The Blackwater
Crossing The river ran red at sunset.
Kael waded through the Blackwater Fork, his boots sinking into the silty bottom. The water burned where it touched the fresh claw marks on his forearm—three jagged furrows left by last night's encounter. He gritted his teeth against the sting, his fingers tightening around the haft of his axe. The weapon was heavy with dried ichor, the blackened remains of the vine-demon still clinging to its edge.
"Little mortal," the creature had crooned as it peeled itself from the trees, its voice like rustling leaves and cracking bark, "you smell of desperation and old blood."
It had lunged with thorned tendrils, its maw splitting wide enough to swallow his head whole. Two swings—that was all it had taken. The first severed its limbs, sending them writhing to the mud like dying snakes. The second split its skull, spilling black sap that hissed where it struck the earth.
Now, as he trudged onward, the river carried the remnants of the demon away, flaking off his blade like dried scabs.
Ahead, the jungle gave way to the Valley of Withered Trees.
The First Seeker
On the eighteenth morning, he found the remains.
The skeleton leaned against a petrified trunk, its fingers locked around a rusted sword. The skull had been split open, the edges blackened as if burned from within. A corroded plaque read: "Jorrik of Black Briar – Sought the Dagger. Found only hunger."
Kael exhaled through his nose. He'd heard the stories—whispers of men who'd ventured into the Dead Ridges. None returned.
He took the dead man's sword anyway.
The Dead Ridges
The dagger waited in a place the map hadn't marked.
Kael nearly missed the crevice—a slit in the obsidian cliffs, oozing black sap that clung to his clothes like tar. The air thickened with each step, pressing against his lungs as if the mountain itself resisted him.
Inside, the cavern breathed cold.
Crystals hung like inverted forests, their blue light twisting shadows into grasping fingers. At the centre stood an altar of basalt, runes older than mankind carved into its surface.
And upon it—
The Betrayer's Dagger.
Shorter than he'd imagined, no longer than half his forearm. A curved sliver of starless night, its hilt wrapped in leather older than kingdoms. The pommel's gem drank the light, pulsing faintly, as if something slumbered within.
Kael's scar burned. His fingers closed around the hilt—
Cold. Then burning. Then fused to his flesh like a brand.
A pulse of energy ripped through him, searing his veins black for a heartbeat before fading.
Silence.
Then—laughter. Not from behind him.
From the dagger itself.
"Thief," it whispered in Lira's voice.
The walls shuddered.
The Vein-Touched had not followed him in.
They had been waiting.
The Flight
Kael ran like death chased him.
Because it did.
The noblewoman came first—her jaw unhinging like a serpent's, veins pulsing black beneath marble skin. She moved on all fours, limbs bending in ways no human's should.
"Stole from us, little rabbit?" she sang, loping up the shale behind him. "Now you'll pay in screams."
He fought when cornered. The dagger moved with a will of its own, shearing through demon flesh like parchment. It drank their ichor, the gem glowing brighter with each kill.
But there were too many.
By the time he reached the Stone Emperor's plateau, his vision swam with blood. His side burned where talons had raked him. Behind him, the hunting party closed in—their voices weaving into a chorus:
"Join us. Feed us."
Then he saw it: the shrine's archway, gaping like a dead thing's jaws.
He threw himself inside.
The Stone Awakens
The Emperor's statue stood cracked but whole, one stone hand severed at the wrist.
Kael collapsed, his breath ragged. The dagger pulsed in his grip like a second heartbeat.
Then—
A voice. Not the demons'. Not the wind's.
Stone grinding on stone.
"Give... me... my hand..."
Kael didn't question. He grabbed the broken stone hand from the pedestal and pressed it into the dust.
The earth shuddered.
The statue's eyes blazed to life.
The noblewoman recoiled, her veins writhing. "You... were dead."
The Emperor's fist clenched.
"I was waiting."
Kael tried to rise—to fight—but a demon's talons punched through his chest, lifting him like a doll.
The Emperor caught him before he fell.
"You," the Stone Emperor growled, "wake me only to die?"
Blood bubbled on Kael's lips. "I've... fed you... my vengeance." His vision darkened. "Now... let me... see them... again."
The last thing he heard was the Emperor's roar—a sound that split the sky—as the darkness took him.
The Price of Vengeance
Kael opened his eyes.
Not to darkness.
Not to death.
Hearth-smoke.
Wildflowers.
A child's laughter—Elsie's laughter.
Lira's hand touched his shoulder, warm and calloused. "You kept us waiting," she murmured.
The dagger had lied.
It was never a weapon.
It was a key.
And as the Vein-Touched howled beyond the shrine's crumbling walls, the Stone Emperor roared—not in triumph, but in warning. The door was open. And Kael had stepped through.