His brother's rooms were locked.
Father had ordered it. Illeria made sure it was done.
Everything that had belonged to Daren was removed, covered up, locked away in mourning.
No one lived in the tower he had supposedly fallen from.
Even the maids crossed themselves when walking past.
Nathan had no intention of going there.
But his feet carried him anyway.
He wandered through Vir'Vairi, the castle of the Eldriths —
through hollow corridors lined with portraits that stared with dusty eyes, past tapestries that smelled of damp.
The castle might've been one of the quietest places on earth.
And that quietness infuriated Nathan.
He turned down a hallway. Passed a shuttered balcony. A scorched stained glass window — where he and Daren once competed in knife-throwing. Further down — the library.
Then, his door.
Locked.
No key.
He was about to turn away when, out of the shadows — as if stepping from the wall itself — a figure emerged.
A wine-red military coat with silver threading. Tall boots polished to a mirror shine.
A straight posture. A patient, waiting gaze.
The face — like a half-forgotten dream: vaguely familiar, but hard to place.
— I kept wondering when you'd finally decide to show up, Lord Nathan, — the man said with a slight bow.
Nathan turned, slowly, without surprise.
— Ragnar. I thought you'd left ages ago.
Vanished far away from this cursed castle.
You've got no one left to protect.
So why are you here?
— I've served Lord Daren since his cradle, — Ragnar answered, stepping closer.
— And not even death, — he added, each step silent and deliberate, like a ghost from the past,
— can release me from my oath.
— You… mourn him?
— Mourn? Well, you know…
I've seen many deaths. But his—
Yes, his death truly tore at my heart.
Suicide is always hard to accept...
— No need to lie, Sir Ragnar.
You're only here because my father ordered it.
Nathan's words struck with precision.
— You're not guarding memories — you're guarding secrets.
His voice was calm, but the words landed like drops of poison — slow, deliberate, inescapable. He knew where to aim.
Ragnar froze.
His eyes met Nathan's — the same eyes once held by the man he'd served.
But there was no fear in them.
Only cold resolve.
He didn't reply.
He simply sighed, pulled a ring of keys from his coat pocket, and tossed them into the air.
Metal clinked softly against Nathan's palm.
— You're not the first to get curious.
Others from your family came before you — each with their own reasons.
I doubt there's much left to find.
Nathan didn't respond.
He stared at the keys — as if they were the last echo of a life he once knew — then stepped toward the door.
The lock clicked.
It sounded like the sigh of an ancient beast.
And the door creaked open.
His brother's room.
He had entered it a thousand times.
And yet now it felt unfamiliar.
A cloak was thrown over the back of a chair.
The desk was buried in papers.
A cracked globe lay on the floor.
The air smelled of wax, tea, and metal.
A chair lay toppled. Torn clothes everywhere. Even the bed was broken and half-dismantled.
The entire room looked like a battlefield.
Nathan didn't move.
He just stood there.
His chest hollow, as if he were staring at a body — just without the body.
He sat on the edge of the broken bed.
It groaned under his weight, nearly collapsing further.
On the windowsill lay an open book.
"Theory of Stable Essence: Between-Worlds and Labyrinths."
The bookmark looked recent.
He didn't remember the page, but the margins were filled with his brother's handwriting — neat, blue ink, the letters pressed deep, as if carved.
"Layer by layer. A city within a city. The streets shift. Architecture as memory.
The key — never look back."
Nathan scoffed.
So typical.
Riddles. Labyrinths.
Daren had always spoken in strange ways.
He was obsessed with the Dark Isle, dead waters, relics, and mad books other miracle-workers wouldn't even touch.
Nathan walked around the room.
Scattered on the desk — scraps.
A broken ring. Coins from distant kingdoms.
Under a false floorboard, wrapped in parchment — a notebook.
Inside — names.
Dozens.
Surnames with no family lines.
Signatures.
Strange symbols — sharp-edged, almost runic.
His fingers paused on one of Daren's favorite books.
"A Tale of Death."
His brother had read it over and over — until the pages began to whisper to him.
The main character was Death itself.
And it always played chess with humans.
The cruel part — Death always won.
The only thing it allowed…
was for a person to choose how they played their one and only game.
Nathan had always found that book dull. Dry. Predictable.
But Daren… Daren somehow found something special in it.
He opened it — randomly, with a familiar flick of the wrist, as if expecting to see an old illustration or a long-forgotten fold.
But instead — something else.
Between the pages lay a folded sheet.
Thick parchment, written in neat handwriting, with a faint watermark that shimmered silver when the moonlight from the window slid across it.
The words were simple — yet carried a chill, an eerie weight of something left unsaid:
Pass beneath the White Shadow.
Second day.
Third tower.
Four chimes.
The one who remembers — waits.
No name. No seal. Not even a hint of who it was meant for.
He read it to the end — and at that very moment, the parchment crumbled into dust, vanishing as if it had never existed.
Nathan didn't flinch.
Didn't gasp.
Didn't even blink.
He stood still, holding the open book — as if waiting for it to whisper something more.
But the pages had fallen silent again.
Only the moonlight remained — resting on a watermark that no longer existed.
What was that?
A conspiracy?
A secret club?
An order?
He clenched his fist.
His heart beat twice as hard — not from fear, but something else. A feeling.
That his brother had known more.
That behind his death — there was something.
And the invitation…
It was one-time only.
Letters like that didn't last.
Twelve hours at most.
They vanished either right after being read — or when their time ran out.
But Daren had died a week ago.
A week.
He couldn't have left it himself.
Which meant — someone else had placed it here.
After.
Someone had come into this room after Daren's death.
Did that mean, if Nathan followed it — it would lead him straight to a member of his own family?
He took the book with him and stepped out of the room.
Then turned to the knight.
— Sir Ragnar. — His voice was calm. Almost distant. — His death... Are we certain it was suicide? Not even a chance he… slipped?
— Lord Nathan, — he said firmly.
His voice was steady — honed like a blade.
— I can state with absolute certainty: it was suicide.
The words rolled down the corridor like a slow echo.
Nathan exhaled.
And without another glance, vanished around the corner.
The castle was quiet.
But the kingdom — wasn't.
Word had come from the capital.
The Council had announced an expedition to the Dark Isle.
They were selecting the best: miracle-workers, trackers, historians, cipher-masters.
Many wanted in.
Ten ships.
The goal — to retrieve an artifact.
No one said which.
Not even its name was mentioned.
Everything was done in silence. In haste.
With unease in every letter.
The Dark Isle was not just land.
It was a scar.
Once, a thousand years ago, cities stood there.
Great miracle-workers built them from living stone, breathing will into the walls.
Towers knew the names of their masters.
Streets shifted with their moods.
And beneath the island — the waters hid bones that weren't human.
Something older.
Shapeless — but sentient.
Then everything vanished. Disappeared.
Legends spoke of a curse.
Of a sacrifice.
Of a miracle-worker who had tried to rewrite the very essence of the world — and the world broke under the weight.
Now the island wandered.
Sometimes it was gone.
Sometimes it appeared — like a stain, a glitch on the horizon.
And now, just as the banquet of the new King of the Dawn Shore was being held, the island had returned again.
Nathan stood by the window in his room, watching the sun slip beyond the edge of the water.
He thought about how quickly everything changes.
A week ago, he had been just the irritated, unnecessary son.
Now he held an invitation into the unknown — and listened to whispers of survivors from the Dark Isle whose eyes had burned out of their skulls.
He didn't know what he would do.
He wasn't making plans.
He didn't crave power, or revenge, or even meaning.
He just kept walking forward — because there was nowhere left to go back to.
At the moment, Nathan was entirely alone with himself, living what felt like an ordinary, quiet life.
He loved spending his evenings sitting on the edge of the western tower, watching as the city below slowly faded in the crimson light of sunset. And beyond that — the endless sea, lulling him with its constancy.
It was during those moments, when his mind grew silent and hollow — like an old library long since abandoned — that the strangest, most reckless thoughts began to take shape.
The first one, sticky and slow like cold honey, was painfully simple:
"This might've been my most unforgettable birthday."
Paradoxical.
No gifts. No words.
Only the black shape of an island, waiting out at sea.
And the second thought was bolder.
Almost insolent.
"Maybe... I should try joining the expedition. Learn something. Gain experience."
It didn't let go.
It sounded foolish — but there was a spark to it.
And maybe, just maybe, that spark was curiosity in disguise.
He glanced down, toward the training yard below.
One of his brothers was there — hands red with effort, body slick with sweat.
He wasn't an heir either, nor especially remarkable among their many siblings.
But there was strength in him — natural, quiet, carved by years of discipline.
For a moment, their eyes met.
The brother looked up at Nathan — coldly, with a faint hint of disdain — and then turned away.
Nathan simply smirked and turned his gaze to the wine bottle left on the windowsill.
— To my health, — he whispered.
And drained the glass to the bottom.
Then he turned — and with a steady step, walked toward the Third Tower.