The voice began as a vibration in Theron's bones.
It wasn't sound, not really—more like a pulse from the earth itself. A rhythm that matched his heartbeat. A whisper beneath the wind.
> Come.
It called to him in the quiet moments—just before dawn, just before sleep. And always, it led his eyes south. Toward the crags beneath the Blackbone Ridge.
The others didn't hear it.
But Elira saw it in his eyes.
And when he packed a satchel of lightstones and knives without speaking, she was already behind him.
"You're not going without me," she said.
---
The caverns beneath Blackbone Ridge weren't on any map.
Not even in Naeria's ancient scrolls.
They were known only in half-lost warnings and the kind of stories that made wolves bare their throats in fear.
> "Where the Stone breathes, time forgets."
The entrance opened between two broken roots, almost like a wound in the mountain.
Dark.
Cold.
Alive.
---
Elira's starlight led the way.
Theron moved in silence, eyes flicking between runes carved into the walls—so old even their magic had decayed into dust.
The whisper came again.
> Closer, blood-born. Beneath the skin of the world.
He didn't flinch.
Elira touched his arm. "Who's calling you?"
"I don't know," he murmured. "But they know me."
---
The air thickened the deeper they went.
Their light barely held the shadows back.
And then—the passage widened.
Into a chamber of stone that pulsed with forgotten energy.
At its center: a pedestal.
And on it, a crown of silver bone, wrapped in roots and embedded with a black crystal that shimmered like a frozen scream.
Theron stepped closer.
Elira hissed, "Don't touch it."
"I'm not," he said. "It's touching me."
---
The voice boomed now—not outside, but within his skull.
> You are the shadow-bearer. The child of the star-sundered line. Take the crown. Take your name.
Theron fell to one knee.
Sweat poured down his back.
He saw flashes—of a throne carved from obsidian, of beasts kneeling before him, of the world burning with a pale blue fire.
He saw himself—not as he was.
But as something more.
---
Elira knelt beside him, forcing her light between him and the crown.
"Theron," she snapped, "you don't need it."
His voice came rough. "It knows what I am."
"You're my brother," she said. "You're a protector. Not a tyrant."
"But what if this is who I'm meant to be?"
"What if it's not?" she said quietly.
---
He looked into her eyes.
And saw himself reflected not as a weapon—but as a choice.
He stood.
The crown trembled.
But he did not take it.
Instead, he reached for Elira's hand.
And turned away.
---
Behind them, the pedestal cracked.
The chamber rumbled.
The voice grew softer—like a disappointed father.
> You turn from your inheritance. But the storm still waits.
They fled just as the walls began to collapse.
---
By moonrise, they returned to camp.
Dust-covered. Silent.
Selene met them at the edge of the glade.
Kael strode toward them first—relief flickering in his eyes.
But it was Naeria who asked, "Did you find it?"
Theron looked back once, toward the ridge.
"No," he said. "It found me."
---
That night, he sat beside Elira beneath the stars.
"Thank you," he said.
"For what?"
"For not letting me become something I wouldn't recognize."
Elira leaned her head on his shoulder.
"You're already becoming what we need."
---
But far beneath the ridge, in a shattered cavern...
The crown pulsed once.
And the black crystal whispered again.
> He will return.
> They always do.
---