Nobela ni Jan s Urner

The Crownless and the CursedThe iron door stood like a buried wound, pulsing faintly with Kael’s energy. It wasn’t just ancient—it was alive, reacting to his presence like it remembered him. Cradle stared at the crown sigil embedded into its surface, feeling something cold and sharp coil around her spine.“Should we open it?” she asked, barely above a whisper.Kael didn’t answer right away. His jaw clenched, eyes fixed on the door like it might speak first. Like it might confess.“It knows me,” he said finally. “More than I know myself.”Cradle stepped beside him. “Then it’s time you start asking the right questions.”Kael’s palm hovered over the sigil. The moment his skin made contact, the iron sizzled, hissed—and melted into liquid shadow before re-solidifying in a circular lock that turned by itself.The door groaned open.Behind it was a staircase, narrow and descending into an impossible darkness.Cradle’s pulse kicked up. “Well, that’s not ominous.”Kael gave a dry smile. “Welc

The One Wearing His SkinThe voice that poured from Kael’s mouth wasn’t his.Not even close.It was ancient. Commanding. Cruel.It didn’t just speak—it took. Claimed the air. The silence. The space between heartbeats. Cradle stumbled back as Kael’s body twisted in front of her, his muscles flexing, his face a pale canvas overtaken by something dark and monstrous beneath.“Kael,” she whispered, voice raw.But he didn’t answer.His lips curled into a smirk that had never belonged to him.“The boy was a cracked shell,” the thing inside him said. “A weak heir. A walking grave.”Cradle’s hand hovered near her dagger, unsure. If she moved too fast, would he kill her? If she didn’t move at all, would he still?“You’re not him,” she said softly, pleading with the part of Kael she knew was still inside. “You’re just wearing him.”“No.” The creature grinned wider. “I am him. The part he buried. The king who never needed saving. The one who knew what it meant to rule.”Kael’s body began to glow

Ghosts of the CrownThe silence in the city was not peaceful—it was the kind that screamed under the skin. Cradle’s breath caught as she stared up at the statue, horror blooming like frost across her spine. The carving of her severed head in Kael’s hands wasn’t just a warning.It was a memory.Or worse… a prophecy.Kael stood frozen before the monument. His jaw clenched so tight it looked like it might crack. The crown carved onto his stone head wasn’t the one from the Lycan throne room. This crown was older, jagged, like it had been forged from broken blades.A king of ruin.The statue’s eyes glinted with something unnatural, like they were watching him watch them.“This isn’t real,” he muttered.Cradle stepped forward slowly. “You’ve seen this before.”He didn’t answer.Because he had.Not with his waking eyes. But in flashes. Nightmares. Buried visions the Dream-Eater had tried to twist and break him with. Only this time, they weren’t dreams. They were roots. Truths clawing their w

The Crownless KingThe sky should not have been able to bleed.But it did.As Kael shielded Cradle with his body, crimson streaked the clouds like veins ripped open across the heavens. The wind stilled. The birds silenced. The trees bowed low—not to the breeze but to the presence that stepped through the Gate of Forgotten Things.A figure cloaked in something older than shadow.Something primordial.The air around him hissed and bent, light refusing to cling to him.Cradle gripped Kael’s arm, her voice barely a breath. “That’s not the Dream-Eater.”“No,” Kael murmured, his pulse thudding like war drums in his ears. “That’s something worse.”The man wore no crown, and yet the sky crowned him.The earth yielded to his steps.And in his eyes—two pits of collapsing galaxies—Kael saw his own end reflected.This wasn’t a king of this world.This was the one who created kings and then unmade them when they disappointed him.The being stopped several paces from them. Silent. Unmoving. Watchin

The Man Who Shouldn’t ExistThe air inside the Gate of Forgotten Things was not air at all.It felt like Kael was breathing memory—thin, brittle strands of moments he’d never lived. Whispers tugged at the back of his mind, slipping in under his ribs, brushing the inside of his skull. A hundred voices, a thousand faces, and not a single one belonged to him.But the man standing over Cradle?He wore Kael’s face better than Kael ever had.Same eyes—only both were molten gold. Same jaw, same mouth, same goddamn scar above the left brow. But where Kael looked like war had chewed him up and spit him back out, this version stood tall, untouched, regal. Complete.And Cradle knelt before him like she’d already given up.“Get away from her,” Kael growled, stepping forward.The other Kael—the copy—didn’t even flinch. He just tilted his head, curious, almost amused.“You’re late,” he said.His voice was Kael’s too.But it sounded… cleaner. Like it hadn’t ever broken from grief or bled in the dark

Beneath the Golden EyeThe golden eye inside the seal didn’t blink.It just watched.Wide. Unmoving. Ancient. As if it had seen the first flame flicker to life in a world long buried under time.Kael’s breath hitched in his throat. His heart pounded, too loud, too fast—like it was trying to outrun what he was seeing. The seal should’ve held. The Cradle had given everything. She’d taken his place. She was the seal now.But then how was that thing still watching him?The air turned cold. Not the kind of cold that prickled skin—but the kind that lived in nightmares. That peeled away memory. That whispered your name like it knew what you’d done.Kael took a shaky step back.“Cradle,” he whispered. “What did you leave behind?”The eye twitched.Not a blink.Just a flick of attention, like a predator adjusting focus.And then, like a shockwave through his bones, Kael heard the first whisper.Not out loud. Not in his head.In the blood.“The seal was never meant to hold forever.”He stumbled