Chapter Seventy: The Final Key
Tarn and Lysa stood in front of the Heartstone, the world trembling on the edge of silence around them. Everything that had come before—the battles, the sacrifices, the hopes of the fallen—had led to this singular moment. The stone pulsed with a slow, rhythmic energy, like the heartbeat of the kingdom itself. Each throb of light from within it bathed the walls of the chamber in a golden glow that danced like firelight in a cave.
Tarn's hand shook as he reached out, his fingertips trembling as they hovered inches from the stone's smooth surface. The energy vibrated through the air, through his bones, deep into his very soul. He could hear the whispers now—countless voices woven together like wind rustling through ancient leaves. They echoed through the hall and through his mind. The dead. The unborn. The forgotten. All of them were there, suspended in the memory of the world.
"This is it," Lysa said beside him, her voice thick with emotion, barely more than a whisper. Her hands were clenched at her sides, knuckles white. "The stone can turn the tide. But it must be used correctly. We can't be swayed by fear... or by the seduction of power."
Tarn's thoughts were a storm. He had seen what the stone could show him—visions of what might come to pass, of paths splintering like rivers in flood. But with the weight of a thousand years bearing down on his shoulders, could he truly make the choice? Kael had faced a similar burden. He had wielded the fire of revolution and stood against fate with open defiance. But had Kael truly defeated the Serpent, or had he only delayed the inevitable? Had his defiance planted the seeds of its return?
The Heartstone flickered as if reacting to Tarn's doubt. For a fleeting moment, the stone dimmed, and the voices grew quiet. Tarn felt the answer just out of reach—an intangible thread brushing past the edge of his awareness before slipping away.
He turned to Lysa. Her face, though weary, was steady. Her eyes locked onto his. "You have to make a choice, Tarn," she said, more firmly now. "The world needs you to decide. Will you become the king who finally ends this? Or will you allow the Serpent's cycle to continue, again and again?"
He looked back to the stone.
He thought of Caedren, still out there on the battlefield, leading what might be the final charge. He thought of the Ashen Oath, of the kingdom of Highrest and its dream to build something new from the ashes. He thought of the children in the ruined villages, of the forests scorched and the skies darkened. He thought of the weightless silence that followed every war, and the way the world always seemed to bend back toward suffering.
His hand hovered again.
And then, with a deep, shuddering breath, he closed his eyes and placed his palm against the Heartstone.
A surge of energy tore through him, sudden and immense. It was not pain in the physical sense—but something deeper, something soul-bound. It burned through his chest, into his mind, into his memories. He felt as though he were dissolving, every particle of his being pulled into the essence of the Heartstone itself.
Time shattered.
Tarn was no longer in the sacred hall. He stood in a place outside of place, surrounded by a void shimmering with starlight and shadow. There were no walls, no sky, only possibility—endless, terrible, beautiful possibility. The past, the present, the future, all converged here, and all were open before him.
And then, he saw Kael.
Not the Kael of legend, but the man—the rebel king, bruised and battle-worn. He stood in a memory of the old world, facing a similar decision. Tarn watched as Kael chose revolution, chose defiance, chose to tear down a throne that had rotted from the inside. But behind that act of courage was pain, and loneliness, and regret. In defeating the tyrants of his age, Kael had inadvertently opened the gate for another: the Serpent, the idea of control itself, which had survived in the cracks of power and grown in silence.
Kael turned to him—not in body, but in spirit—and Tarn could feel the weight of the man's final thoughts. He had tried to set the world free, but even freedom had become another chain. Power could not be wielded without consequence.
Tarn fell to his knees in that infinite space, overwhelmed. He wept—not from fear, but from the unbearable clarity of it all. The Serpent could not be slain like a beast on the field. It was not a creature. It was a pattern, a hunger. It was the part of the human soul that longed to dominate, to order, to impose.
And yet—he saw something else.
A possibility.
The Serpent's end would not come through might. It would come through relinquishment. Through unity. Through trust. Through the breaking of the very idea that any one soul could rule them all.
The Heartstone showed him the end—not of the world, but of the cycle.
Tarn opened his eyes.
He was back in the hall, lying on the stone floor. Lysa knelt beside him, shaking his shoulders, her voice calling his name.
"Tarn! What did you see?"
He sat up slowly. The Heartstone pulsed one final time, then faded. Its light dimmed, not with defeat, but with peace—like a torch passed to another hand.
Tarn rose to his feet.
"We can't win by force," he said, his voice hoarse but resolute. "Not entirely. The Serpent's body may fall on the battlefield—but its spirit will return if we build the same world again."
Lysa's eyes widened. "Then what do we do?"
"We end the idea of kingship," Tarn said. "We end the old ways. We give the people not a ruler, but a voice. We tear down the throne and leave it empty. Not as a symbol of defeat—but of release."
He stepped forward and reached for the ancient key embedded in the Heartstone's pedestal. With a firm pull, he removed it. The chamber shook faintly, as if exhaling.
He turned to Lysa, a faint smile on his face despite the tears still on his cheeks.
"Come. The world is waiting."
Outside, in the storm of war, something shifted. The winds calmed. The magic in the air recoiled, as if sensing that something ancient and unbreakable had changed. On the distant hills, Caedren paused and looked to the horizon. He did not know what had happened—but in his heart, he felt it.
The final key had been turned.
And the age of kings was ending.