I looked at Mira as she adjusted her coin purse. “The owner’s wife handled the rooms. Four for the night. Already paid for,” she said.

  “Good work.” I nodded toward Mira before scanning the rest of them.

  I leaned against the table, keeping my voice low. “Here’s the plan.”

  The others followed suit, pulling up chairs or leaning in, instinctively keeping their backs to the more boisterous drinkers.

  “We leave at midnight,” I continued. “For now, we’ll get some rest and a late breakfast.” I glanced at Rylas and Aleric. “You two will handle the horses. Get eight, make sure they’re sturdy and fast enough for the road ahead.”

  Rylas gave a short nod. Aleric, still rubbing his temple from lingering fatigue, sighed but nodded as well.

  “Mira, Selene,” I turned to them. “Stock up on supplies—rations, medicine, anything we might need for the journey to Old Milltown. Prioritize efficiency. We travel light.”

  Selene gave a thumbs-up, while Mira simply hummed in acknowledgment.

  “Lyrik, Ewin.” I tilted my head toward the livelier part of the inn. “See what you can dig up. News, rumors, anything of value. Get people talking.”

  Ewin grinned. “You mean Lyrik gets people talking while I drink?”

  “Exactly.”

  Lyrik scoffed. “I’m starting to think you only keep me around for my social skills.”

  I gave him a pointed look. “If the shoe fits.”

  Lyrik sighed dramatically but didn’t argue.

  “Where’s Vyk?” I scanned the room.

  The group exchanged glances.

  “Probably creeping on an old woman to scare her life away,” Ewin drawled, smirking as he leaned back in his chair.

  “Or he’s out there doing your job,” Rylas added dryly.

  Ewin rolled his eyes. “Whatever.”

  I sighed, shaking my head.

  Shifting the focus back, I continued, “Make sure to get some rest. It’ll take at least four days to reach Old Milltown.” I pushed my chair back, stretching slightly. “I’ll be in my room if you need anything.”

  “Of course, his highness needs his own room,” Lyrik smirked, arms crossed. “Back to scheming, ain’t ya?”

  I just smiled.

  Lyrik snorted, shaking his head. “What did I expect?” Then, his gaze landed on a young boy wiping down a table with a worn rag. “Oi, you there! Boy! Come ‘ere.”

  The boy hesitated for half a second before hurrying over, his wide eyes flicking between us.

  Rylas leaned forward, resting an elbow on the table. “What’s the specialty today?”

  At that, the boy brightened, puffing out his chest slightly as if he had been waiting for someone to ask.

  “Ah! Sirs, you’re in luck! Our specialty today is a hearty vegetable stew. It’s been simmering all day—rich, thick, and full of good, wholesome goodness. We’ve fresh bread from the oven to soak it up with.” Then, he paused and his gaze flicked toward Mira, voice dropping slightly as if sharing a secret. “If you’ve a bit of coin to spare, we’ve roasted a goose this day. Plump and juicy, cooked slow over the fire.”

  A collective hush fell over our group.

  Real food. Not charred meat cooked over a weak campfire. Not half-rotten rations bought from Twisted Trunk. Not stale bread hardened from cold nights.

  Real food.

  The first to react was Lyrik, who thumped his hand on the table, grinning ear to ear. “Excellent! Fill the whole damn table up with everything you’ve got! And bring some ale—the best you can offer.”

  Then, with a dramatic flourish, he shot up from his chair and turned to the gathered patrons, voice carrying over the tavern’s chatter.

  “The first round’s on me, good folks of White Creak!”

  The tavern roared in approval. Chairs scraped against the wooden floors, mugs clanked, and cheers erupted from drinkers eager for free ale. A few older men laughed, raising their tankards in salute, while a group of barmaids rolled their eyes but smiled all the same.

  Lyrik basked in the attention, grinning like a man who had just been knighted.

  Ewin leaned back in his chair, shaking his head. “I give it ten minutes before he’s singing.”

  Selene sighed but smiled nonetheless. “Five.”

  The boy rushed off, and soon, the first thing to arrive was the smell.

  A delicious wave of roasted herbs, slow-cooked broth, and freshly baked bread swept through the air. It was thick, mouthwatering, wrapping around us like a warm embrace after weeks in the cold. The fire in the hearth crackled, adding to the atmosphere, and the clatter of plates from behind the counter signaled that the feast was coming.

  Then came the food.

  Large wooden bowls of vegetable stew were set in front of us, the surface glistening with a rich sheen of oil and herbs. Thick slices of fresh bread followed, their golden crusts warm to the touch, steam still rising from their insides.

  And finally—the roasted goose.

  It was a glorious thing, golden brown with crisped skin that had been glazed and basted until it gleamed. The aroma of spices, butter, and slow-roasted fat curled through the air, so intoxicating that even Rylas, who usually ate in silence, exhaled in something that almost sounded like relief.

  There was no waiting.

  No planning.

  No need for caution.

  The moment the food was placed down, we tore into it.

  The first bite of stew was a revelation. Rich, hearty, seasoned perfectly—it filled the mouth with warmth and real flavor, something we hadn’t tasted in what felt like years.

  Lyrik groaned dramatically. “By the gods, I forgot what real food tastes like.”

  This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

  Ewin took a massive bite of bread, nodding through a full mouth. “It’s hot,” he mumbled, but he still took another bite, clearly uncaring.

  Rylas, never one to waste words, merely exhaled sharply, then went back in for another spoonful.

  Even Mira, usually the quietest among us when it came to meals, hummed under her breath before swallowing. “Decent,” she admitted, but her bowl was already half-empty.

  Aleric, ever the priest, whispered a quiet prayer of thanks before diving in.

  For a while, no one spoke.

  There was nothing to say.

  The food was warm. It was filling. It was good.

  After days in a ruined village, after six hours of travel with nothing but the taste of dried meat and dust in our mouths—this felt like a luxury.

  The ale came next, dark and foamy, cheap but surprisingly smooth. Lyrik lifted his mug high. “To not dying in the woods!”

  Mugs clinked together, and for a moment—just a moment—the heaviness of the past weeks faded.

  We ate, we drank, we relaxed.

  And then, slowly, we started to disperse.

  Lyrik was the first to finish, stretching with a loud groan before pushing back from the table. “I think it’s time I grace the fine folk of this establishment with my presence.”

  Ewin smirked. “You mean harass the locals until they either love or hate you?”

  Lyrik gasped dramatically. “How dare you? I am a pillar of conversation and charm.”

  Selene snorted. “A pillar of nonsense.”

  Undeterred, Lyrik stood up, ale in hand, and immediately dove into the crowd. Within seconds, he was chatting with an older man at the bar, gesturing wildly as if recounting some grand adventure.

  Rylas, shaking his head, stood as well, rolling his shoulders. “I’ll see if the stable has any decent horses.” He glanced at Aleric. “Coming?”

  Aleric nodded. “I’ll handle the negotiations.”

  One by one, the group filtered out, leaving only a few of us at the table.

  Mira returned from the counter, four keys in hand. She placed one in front of me. “Here. Room’s upstairs, second on the left.”

  I took it without question, standing up from my chair. “Thanks.”

  She nodded, pocketing the others before heading off to find Selene.

  I exhaled, rolling my shoulders.

  I made my way toward the stairs, weaving past laughing villagers and the hum of an alive town.

  I climbed the steps.

  I closed the door behind me, shutting out the noise of the tavern. For the first time in days, the air smelled of wood and candlewax instead of rot and blood.

  It was quiet.

  Almost too quiet.

  ***

  The gates of the abyss loomed before him.

  Two massive doors, carved from obsidian so dark it seemed to swallow the light, stood sealed like the entrance to another world. Silver veins ran through their surface, pulsating slowly, like the faint heartbeat of something ancient and unfathomable.

  Even standing before them felt wrong.

  Mark swallowed; his throat dry. He had seen wonders in his lifetime—stood on battlefields that tore the sky apart, held his own against titans, walked halls of power where kings whispered of war and conquest.

  Yet here, he felt like nothing.

  Two sentries stood at either side of the doors, clad in midnight-black armor that seemed forged from shadow itself. They did not shift. They did not speak. They did not need to. The very air around them crackled—not with mana, but with something deeper, something unspoken, as if the world itself had bent to accommodate their existence.

  And these were just the guards.

  Mark had thought himself powerful once. Celebrated. A force whispered about across the continent.

  But before them, he was barely even mortal.

  One of the sentries finally moved, a single gauntleted hand rising to press against the obsidian.

  The moment steel met stone; the doors opened.

  A silent parting, smooth, weightless. Not a creak, not a whisper of resistance. Just absolute compliance—as if the very fortress bent to the will of its true master.

  And beyond the threshold lay the throne room.

  Mark stepped forward.

  His first mistake.

  The air changed the moment he crossed the boundary.

  It was subtle—no sudden gust of wind, no visible shift. But something had altered.

  The world itself had become heavier.

  The chamber before him stretched into impossible vastness, as if the very concept of space had unraveled and reformed to accommodate something far beyond human scale.

  It was dark, endless, yet not void of opulence. Lavish beyond comprehension.

  Towering obsidian columns lined the sides, their twisted carvings spiraling toward the unseen ceiling. Sigils—ancient, crawling with meaning—etched themselves across every surface, pulsating with a slow, measured rhythm. Each carried weight. Purpose.

  Two grand chandeliers hung high above, each an abomination of impossible craftsmanship—silver and black crystal interwoven, suspended by nothing yet refusing to fall. They did not illuminate so much as they demanded visibility, casting a pale, unnatural glow that banished shadows only where it was permitted.

  And at the far end of the room, reigning over this titanic dominion, sat the Throne.

  It was colossal.

  An onyx monolith, jagged yet deliberate, too vast, too overwhelming to be made for human proportions. Silver veins ran through its surface, breathing, shifting, forming patterns that no eye could follow. It was less a seat and more a manifestation—a declaration that this was a place where dominion was absolute.

  But even the throne, this seat of ineffable power, paled before the one who sat upon it.

  The Empress.

  A presence so absolute it felt as though reality itself had adjusted to make space for her.

  She did not look up.

  Draped in immaculate white, she sat at ease, one hand resting lightly on the armrest, the other holding an unfurled scroll. She read in silence, her expression unbothered, detached—as if the affairs of this world no longer required her immediate concern.

  She was perfect.

  Not in a way that could be described in mortal terms, but in the way the moon was perfect—unreachable, untouchable, an eternal thing whose presence shaped the very tides of the world.

  Her hair, white as untouched snowfall, cascaded over the throne’s arm, spilling like liquid silver, gleaming even in the dim light. Her skin was pale, unmarked by time, untainted by imperfection—less like flesh and more like sculpted divinity.

  Even as she ignored him, her mere existence wrapped around his lungs, crushed his ribs, held him in a vice that neither hand nor blade had placed upon him.

  Mark’s body froze.

  His breath shook.

  Every fiber of his being screamed that he was in the presence of something beyond him.

  Then, another voice cut through the silence.

  “Captain Mark.”

  Not hers.

  Mark’s eyes darted down toward the base of the dais, where another figure stood.

  Cordelia Wolf.

  Dressed in raven-black, a contrast of darkness beneath the light, she exuded power in a way different from the Empress. If the Empress was the sky, this woman was the storm.

  Her gown, flowing like a cascade of midnight, clung to her form with effortless elegance. Her gaze, cold and measuring, pinned him in place just as efficiently as the throne’s presence.

  She was known across the continent. The Calamity of the Moonless Night.

  A monster in human form. A woman who could reduce cities to nothing if she so willed it.

  “Your report, if you would,” she said.

  Mark tried to respond.

  He could not.

  He couldn’t move.

  Couldn’t breathe.

  His very thoughts felt caged, bound by an unseen force that pressed down on every inch of his existence.

  Not magic. Not some spell.

  It was her.

  Even without acknowledging him, the Empress’s presence alone had shackled him in place.

  His knees buckled.

  His breath hitched.

  The world itself had decided he was beneath her.

  And then—

  “Speak.”

  A single command.

  A single permission.

  The weight lifted—just enough.

  Mark gasped, his body collapsing to one knee before he could even think. His head bowed, sweat beading at his brow, his hands clenching into fists against the floor.

  He had never bowed to kings. Never once knelt for emperors.

  But here?

  Here, there was no choice.

  “…My Empress,” he rasped, voice hoarse. “I bring my report.”

  Silence stretched.

  The Empress had not moved. She had not so much as acknowledged his presence. The weight of her throne-bound stillness pressed down on him, an unseen noose tightening with every second that passed.

  It wasn’t impatience. It wasn’t disinterest.

  It was deliberation.

  A slow, unhurried calculation that stripped him bare without her ever needing to look at him.

  Mark swallowed against the tightness in his throat, but his lungs barely obeyed.

  The only sound came from the measured tap, tap, tap of Cordelia Wolf’s nails against the gold, silver and ebon grimoire in her hands. The voice of the Calamity, when it came, was velvet-laced steel. “Go on.”

  He inhaled sharply.

  It took every ounce of discipline—every instinct he had honed as a warrior—to suppress the tremor threatening to creep into his voice. Because in this moment, he wasn’t a warrior.

  He was prey.

  “Wraiths recently had a major shift in power.” His voice was steady, but the air itself was unsteady, warping under the sheer force of the presence before him. “A new figure emerged—an unknown. He challenged two of the seven councilors and killed them both.”

  Still, no reaction.

  Not from the Empress.

  Not from Cordelia.

  Mark forced himself to continue. “As a result, the Head Councilor engaged this new power in combat.” He hesitated. “Their battle… ended in a tie.”

  He took a breath, both to fill his lungs and to steady himself. “His name,” Mark pressed on, “is Abaddon the Destroyer. He has since been inducted into the Wraiths as the new Sixth Councilor.”

  Silence.

  Mark understood.

  She did not care.

  Abaddon. The Wraiths. Their struggles for power.

  They were beneath notice.

  He swallowed, moving forward.

  “But more importantly,” he forced himself to say, “my men have confirmed it. There is indeed a Monolith in the mines beneath Silent Rock. We believe it originates from either the Age of Arcana or the Age of Shadows.”

  The air stilled.

  Not just the air—everything.

  A stillness that went beyond silence. A stillness that did not belong in this world.

  Mark’s pulse should have quickened, but it did not. His breath should have shuddered, but it remained suspended, trapped, as if existence itself waited.

  Then—

  The world exhaled.

  Mark’s stomach lurched.

  The air warped.

  It was not a sound. Not a gesture.

  But something had shifted.

  Something immeasurable.

  And for the first time since he had entered this throne room, he felt true fear.

  And Mark felt his body breaking beneath it.

  Cordelia finally spoke. “Is that all, Captain?”

  Mark’s forehead nearly brushed the floor. His heartbeat felt too loud.

  “One last piece of information.”

  Quick. Get it out.

  “We have encountered Gavin of the Royal Inquisition on multiple occasions,” he said, keeping his words carefully measured. “But as per your orders, we did not engage. He seemed to have informed the Aelorian Inquisition of the Wraiths’ activities in Silent Rock—however, he does not appear to have knowledge of the specifics.”

  He exhaled, slowly. “That is all, my Empress.”

  A final silence.

  Then, Cordelia spoke. “You are free to leave.”

  Relief almost cracked his ribs.

  He tried to stand.

  The weight did not lift.

  His body remained locked; knees pressed against the cold floor.

  Was there more? Had he failed?

  His lungs burned, but he did not dare inhale too sharply.

  Then—

  "Leave."

  The command did not come as a reprieve. It came as an absolution. A verdict.

  And the world released him.

  Mark rose immediately—bowed as deep as he could without collapsing—and turned on his heel, heading straight for the towering obsidian doors.

  They opened without a sound, a void parting to release him.

  He stepped through.

  The moment the doors sealed behind him—

  His legs gave out.

  The weight, the suffocating, crushing presence that had shackled his very soul, was gone.

  And yet—it wasn’t.

  Phantom pressure lingered, pressing against his ribs, coiled around his spine like a predator unwilling to let go. His mind knew he was free. His body did not.

  His knees hit the stone floor with a dull, resounding thud, his muscles trembling so violently that he barely caught himself on his hands. Breath. He needed to breathe. But his lungs—

  Had they forgotten how?

  The silence of the corridor should have been a relief. Should have felt less. But his own ragged, gasping breaths were deafening, and the vast emptiness around him no longer felt like an escape—only a reminder of what he had survived.

  His forehead pressed to the cold stone, grounding himself in its solidity. It was real. The world was real. He was still here.

  Not there.

  Not there.

  A laugh nearly tore itself from his throat—hollow, disbelieving. Had it only been minutes? A fraction of an hour? It felt like lifetimes had passed in that throne room.

  For the first time in his life—Mark prayed.

  Not for strength. Not for victory.

  But in relief. That he was alive. That he had left that room with his mind, his will, his soul still intact.

  And he swore to the gods above—

  Never again.

  Not for power. Not for gold. Not for all the kingdoms in existence.

  He would never return there again.

  But the fate was a fickle lady. And he would come to know it soon.