The archives were a tomb, a cold, silent void where dust clung to every surface like ash from long extinguished fires. The air felt heavy, as if the weight of forgotten knowledge pressed down on Emily’s shoulders and threatened to crush her with its silence. She moved through it with deliberate precision, her gloved fingers brushing against shelves stacked so high they seemed poised to collapse under their own burden of discarded history. No lantern was needed; even in this dim glow that filtered from unseen cracks above, she could see every detail, the frayed edges of ancient tomes, the way shadows pooled around books too brittle for human touch, and the faint shimmer of dust dancing like trapped spirits beneath her breath.

  She had come here alone. Not a servant followed. No guards lingered in their usual haunts beyond this chamber’s threshold. The kingdom's scholars would have called such a pursuit foolhardy, the archives held not only records but secrets too dangerous to be spoken aloud, rituals that once carried power now reduced to fragments of parchment and ink. But Emily did not fear danger; she courted it with the same meticulous care as her words in public.

  Her fingers traced The Sundering of Khtonos, a brittle scroll scrawled in jagged script at its edge. The text was fragmented, but enough survived to suggest that this entity, this thing beneath Lysimar’s foundations, had not been born from malice alone. It had been sealed by ancient hands with reverence and terror, as if even those who opposed it could not deny the power within. Emily leaned closer, her breath catching at lines like “The root does not hunger, it remembers” or “What is fed to Khtonos never dies; only its shape changes.”

  She did not know how long she had been here when a whisper echoed in her mind: "You are playing with fire." But the thought was hers, and it lingered like embers. What if this darkness could be bent? The Gloomroot’s corruption spread relentlessly across Lysimar's fields, but Khtonos, this primordial force that had shaped the land itself, might offer something else entirely: a new order, one not bound by decay or dying kings.

  A gust of wind stirred her cloak. Emily straightened abruptly, snapping shut the tome as if she were afraid it would speak to her in return. She did not believe in ghosts, only consequences, and yet this place thrummed with a silent hunger that made the hairs on her arms rise. It was here, beneath Lysimar’s foundations, that Khtonos had been imprisoned and where its influence still seeped into the soil like black veins.

  But Emily would no longer be bound by what she could not control. She needed to understand this force, to find a way past the barriers of time and bloodshed, and if it required her own sacrifice or madness? So be it.

  The return of Knight Nine Pyrot was marked only by silence. The outer gates stood open as he staggered through them, his armor marred with dark stains that clung like spilled ink to fresh snow. He moved slowly, each step a reminder of the weight in his limbs and the hollow ache beneath his ribs, a price paid for surviving what had not been meant to be survived.

  No one spoke when they saw him. The soldiers who patrolled near the stables exchanged glances before returning their attention to mundane tasks: sharpening blades or polishing armor, as if doing so would erase the memory of this man’s return. He was a ghost in flesh and bone now, his eyes shadowed by something that had no name.

  He did not head for his quarters immediately. Instead, he walked through Lysimar's lower districts until the city faded behind him, leaving only the moonlight to guide his steps toward the ruins where Gloomroot’s tendrils clawed at the earth like skeletal fingers. It was here, where life had once thrived but now withered under Khtonos’ influence, that he found solace in silence.

  A single cinderbloom bloomed near a broken statue, its petals dark and jagged as if carved from obsidian. Nine knelt beside it, his gloved hand brushing the soil that reeked of decay. He had seen this before, how the Gloomroot twisted life into something grotesque yet strangely beautiful. It was not just corruption; it was a slow metamorphosis, an unraveling of what once was until only shadow remained.

  He remembered standing on the edge of a chasm two nights ago, watching as his fellow knights fell to their deaths in the depths below. He had tried to save them, had even reached for one before her body twisted unnaturally and dissolved into smoke that coiled upward like an unseen serpent’s breath. The others were gone now; some buried beneath roots they could not cut through, others lost forever within Khtonos’ reach.

  His fingers curled around the hilt of his sword as if it would ground him in something real. He had always believed this was a war he could win, but what if victory meant nothing more than delayed defeat?

  A memory surfaced unbidden: Commander Valerius’s voice, sharp and full of command, telling them that Lysimar’s survival depended on their sacrifices. “Every life lost is one less to protect the rest,” the old man had said, a mantra repeated so often it no longer felt like a lesson but an accusation.

  This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

  Nine closed his eyes for just a moment before rising unsteadily and turning back toward the city, where he would have to face Emily once more. He did not know what she expected of him now, what kind of report she wanted or if her gaze upon him had changed in any way since that fateful mission into Gloomroot’s depths.

  But one thing was certain: this place no longer felt like home. It never truly had, but the realization left a hollow emptiness within him he could not name.

  Emily sat before an open desk of aged wood as she pored over another volume, her fingers tracing lines that seemed to pulse beneath their touch with something alive and ancient. The candlelight flickered against the dust laden air around her, casting shifting shadows along the walls like whispers from forgotten voices. She had not been this close in years, this deep into Lysimar’s past, and yet she felt no fear.

  Khtonos was real. And it would be hers if only she could find a way to make that truth tangible enough for others to believe as well.

  She turned the page with deliberate care, her mind racing ahead even before her eyes had fully registered what lay beneath its inked surface:

  “When Lysimar’s founders first delved into Khtonos’ roots, they did not seek power. They sought understanding, what it meant for something to be eternal when all else must end.”

  Emily smiled faintly at the words, though her eyes remained locked on them as if willing their meaning to take root in her own thoughts.

  Power was fleeting, a candle’s glow against an endless night. But Khtonos… that was something different. It did not vanish with time or death; it endured because it had never been born from the same mortal fears and desires that bound others so tightly. If she could tap into this force, if only for a moment, she would be free.

  Free of her father’s expectations, his weakness. Free of the kingdom’s crumbling walls that threatened to swallow them all in their own decay.

  She thought again of Nine Pyrot, the way he had stood at the edge of death and returned with nothing but scars upon him both visible and unseen. He was more than just a knight; he understood what it meant to bear something so great, yet still be broken by its weight.

  Emily set down the book gently before rising from her chair as if she were afraid any sudden movement might disturb the fragile balance of this moment between knowledge and desire.

  She would not wait for Khtonos’ power to reveal itself. She had always been willing to seek out what others feared, even when it meant standing alone in darkness.

  The Gloomroot was spreading faster now than ever before; its tendrils crept closer with each passing night, whispering promises of an end that no one dared speak aloud. Emily would not let fear dictate her path any longer.

  If Khtonos could be touched, then she would touch it first. And when the time came for Lysimar to fall… she would have already chosen what remained after its ashes had settled into dust.

  The candlelight flickered once more as a soft knock echoed against the heavy wooden door of Emily’s chambers, interrupting her thoughts like an uninvited ghost at dinner. She did not call out; instead, she rose smoothly from where she sat and crossed to open it with deliberate grace, allowing only one word, a simple request that would be enough for those who knew how to listen.

  “Enter.”

  The door creaked as Nine Pyrot stepped inside, his armor still bearing the marks of their recent battle. He hesitated just long enough at her threshold before closing the space between them and offering a brief bow, his eyes shadowed with exhaustion but no less intense for it.

  Emily studied him carefully now that he was close; not in awe or fear as she had seen others do, but with something else, an almost clinical curiosity. She wanted to know how much of what had happened out there truly remained behind them and how deeply this place would wound the man standing before her even after all his trials.

  “Your report,” she said simply when he did not immediately speak again.

  He nodded once, confirming that it was ready, though no further words were offered. The silence between them stretched like an unspoken tension in a room filled with too many secrets, but Emily welcomed the pause for what it revealed: Nine Pyrot had always been more than just another knight to her. He carried something within him, even he did not fully understand.

  And she was willing, no matter how long it took, to learn all that meant about his existence and why, despite everything else, every choice made in darkness or light… he remained the one person who could still move her at all.

  For now, though, there were other things to be done. The world outside did not wait for their silent exchanges any more than Khtonos would forgive those too weak to reach out and claim what was rightfully theirs.

  Emily turned from him with a final glance that lingered just long enough before she stepped aside so he could pass through the threshold of her chambers unimpeded, though it felt as if an invisible door had been closed behind them both.