The road west from Charbrink was less a path and more a suggestion—a faint ripple across the ashlands where empire transit lines had once run. Agro's hooves kicked up fine, grey dust, the wind a constant, thin lament against my cloak. Behind us, Charbrink dwindled into a smudge, its fragile, clinging light swallowed by the vast, indifferent expanse of the broken world.
My body ached. Not just the fatigue from the dash out of Hollowstone, or the scrapes from the Ashborn fight, but a deeper resonance now. A metallic hum settled in my bones, mirroring the Crown in my pack. It had woken up. Not with the frantic, demanding pulse of a seeker, but with the slow, deliberate thrum of a leviathan stirring. And the shards—each one a splinter of that leviathan, stitching fragments of a forgotten king into the seams of my own being. The sword forms from the last one were clearer now, movements flowing almost subconsciously. It was unsettling, this new grace. My own steps felt too heavy, too clumsy, as if my body was trying to shed an old skin.
The land began to shift. The rolling ash dunes gave way to crags of exposed earth, then jagged, rust-colored cliffs. These were the Veinfall Cliffs—the ancient arteries of the empire, laid bare. Massive, corroded pipes, thick as old-growth trees, snaked across the rock faces, some ruptured, bleeding faint, phosphorescent green or blue effluvium that quickly dried to a powdery residue. The air here was different—sharp, metallic, with an electric tang that prickled the back of my throat. It smelled like old blood and forgotten power.
Agro snorted, his ears twitching, nostrils flaring. He didn't like it. He could feel the low thrum of the buried conduits beneath his hooves, a seismic pulse too subtle for human ears, but clear to a beast.
"Easy, boy," I murmured, patting his neck. "Just the world breathing its last."
The Crown pulsed in response, a warmth spreading from my spine, coiling through my chest. Its whispers were clearer here, no longer just fractured images, but almost coherent sensations. Follow. The current. Remember.
The cliffs grew steeper, the exposed Veins more numerous, forming a labyrinth of corroded metal and crumbling rock. We had to dismount, leading Agro carefully through narrow passes where the ancient pipes formed natural tunnels, their interiors dark and echoing. Water, black with sediment, dripped from unseen fissures, pooling in crystalline puddles on the metal floor.
Then the Rust Jungles began. Not trees, not living plants, but towering, skeletal structures of salvaged metal—twisted girders, collapsed bridges, skeletal cranes—all consumed by creeping, rust-colored vines that choked the iron heart out of everything. The light dimmed, filtered through layers of grime and corroded alloy. The air grew heavy, humid, stagnant, smelling of decay and the sweet, cloying scent of oxidized metal. Visibility dropped to a few feet. Every step was a gamble, boots crunching over unseen debris, the occasional crack of stressed metal echoing unnervingly close. This wasn't a place for the sane. It was a graveyard of forgotten dreams, overgrown by its own decay.
And the Crown… the Crown sang here. It wasn't a hum anymore. It was a chorus, faint but persistent, pressing against the inside of my skull. Memories flared, too fast to grasp, but their imprint remained. An instinctive understanding of currents. A sense of the vast, interconnected network beneath the world. Access. Connect. Power.
Suddenly, the ground ahead glowed. A fissure, narrow but deep, sliced across our path. From its depths, a pulsating, vibrant blue light emanated, throwing grotesque shadows of the rusted jungle onto the crumbling walls. It wasn't faint like the effluent on the cliffs; this was raw, uncontrolled energy bleeding directly from a ruptured conduit deep below. The air vibrated, making my teeth ache.
Agro whinnied, rearing back, terror in his eyes.
"Whoa, easy!" I gripped his reins, trying to calm him. The Crown thrummed violently, demanding attention, demanding a response to this raw power.
A jolt of memory hit me. Not an image, but a sensation. A familiarity with the energy. A knowledge of its flow, its inherent danger, its purpose. My hand, almost without conscious command, drifted to a small, corroded control panel half-buried in the metal wall near the fissure. It was barely recognizable, melted and twisted, but the faint outline of old empire runes was still visible. Regulate. Control. Bind.
My fingers brushed the panel. It was cold, dead. But the Crown roared in my head, a silent command. I felt a surge, a primal instinct, and something within me reached. Not physically, but with a force of will, a psychic resonance that felt like a bridge forming between my mind and the dormant tech. A faint click. The blue light from the fissure flickered, then dimmed, receding back into the depths. The oppressive vibration in the air lessened, replaced by a low, contented thrum. It was still active, still dangerous, but the uncontrolled surge had been brought to heel.
I stumbled back, leaning against the cold metal, panting. Agro edged closer, nudging my hand, seemingly calmed.
"What… what was that?" I whispered, my voice rough.
It was more than just memories now. The Crown was giving me access. A terrifying, unasked-for partnership. The King's will, bleeding into mine, shaping my actions.
I peered into the now-manageable fissure. The pathway continued beyond it, twisting deeper into the rusting maze. But I wasn't alone in feeling this shift. On a corroded beam overhead, almost invisible against the grim metal, a single, recent bootprint was pressed into a thin layer of ash. Not mine. Too large. Too defined. And a faint, almost imperceptible sheen—like oil, or perhaps the residue from specialized gear.
Burnfaith. They weren't just burning cities. They were here, in the heart of the Veins, perhaps hunting for other sources of power, other forgotten relics, or perhaps, hunting me. The thought sent a cold dread through me deeper than any fear of the Ashborn. They pursued knowledge, memories—the very things I was accumulating.
The Crown settled, its hum a steady companion now, less demanding, more… patient. It felt heavier, somehow, now that it had acted through me. We pressed on. The Rust Jungles clawed at us, but the way ahead felt clearer, as if the path itself had been waiting for the Crown's touch. The map's red line, once a vague suggestion, now felt like a living pulse, drawing me deeper into the forgotten network.
By late afternoon, the claustrophobia of the Rust Jungles began to ease. The metal structures thinned, giving way to wider, flatter plains dotted with fossilized husks of trees that stood like petrified giants. And on the horizon, a new smudge—not smoke this time.
A city.
Ruins.
Velmark.
It looked even more broken than Hollowstone, a skeletal hand clawing at the sky. But the Crown pulsed with a fierce, almost joyful resonance now.
Home.
The whisper was clear. Distinct. And it wasn't mine. My hand instinctively went to the Crown, tucked in my pack. My jaw tightened.
Home? This ruined world was home to no one. But the Crown insisted. And as I stared at the distant silhouette of Velmark, the hum threaded through my bones, and for the first time, I couldn't tell if the fear was mine, or the King's.