awakens."
---
Hours passed. Two groups found nothing.
Kael's hand brushed against the base of a shattered pillar… and the stone reacted.
A sharp breath. A flare of light.
A shard.
But this one pulsed.
It wasn't just a piece of the trial. It was something alive — like it had waited to be touched by him alone.
As Kael reached for it, the stone around them shifted.
The ruins responded.
Walls trembled. A hidden doorway cracked open behind him — stone sliding away to reveal a staircase spiraling downward.
His team stepped back, afraid.
"Don't," Naya said. "That's not part of the trial."
Kael hesitated.
The book pulsed in his satchel.
The same symbols glowed faintly on the stairs.
This was for him.
He stepped in.
Only Naya followed.
---
They descended into silence. A stale, humming quiet, like the world had been holding its breath for centuries.
Down there, it was colder — not from lack of sun, but from the weight of memory. The hallway ended in a vast circular chamber, lined with mural-covered stone. Old depictions of dragons, winged gods, and a central figure cloaked in nothing but shadow.
And in the center — a raised altar again.
But this one was shattered.
Above it floated a second shard — cracked, bleeding faint light.
Kael moved toward it.
Naya grabbed his arm. "This doesn't feel right."
"I know."
And yet he reached.
The moment his fingers touched the shard—
The room roared.
Not with sound, but memory.
A voice boomed through his skull.
"He bears no crest. No birthright. Yet the blood answers."
"The seal weakens."
Kael fell to his knees.
Images exploded in his mind — cities burning, dragons screaming, a throne of bones surrounded by weeping stars.
A sword made of moonlight — broken.
A god… chained in the center of a starless void, watching him.
You are not ready.
---
He gasped awake on the floor.
Naya beside him, terrified.
"Kael," she whispered, "your eyes—"
He looked into her reflection in the shard.
His irises had turned silver.
For a moment.
Just a flicker.
Then gone.
---
Up above, Ryn and his allies reached the upper corridor, having heard the tremors.
"Something's happening down there," one of them muttered.
Ryn's face twisted into a grin. "Good. Let it happen."
---
Far away, in a temple no longer touched by time, a figure cloaked in golden flame opened a scroll and read Kael's name.
He wasn't supposed to have touched the shard.
Let alone two.
The gods would not stay silent forever.