Kael's reign begins. He is loved but feared. In a final act of humanity, he dissolves the Watchers and outlaws dark magic… but the shadow still lingers.
The eastern winds still carried the ashes of war. Lysandre, the capital of a thousand towers, was slowly rising from its knees like a proud beast refusing to die. Black banners, embroidered with silver sigils, now fluttered over its scorched ramparts — the colors of the new king. Kael of Elsareth, the illegitimate son made sovereign, walked the marble corridors of the reclaimed palace with a gaze as heavy as the obsidian crown on his brow.
The flames of rebellion had been extinguished, but none dared call it peace. A thick silence blanketed the kingdom — not of serenity, but of something waiting to awaken. The people had seen him emerge from the shadows, defy Aramon's tyranny, bring hope to the broken streets. But they had also seen him take the throne that never forgives.
The Weight of the Crown
Kael no longer slept.
Since his coronation, his dreams were haunted by the whispers of the Throne. He heard them even while awake — a chorus of ancient voices, long-dead kings, and unforgotten oaths. In binding his soul to the living artifact, a part of his humanity had withered.
He often sat alone in the High Council Chamber, now echoing and deserted. Once filled with nobles and schemers, its great seats stood empty. Traitors were dead. Loyalists gone. The old order broken.
The Watchers of the Shadow, once the hidden hand of the realm, were disbanded by royal decree. Their secrets were not burned — Kael knew better than to destroy knowledge. But their power was broken.
"There shall be no more rule by fear," he had declared in his first address.
"Dark magic is forbidden. The throne will no longer drink from blood."
But his eyes had betrayed his voice. Even those who loved him could see it — their king was no longer whole.
Ysara
She stood often by the great palace windows, staring out at the ruined gardens below. Ysara, once the heir of light, now the queen of shadows, wore robes of midnight stitched with dead stars. She had not taken her place beside him on the throne — Kael had refused to bind her soul to the Obsidian Seat. Out of love, he had said.
But she saw the truth.
"You're drifting from me," she whispered one night, their hands entwined beneath the chill of starlight.
"It's not me, Ysara… It's the throne."
She did not reply. What answer could there be? Their love had defied a kingdom, survived a civil war. But it could not outlast the throne.
The Twilight Decrees
In a final act of clarity, Kael summoned the remaining lords, city commanders, and wandering mages. There, in the ruined Hall of Echoes, he announced a series of decrees that would shape the future of Elsareth:
The Watchers of the Shadow are hereby disbanded.
No secret society shall operate outside the authority of the crown.Dark magic is outlawed.
All pacts, tomes, or artifacts bound to the Outer Darkness are to be surrendered or destroyed.A People's Council shall be formed.
For the first time in history, the voice of the common folk would sit beside nobility in governance.
Some praised the boldness. Others whispered it was folly. Power does not vanish with words. And the throne, though quiet, still pulsed with unseen hunger.
The Ghosts Beneath the Throne
Kael began to spend more time in the Obsidian Chamber, where the Throne of Shadows stood beneath a cracked dome of stars. He sat, unmoving, for hours. Listening.
The whispers grew louder. Older. They came from beyond — remnants of kings past, devoured by the throne's pact. Sometimes he saw their silhouettes etched in the obsidian surface — eyeless faces, screaming silently.
"You think you rule," a voice rasped.
"But you are already devoured."
He gripped the Blade of Askar, forged in ancient rebellion, but even sacred steel could not sever spiritual chains.
The Whisper Persists
Incidents began to surface.
In distant provinces, children were born with marks of shadow upon their foreheads. Former Watchers vanished without trace, as if summoned by something deeper than loyalty.
A chilling rumor spread:
The Throne was not merely a seat, but a mouth. A prison. A gate.
Kael knew the truth.
He had glimpsed the eye hidden beneath the obsidian during the Rite of Binding. The throne was not a relic — it was a living covenant. As long as he sat upon it, he fed the thing sealed within.
He was no king. He was a jailor to an ancient hunger.
The Price of Silence
Ysara confronted him under moonlight.
"You think abolishing the Watchers is enough?" she said coldly.
"As long as that throne exists, the realm remains cursed."
"You're asking me… to betray my own soul."
"I'm asking you to remember who you were before the whispers."
Kael gave no answer. That night, he descended alone into the catacombs beneath the palace — into the original chamber where the throne had first been forged.
There, he found a hidden truth. The first crown was not created to rule…
It was created to seal.
To bind a force too terrible to name.
Kael realized then: every monarch who sat on that throne had been a sacrifice. Willingly or not.
The Tears of the Crown
The next morning, the bells of Lysandre tolled across the city.
Kael appeared upon the palace terrace, clad in his war robes. The crown of obsidian rested in his hands. He spoke to the people gathered below:
"You have seen me rise without a name, fight for you, bleed for you.
But you will not see me become what the throne demands.
I give up the crown."
Silence followed — vast and profound.
Kael then walked to the Sun Altar, the only place in the kingdom where the throne's shadows held no sway. And there, under the eyes of sky and stone, he laid the crown down.
The earth quaked.
The sky darkened.
And the Throne's voice roared within his mind:
"You break the pact.
Then I shall seek another."
Kael fell to his knees. Blood trickled from his mouth. But he smiled.
He had won. The man had defeated the king.
Epilogue: The King Without a Throne
Kael lived. Weakened, broken, but alive.
He vanished into the highlands, far from court. Ysara ruled in his stead, never as queen, but as regent — beloved by the people. She never sat on the Obsidian Throne.
The cursed seat was sealed deep beneath the palace, locked behind walls of silence and guarded by blind priests.
But in the ruins of the old palace, some say you can still hear it whisper.
A name.
Kael.
And a warning:
"Crowns never forgive."
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End of the novel