The wounded were still being treated as Kael sat in the rubble of a shattered temple. His coat, torn and scorched, lay beside him. His bare shoulder throbbed—Liora's blade had left more than just a wound. It pulsed with black veins, spreading like roots beneath the skin. A mark. A curse. A message.
Sera knelt beside him, her eyes scanning the strange shadow-taint. "This isn't just a cut."
"No," Kael muttered, staring at the blackened flesh. "She left something inside me."
Aeron approached, frowning. "You think it's a brand? Something that lets her track you?"
Kael shook his head. "It's more than that. It's... familiar. Like it's echoing my own shadow. Mirroring it." He closed his eyes and reached inward—into the well of power that had always obeyed him. But now, it twisted, flinched. Resisted.
His connection to the Dominion—the ancient, buried layer of reality where his power originated—was faltering. Like Liora had planted a seed in his soul.
Sera grasped his arm. "Then we find the root and rip it out. Before it takes you."
But Kael didn't respond right away. His thoughts drifted elsewhere—to the dream he'd had during the void clash. A dream not his own.
A memory.
---
A Memory Not His
In the dream, Kael stood in an obsidian chamber. Bound in chains was a god—eyes hollow, skin cracked with golden light. Before him stood a figure in black robes, holding a blade not unlike Kael's own.
"Shadow is not born. It is inherited," the figure said.
The chained god spat blood. "You were never meant to rise."
"But I did," the figure replied. "And my heir will finish what I began."
The figure turned. His face was cloaked, but his voice echoed in Kael's bones.
"My son..."
Kael jolted awake from the memory—back in the present, panting.
Sera touched his forehead. "You blacked out for a moment. What did you see?"
Kael looked at her, heart pounding. "My father. I think... he wasn't mortal."
---
The Truth Beneath the Veil
Back in the resistance hideout, the core council met in a war chamber carved beneath the academy ruins. Maps of the known world were spread across a massive obsidian table. A red circle marked the Tomb of Chains—the prison where the old gods buried their most dangerous enemies.
Aeron pointed to it. "We need answers. If Liora got her power from the Abyss, there's only one place dark enough to house its source."
Kael nodded. "And if my memory's true... then the being imprisoned there might be the key to everything. The truth about my powers, my bloodline—why the gods fear the Dominion so much."
"But it's suicide," Sera said. "That tomb was sealed by twelve celestial oaths. Breaking them could draw the gods down on us."
Kael stood. "Then let them come. If the Abyss chose me... I need to know why."
---
The Road to the Tomb
Days later, Kael and a handpicked strike team rode under the cover of night. Among them were Aeron, Sera, and three others:
Nyra, a beastmaster from the southern jungles, who commanded spirit-linked panthers and could bond with void creatures.
Fenric, an exiled assassin of the Silent Blade, sworn to Kael after the fall of his clan.
Vael, a mute priest whose divine touch could suppress curses—Kael's only hope of slowing the Abyssal Mark.
As they neared the desolate canyons where the Tomb of Chains lay hidden, Nyra's panthers growled at the wind.
"There's something ancient ahead," she murmured. "Something watching."
Kael gripped the hilt of his blade. "Good. Let it see. I'm coming."
---
End of Chapter 32