Caeryn moved like a soldier who didn't want to be one anymore. Every step was calculated. Silent. Dangerous.
We'd been traveling together for three days. Through swamps that smelled of rot and hills littered with broken siege weapons from a war no one talked about anymore. She never asked about the shard. I never asked why she still wore the crest of the Dragoons hidden under her tunic.
We were both broken tools. Sharpened in silence. Bound by something heavier than duty.
On the fourth night, it found us.
We were camped near the ruins of Grell'Mor—a forgotten border town buried by time and moss. Caeryn stood watch. I dreamt of fire.
And then…
The trees screamed.
I bolted upright. The fire was dead. The air was wrong—too still, too quiet. Like the world had stopped breathing.
Then came the voice.
Low. Smooth. Rotting at the edges.
"False Heir," it said. "Bearer of stolen flame. You are summoned."
A figure stepped from the shadows.
He wore no armor. No cloak. Just bone. Sculpted into a mockery of royalty. A spine curled into a crown around his skull. Ribs layered like a king's mantle. His hands—long, skeletal, burned black at the tips—held a staff made from the femur of a giant.
Caeryn had her blades out instantly.
"That's not just a wraith," she hissed. "That's—"
"—The Bone Prince," I finished, standing slowly.
He smiled, somehow, without lips.
"Elion's toy," he cooed. "I wondered when you'd crawl out of your hole. The gods may have exiled him, but the realms remember. And you… you reek of his blasphemy."
I stepped forward. "If you've come to kill me, do it."
"Oh, child. I haven't come to kill you." He raised his staff. The ground shook. "I've come to claim you."
The world exploded.
Flames shot up from the earth—not mine. His. Cold, white, unnatural fire. Caeryn was flung into a tree. I reached for the shard—
But the Bone Prince was faster.
He snapped his fingers. A pulse of necrotic magic tore through the clearing. I collapsed, screaming, the shard in my chest burning like a star trying to escape.
"Do you feel that?" he whispered, kneeling beside me. "That is the weight of truth. You think you're chosen? You think Elion saved you because you're special?"
He leaned in.
"He saved you because he was afraid."
Then came the light.
Blinding. Wild. Divine.
Caeryn rose behind him, eyes glowing gold, her body a conduit for something far older than she should've known. She screamed in a tongue I didn't recognize—and neither did the Bone Prince.
He turned—too slow.
She drove both blades into his chest.
The fire vanished.
The skeleton crumbled.
And Caeryn dropped to her knees, panting, bleeding from the nose.
I crawled to her. "What… the hell was that?"
She looked at me, tears in her eyes. "You're not the only one with a dead god watching."