جميع فصول : الفصل -الفصل 108

"Come home, Cael."​The child's voice floated up from the abyss, light and high, carrying an eerie, bell-like clarity that cut straight through the low groan of the subterranean stone. Cael didn't move. Beside him at the jagged lip of the abyss, Lyra stared down into the shadows of the lower Forge, her boots slipping on the slick, soot-covered rock. Lucien stood just a few paces back near the far pillar, his hand white-knuckled on his daggers, his eyes darting between the pit and the shadows as the rest of their group held the line. The black flames crawling along the basalt walls threw off zero heat; they served only to turn the child’s oversized silver eyes into twin points of reflected glint.​Behind them, the First King remained on his knees, his regal poise utterly shattered. His heavy broadsword lay four feet away, forgotten in the dirt.​"No," the old ruler whispered, the sound scraping raw out of his throat.​The child tilted his head, long strands of filthy black hair falling

Cael disappeared into the opening, and when Lyra lunged after him, her fingers snapped shut around empty air.​“Cael!”​Her voice was instantly swallowed by the shaft. Far below, the ancient door continued its agonizing, grinding drag—a sound like teeth being crushed that vibrated straight through her jawbone. Black fire crawled the surrounding walls, casting jagged shadows across the Forge. Beyond the threshold stood the child. Bare feet planted on cold stone, silver eyes locked upward, he looked identical to Cael. That was the most sickening part. It wasn't a family resemblance; it was an exact, unholy replica.​Lyra dropped to her knees at the edge, her palm slamming onto the freezing basalt as she yelled down into the dark again. No answer returned—only the rhythmic, raspy draw of a lung down in the deep. A long inhale, followed by an exhale that pushed up a draft thick with wet earth, old iron, and the coppery tang of dried blood.​A heavy hand clamped onto her shoulder.​“Don't,

​“Come home, Cael.”​The voice drifted up from the shaft, paper-thin and carried away by the low rush of heat. Lyra stood rigid at the lip of the pit, her leather boots sliding an inch through the soot. Black flames licked along the sheer walls of the abyss, shedding a pale, frigid light that did nothing to warm the air. The voice belonged to a child—a tired little boy calling for someone who had stayed away too long—and the mundane, fragile rhythm of it made her stomach turn faster than any screeching beast ever could.​Cael didn't move. His silver eyes remained locked on the figure sitting at the bottom of the pit, impossibly small against the towering stone throne behind him. The boy’s bare feet dangled an inch above the floor, swinging in an idle, rhythmless arc before he slowly turned his face upward and smiled.​“Cael,” the child repeated.​Cael’s knuckles turned stark white as his fingers curled tightly into his palms. “Don't call me that.”​The child’s smile slipped into a loo

​Lyra didn't move. Cael’s smile remained fixed on his face—small, faint, and almost familiar. That was what made it sickening. She had seen him terrified, furious, and hollowed out by exhaustion. She had watched him snap at men twice his height and then fight to hide the tremor in his hands. She knew the tight set of his jaw when he lied and the slight, evasive shift of his eyes whenever he tried to bury physical pain. This expression belonged to none of those moments. It was entirely alien.​“Cael?”​His pitch-black eyes locked onto her, unblinking. Against her palm, the silver key burned like a branding iron. Behind him, the crown-shaped lines carved into the ancient floor continued to creep toward one another, issuing a faint, metallic click every time two channels met in the stone.​The First King took a hasty step back, his boots dragging on the flagstones. “Don't speak to him.”​Lyra kept her eyes anchored to Cael’s face. “Why?”​“Because that's not your son.”​Cael’s head tilte