Chapter 5 The Smell of Burning Incense

The heavy smell of melting tallow and bitter, burning sage filled the underground ritual chamber. The room was massive, carved deep out of the black bedrock beneath the palace foundations. A hundred silver candles burned along the circular walls, their small flames casting a sickly, pale light over the stone floor.

At the very center of the space stood a low altar made of smooth, gray marble.

Lira lay flat on the cold stone, her hands and ankles tied tight with heavy leather straps that bit into her skin. Her long white dress was soaked with cold sweat, the fabric sticking to her skin. Her breath came in short, desperate gasps as she stared up at the high, arched ceiling. Every time she tried to move her legs, a sharp, twisting pain shot through her low stomach. The baby inside her kicked hard, rolling violently against her ribs.

“Keep her still,” a low, raspy voice ordered from the dark.

High Priest Malakor stepped into the pale candle-light. He wore a long, blood-red robe that dragged through the dark gutters of the floor. His face was thin and white, like old parchment, and his fingernails were filed down to sharp, yellow points. In his right hand, he carried a long, curved silver dagger. The blade was covered in tiny, carved lines that seemed to twist and crawl whenever the candlelight hit the metal.

Behind him, King Eldric leaned against a tall stone pillar, his gold crown gleaming under the dark ceiling. He held a small cup of wine in his hand, his fingers tapping lazily against the metal.

“Is the moon in position, Malakor?” the king asked, his voice echoing softly against the wet stone walls. “The guards in the garden are blowing their horns. The boy has broken out of the lower pits.”

Malakor did not look up from the altar. He reached out with a cold, greasy hand and pressed his palm flat against Lira’s swollen stomach.

Lira flinched, her teeth clicking together as she tried to pull away from his touch. “Get your filthy hands off my baby,” she whispered, her voice raw from hours of crying in the dark.

“The child’s blood is hot, Your Majesty,” Malakor said, ignoring her completely. He lifted his hand, his fingers covered in a thin, greasy oil that smelled of copper. “The shadow line is fully awake inside the womb. If we do not cut the vessel open before the midnight hour passes, the power will anchor itself into the child's bones. Then, not even the high silver seals will be able to drain it.”

King Eldric took a slow sip from his cup, his eyes fixed on Lira’s pale face. “Darius was a good tool while he lasted. A shame his father didn't teach him how to keep his mouth shut. He actually believed the old man died of a mountain cough.”

Lira twisted her wrists against the leather bounds, the rough hide stripping the skin from her arms until fresh blood ran down her palms. “He will kill you for this, Eldric,” she spat out, a small speck of red spit hitting the king's leather boot. “He won the war for you. He broke the southern lords. He will break your throne into kindling.”

The king did not move his feet. He looked down at the red spot on his leather boot, his face turning hard and still. “Your husband is currently running through my orchard like a mad dog, girl. My shadow hunters have iron arrows that eat through his dark veins with every strike. By the time he reaches these steps, he will be nothing but a gray corpse.”

Malakor raised the curved silver dagger high into the air, the jagged edge catching the pale light of the candles. He began to chant in a low, rhythmic language that made the very air inside the chamber feel heavy and thick. The silver lines on the blade began to glow with a faint, purple light.

“Darius!” Lira screamed, her voice cracking as she threw her head back against the marble altar. She closed her eyes tight, her tears running down her ears into her messy hair. “Darius, please!”

The heavy iron-bound doors of the upper sanctum did not just open—they exploded inward, sending massive splinters of oak and iron studs flying across the polished marble floor of the temple.

Darius stepped through the smoke, his breath coming in white, ragged plumes that hissed in the warm air of the upper hall. He did not look like the man who had ridden into the capital three days ago. The black veins had completely consumed his neck and jaw, reaching up to his cheekbones like a mask of cracked, black glass. His eyes were solid, ink-black stones, the white parts entirely gone.

In his right hand, he held Marek’s steel sword. The blade was chipped and covered in thick, dark blood that dripped silently onto the floor.

Behind him, Elara stumbled through the ruined doorway, her face the color of old ash. She was leaning heavily against the doorframe, her gray cloak completely soaked through with red from the arrow wound in her side. “Darius… wait,” she gasped out, her hand reaching toward his shoulder. “The floor… look at the floor stones.”

Darius did not stop. He took a heavy step forward, his boots leaving dark, bloody prints on the white marble.

Suddenly, a bright, blinding line of white light snapped into existence right beneath his foot.

A massive circle of ancient silver runes, carved deep into the floor stones centuries ago, flared to life with the intensity of a midday sun. The moment Darius’s boot touched the silver line, a loud, crackling sound filled the hall. The ambient shadows around his shoulders did not just recede—they caught fire.

Darius let out a loud, breathless roar as a wave of pure, white heat slammed into his chest, throwing his heavy body five feet backward. He hit the stone floor hard, his stolen sword clattering away across the room. The black lines on his arms began to smoke and sizzle, turning a bright, painful red under his skin as the holy magic of the sanctum burned through the darkness.

“I told you!” Elara hissed, dropping to her knees as she dragged her body closer to him. She pulled a small iron dagger from her belt and drove the point straight into the palm of her own left hand. “The high mages built these floors to trap your kind! The silver seals will turn your own blood into liquid fire if you try to cross them with an open mind!”

Darius lay on his back, his teeth grinding together so hard a sharp piece of his back tooth cracked off in his mouth. The pain in his chest was a blinding, suffocating weight. He could feel the shadows inside his veins screaming, pulling back into the dark corners of his heart to escape the blinding white light of the floor.

But through the loud crackle of the burning silver runes, a distant sound reached his ears from the deep holes beneath the floorboards.

It was Lira’s voice. A faint, broken scream that cut through the solid rock like a knife.

“Darius!”

The sound changed everything. The burning pain in his chest didn't disappear—it simply stopped mattering.

Darius drove his calloused fingers into the cracks between the floor stones, forcing his heavy body back up onto his knees. The white light from the silver circles rose up around his face like waves of heat from an open furnace, blistering the skin on his jaw and forehead. The black veins on his arms broke open, spilling a thick, dark fluid that turned to black smoke before it could hit the floor.

“Darius, stop!” Elara screamed, her silver-rimmed eyes wide with pure terror as she watched his skin start to peel. “You are going to burn yourself to ash! Let me find the anchor stone! Give me time to break the seal!”

“There is no time,” Darius growled out.

The double voice was gone now, replaced by a raw, scraping rattle that sounded like a dying animal. He reached out with his bare, blistered hand and grabbed the hilt of his fallen steel sword. He forced himself onto his feet, his muscles shaking violently as he took another step directly into the center of the silver circle.

Sizzle.

The smell of his own burning flesh rose from his boots. The ink-black lines on his neck pulsed with a frantic, desperate rhythm, fighting against the holy light of the temple. The skin on his forearms split open, revealing the dark, cold void pulsing beneath his flesh.

“Take it,” Darius whispered into the empty, blinding white air of the hall. He looked up at the high ceiling, his black eyes burning with a wild, terrifying focus. “Take my flesh. Take my mind. Take every single piece of what I was. Just give me enough to reach the bottom of those stairs.”

Deep within the dark spaces of his mind, the countless cold voices of the ancestors let out a loud, synchronized roar of satisfaction.

The void inside his chest didn't just rise—it erupted. A massive, solid wave of pitch-black smoke poured out of his open wounds, so thick and heavy that it completely smothered the white light of the silver runes. The silver circles on the floor cracked and split apart under the sheer weight of the darkness, the ancient stones shattering into small gray pebbles.

The hall went pitch black, saved only by the faint, purple fire burning along Darius’s bare shoulders.

He did not look back at the ruined floor. He did not look at Elara, who was staring at him from the doorway with a face full of absolute horror. He walked straight toward the dark iron hatch behind the main altar, his heavy boots kicking the broken silver pieces out of his path.

He reached the iron ring of the trapdoor, his black, veined fingers wrapping around the cold metal. With a single, brutal yank, he tore the heavy iron door completely off its hinges, throwing it across the room where it smashed into a marble pillar.

The dark, narrow stairs led straight down into the smell of sage and fresh blood.

Darius stepped into the hole, his boots silent against the rock as he descended into the deep dark below.