My eyelids, gritty with unshed tears and the phantom weight of exhaustion, refused to close. The barracks' screams, a discordant symphony of steel and terror, seeped through the temple's frigid bones, a constant, gnawing reminder of the night's unraveling. "Runes and blood," my father's voice rasped in the hollow of my skull, a venomous echo of his threat, "until your mind breaks." The words, a barbed wire cage, trapped me in a restless dance with shadows. I thrashed against the linen, a silent scream caught in my throat. Then, a dizzying shift.

  The stone beneath me wasn't the cold flagstones of my chamber, but the slick, ancient floor of the Eidolon Spire. The air, thick with the scent of dust and forgotten magic, pressed against my skin. Torches flickered, casting grotesque shadows that danced along the towering pillars, splitting the trial halls into a labyrinth of dread. And there, in the heart of it all, Aziel. He stood, a beacon of unnerving calm, his eyes pools of patient darkness, as if he’d been carved from the very silence that surrounded him. Even here, in this dream, the weight of my sleepless nights and relentless duty pressed down on me. This burden, that followed me even in daylight, finally overwhelmed me. Tears streamed down my face as I sank to my knees before him. “I can’t rest,” I sobbed, my voice cracking under the strain.

  Aziel stepped closer, his eyes softening in a way that made me want to reach out, yet my despair turned my words bitter. “Don’t you understand? I’m drowning in this endless night!” I snapped, the anger mingling with my fear. When I sank to my knees, the cold of the floor seeped through my scribe’s robes, a familiar ache. The rune beneath my glove pulsed in time with the Spire’s hidden heart. “I can’t rest,” I whispered, the words raw. “Not even here. It’s always there, Aziel. These marks, this… hunger. It follows me into daylight.”

  He knelt then, his movements too precise, too fluid, as if the Spire itself puppeted his limbs. His face hovered inches from mine, close enough that I could see the faint silver scars threading his chest, like cracks in ice over a bottomless lake. For a heartbeat, his gaze flickered, something almost human flickering beneath the indifference. Then it vanished.

  “Take my hand,” he said, not a request but a verdict.

  I did. His fingers were colder than the Spire’s stones. He pulled me upright, his grip unyielding, and turned without a word, leading me down a corridor that mirrored the temple’s scriptorium hall. But here, the frescoes were wrong. Instead of the Ash Court’s conquests, the walls depicted faceless figures bending over tablets etched with sigils that squirmed when I looked too closely. Scribes, I realized. But what they’re writing isn’t words. It’s… spells?

  “Was that a kitchen?” I blurted as we passed a cavernous archway. Inside, blackened hearths gaped like open graves, their iron cauldrons rusted to lace. Shelves sagged under the weight of jars labeled in a script I’d only seen in the oldest temple archives—Pre-Ascension, the scholars called it, the language of the gods before they abandoned us to ash and ink.

  Aziel didn’t slow. “Yes. But Figments don’t eat.” His voice laced with bitterness.

  The words hung between us, barbed. A ghost, I’d called him days ago, when he first appeared to me. Now, walking these halls, I understood: he was no ghost. Ghosts haunt. Aziel inhabited. The scent of beeswax and damp stone grew heavier with each step, a suffocating blanket that pressed against my skin, and the air grew colder. We walked, and walked. I noticed that the sound of the soldiers outside was getting quieter, and wondered how far we had traveled. He stopped before a door of blackened wood, its surface scarred with runes that writhed like serpents under his touch. Inside, candles flickered in a dozen mismatched holders—tarnished silver, cracked clay, a skull hollowed to cradle flame. Their light pooled over tapestries frayed to spectral threads and a low pallet heaped with furs that gleamed too brightly, too unnaturally, to be from any beast I knew.

  “You can rest here,” he said, releasing my hand.

  I lingered in the doorway. The room felt lived-in, a blasphemy in this place of echoes. A book lay splayed on a stool, its pages filled with the same squirming sigils from the frescoes. A chipped porcelain cup steamed on the desk, though no fire burned nearby. Aziel’s fingers brushed the edge of the desk, its surface buried beneath scrolls so ancient their edges crumbled like ash. The candlelight caught the gold leaf of their seals, glinting like the eyes of predators in the dark. “You see history here,” he said, his voice a blade slicing through the silence. “Not the lies your temple carves into stone.”

  I stepped closer, drawn despite myself. The air smelled of dried ink and something sharper—bloodroot, the herb scribes used to forge indelible ink for treaties. My hand hovered over the nearest scroll, its parchment brittle as autumn leaves. Aziel’s gaze pinned me, expectant.

  The Treaty of the East and the West

  The title alone stole my breath. I’d transcribed fragments of this text—heresies, my father called them—scraps smuggled into the temple archives by scribes who vanished soon after. But here it lay, whole and unburned. My fingers trembled as I unrolled it, the rune beneath my glove flaring in response.

  …the East shall relinquish any claim to the West Throne…

  …the West shall relinquish any claim to the East Throne…

  …these two kingdoms vows to extinguish the Hollow Flame of war amongst their people, uniting in peace…

  …sealed in blood, witnessed by the High Judges…

  The script shifted as I read, Pre-Ascension glyphs melting into modern tongue. But it was the signatures that froze my blood. Two names, etched in ink darker than midnight:

  East: Corwin Vale, Grandmaster of the East

  West: Azelion Bar, Grandmaster of the West

  I whirled to face him, the ancient scroll crumpling in my grip as though it couldn’t bear another secret. “This Treaty was foraged centuries ago. You’re not—” I began, but he cut me off with a quiet, wry retort.

  “Old enough?” he murmured, leaning against the desk. The flickering candlelight caught his silver-scarred chest, throwing ghostly patterns on the walls. In that suspended moment, I froze—the truth crashing down like shards of broken glass. “I’m ancient. I am as old as these very walls. I’ve seen more lifetimes pass than you can imagine, and I can’t even say how long it’s been since—” His voice faltered, his sentence left hanging in the charged air.

  Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

  “Since what?” I whispered, stepping back as the warmth of his presence curdled into something cold and unfamiliar. In that instant, I felt the betrayal of a lifetime searing through me. The tenderness of his gesture turned treacherous, and I recoiled.

  “Tia. I can’t tell you. You wouldn’t—” he began, but I cut him off, my raw need for truth burning through my fear.

  “You can’t tell me what?” I snapped, my voice trembling with a mix of betrayal and desperation. “All these endless days, you’ve haunted my mind, appeared in the overton relic—and everyone’s been lying to me about who they truly are. I don’t know who to trust anymore. So if anyone can be honest with me, it should be you. You—the ghost that lives in my head and stalks my dreams—who are you?”

  The candles hissed as their flames cast restless, silver shadows that danced across Aziel’s weathered face. I watched his hands tremble ever so slightly—a subtle quiver hinting at the centuries of weight he bore. The scars on his chest, a jagged map of countless battles, glowed with a faint, molten silver light. I couldn’t help but think of my own heart, battered and bruised by secrets, and wondered if I’d ever learn the truth about my lineage.

  “You want the truth, Tia?” he rasped, his voice raw and ragged, each word as if carved from pain. “Then let it burn.” In that moment, deep-seated sorrow and ancient grief broke through his carefully maintained composure, shattering the stillness of the Spire around us.

  “I was Grandmaster of the West,” he continued, his gaze drifting toward memories lost in time. “A title not earned by blood alone, but by the mark of the Spire.” With a swift, almost violent motion, he tore open his tunic to reveal a twisted rune burned into his heart—a dark mirror of the mark I bore, yet older, scarred by betrayal and endless years. My stomach churned as I stared, trying to reconcile the man before me with the myth I’d been taught.

  “Your father, Corwin, ruled the East,” he spat bitterly, his voice thick with contempt. “A petty tyrant, clinging to borrowed power. When I challenged him, he trembled at the thought of losing his throne. So he conspired with my adversaries—promising them gold, dominion... anything for my head on a stick.”

  In the flickering candlelight, his confession burned with a fierce, tragic intensity—a legacy of darkness and shattered trust seeping into the very walls of the Spire. The air grew heavy with the scent of charred parchment and unspoken memories. Shadows coiled around his wrists like spectral manacles, binding him to a past I could barely comprehend. “They butchered my people,” he whispered, his voice laced with bitter grief. “Burned temples, children, scribes—anyone loyal to me.” His gaze locked onto mine, a chilling blend of ice and fire. “And when they cornered me, I cast a final spell—a life-for-life bond. If I died, Corwin would too.”

  He hesitated then, a flicker of regret passing over his features. “You were born that night.” His voice dropped to a near whisper, a confession on the edge of a precipice. “Your mother—he siphoned her magic—your magic—to fuel his coup.” The words hung in the air, a cold accusation carved in ice. “She died screaming your name, her power sealing the spell’s... miscalculation.”

  My gloves slipped, and my fingers tightened on the edge of the desk as I tried to steady myself. “Miscalculation?” I echoed, my voice barely a breath.

  “The bond latched onto you,” Aziel whispered, his eyes searching mine, pleading for understanding. “Now, if I die, you die. If you die…” He laughed then—a hollow, broken sound that reverberated through me. “Well. Your father ensured his own immortality that night, didn’t he?”

  His words struck me like a physical blow, each syllable a shard of ice piercing my skin. My mind raced—my magic? My mother? I staggered back, instinctively reaching for the rune beneath my glove, the brand burning with renewed ferocity. “That’s impossible,” I breathed, denial a desperate whisper. “My father would never—”

  “Wouldn’t he?” Aziel’s voice was low, laced with the weariness of centuries and betrayal. “Corwin Vale is a master of deception, Tia. He weaves lies as easily as you weave words. He’s built his kingdom on treachery.” As he stepped toward me, I instinctively backed away, my eyes darting back to the scroll crumpled in my hand.

  “Tell me, Tia, does this place remind you of anything? Any place out in your world?” he asked. This place—this ruin of a temple—stirred something inside me. It reminded me of home once, of a temple that now lay run down and lifeless. Each step I took backward, he mirrored with a step forward, relentless and inevitable. I thought of turning and running, though I knew there was nowhere safe to go. The room spun around me, the candlelight casting grotesque, dancing shadows on the walls, and my head throbbed with a dull ache that echoed the pain in my heart. My father—the man I’d revered, the man I’d striven to please—was a monster. A murderer. A thief. And I, his daughter, was nothing more than a pawn in his twisted game.

  “Does the Ash Temple jog your memory?” he pressed.

  “Yes,” I whispered, the admission tasting bitter on my tongue.

  “What direction is the Ash Temple from your kingdom?” he asked.

  “West,” I replied, my voice steadier than I felt.

  “Right again,” Aziel nodded, his gaze fixed on mine. “And through all of this, I believe it is you that has been robbed most of all.”

  In that moment, I felt the raw sting of betrayal deep within, as if every promise of truth had been nothing but a lie. I thought of the quiet moments when I’d clutched my secret fears close, wondering if the whispers in my mind were my own or echoes of a dark legacy. I’d learned to trust nothing, not even the ghost that haunted my dreams, and now, as Aziel’s words sank into me, I realized that the monster I feared might be the very blood in my veins. Every word, every revelation, pulled me further into a chasm of self-doubt and sorrow. And amidst the crushing weight of his confession, I couldn’t help but wonder: was I destined to inherit this darkness? Or could I, somehow, carve out a sliver of light in the shadows my father had left behind?

  "You deserve to know the truth," Aziel said softly, his voice almost gentle despite the storm behind his eyes. "Because you are not your father, Tia. You are not his puppet. You have a choice."

  "A choice?" I echoed, the word sounding hollow and bitter. "What choice do I have? I'm bound to you, to him. I'm trapped."

  "You have the choice to break the cycle," he continued, his gaze burning with an intensity that sent shivers down my spine. "To reclaim your magic, to avenge your mother, to bring Corwin's reign to an end."

  He stepped closer, his hand reaching out to brush my cheek—his touch cool against my burning skin. I felt a shiver run through me, an unsettling blend of longing and dread. "But the choice is yours, Tia. You must decide what you are willing to sacrifice." Before I could gather my thoughts, he continued, "Two weeks," he said flatly as he turned to leave, his voice echoing in the quiet room. "The Spire’s alignment frays. When it slips, so does your grip on what you are." Each word hammered into me, a countdown that made my heart pound with both anticipation and fear.

  "Wait—" I reached for him, then froze, my voice caught in my throat. The question throbbed within me: Why let me rest? Why help? I was desperate for answers, for a glimmer of hope in a world that had offered me nothing but shadow and betrayal.

  He paused, his silhouette framed by flickering candlelight. For a heartbeat, his mask of indifference slipped, revealing a fissure of weariness—or perhaps something darker, like longing. "You mistake convenience for kindness, Tia. Rest." His words felt like a bittersweet reprieve, a cruel reminder that even mercy came at a cost.

  As the door sealed behind him and the runes flared one last time before dimming into the night, I was left alone with my racing thoughts. My mind churned with doubts and desires—each heartbeat a question: Could I ever break free from the legacy of darkness that bound me? I wondered if I was destined to carry this burden forever or if somewhere, beneath all this pain, I could find a way to reclaim the light that seemed so far out of reach.