CHAPTER 52: BENEATH THE IRON ROOT

The dig beneath the northern rampart began before sunrise. Lanterns swung from iron posts. Shovels scraped against stone and shattered earth. Crown and Reuven soldiers stood side by side, while engineers marked every surface with white glyph chalk. Below them, a darker stone lay veined with violet ore barely visible, but unmistakably infused with aura.

Thalen arrived with Varos and Ilara, his cloak billowing in the torchlight.

"How deep are we now?" he asked the excavation overseer.

"Twenty-seven spans," the man replied. "We’ve cleared two descending vaults. The third... is different."

Thalen glanced at Ilara, who was already adjusting her gloves.

"Show us."

They descended carefully. The third vault was quiet eerily so. The walls were smooth and polished, unlike the raw-cut stone above. Etchings ran across the surface: symmetrical, coiled, organic, not geometric like normal glyphs. These markings weren’t drawn with precision. They were grown etched by time or aura itself.

"This isn’t Shadehand work," Ilara whispered. "This is Tyrant Stone."

Thalen crouched and placed his hand against the floor. It was warm.

"They’ve buried something alive down here," he said. "Or it never died."

He rose and turned to the soldiers. "Expand this room. Clear around the glyphs, but don’t touch the center until Ilara signals."

Engineers and mages got to work. Varos stood beside Thalen, studying a mural that had been uncovered near the far wall.

At first glance, it looked like a battle. But upon closer inspection, it was something older figures of indistinct form kneeling to one crowned figure, taller than the rest, who bled violet flame from their eyes.

"The First Tyrant?" Varos guessed.

"No," Thalen said, squinting. "Look at the lines. The kneeling ones are fractured. Crumbling. He isn’t their leader."

Varos frowned. "He’s consuming them."

Ilara approached with urgency. "There’s an energy pulse below us. Something is sealed under this vault."

"How large?" Thalen asked.

She hesitated. "Big enough to breathe."

Without waiting, Thalen called for a full halt to excavation. "All mages, to the forward chamber. Warriors, form a ring around the center."

Within moments, the torchlight turned white-blue as aura fields were raised. The Crown liaison arrived, panting from the climb, demanding a briefing.

Ilara didn’t look up from her scan. "We may have located the first source of the Tyrant Spirit or the corpse of something that birthed it."

Everyone went still.

The soldiers stood firmer.

Then, from beneath their feet, the stone rumbled.

A pulse. Not seismic. Rhythmic.

Like breath.

Thalen drew his sword.

The Blade That Breaks didn’t glow it hummed.

Ilara stepped back. "It’s waking up."

The seal in the floor cracked open with a sound like tearing silk. Dust lifted into the air. The temperature dropped.

Then came the voice.

"So long... since light."

It was not speech, not truly. It resonated inside the bones, in the veins, like memory. Every soldier stepped back. One Reuven scout dropped to his knees, gripping his temples. Another Crown soldier whispered something in a forgotten tongue.

A figure began to rise from the exposed center.

But it was not a man.

It was a shape humanoid, wrapped in a spiral of stone and metal, eyes sealed with iron veils. The aura around it wasn’t violent, but dense. Heavy with age. The kind of pressure that made air resist breath.

Ilara lifted her stave. "That is not a Shadehand construct."

Thalen stood firm. "No. It’s older."

The thing opened its mouth. No tongue. Just darkness.

"I held the root. I sang to the world when it was fire and breath. I was buried when the crown turned hollow. Why... have you dug me up?"

Varos stepped forward. "We seek answers. We found this place by following the trails of the Shadehand cult. You know them?"

The thing’s head tilted.

"Fractured children. Feeding on echoes. They stole from the vine and forgot the root."

Ilara whispered to Thalen, "It’s not hostile. Not yet."

Thalen took a step forward.

"We’re trying to understand what the Tyrant Spirit is. And how to stop those who corrupt it."

The creature paused.

Then:

"Tyrant Spirit. That... is what you call it?"

The iron veils twitched. Small sparks fell from its arms.

"The Spirit was never meant for war. It was meant for remembrance. You twisted it into power."

Thalen froze.

Ilara stared. "You mean the Tyrant Spirit was a preservation tool?"

"It was the will of the first flame to record what was. Each bearer was a memory. Not a conqueror."

Varos murmured, "And now... it is used as a weapon."

The being raised its hand. Thin trails of aura leaked from the joints in its fingers threads of violet laced with silver.

"Then I have failed. My root is poisoned."

It turned its faceless head toward Thalen.

"But your blade sings of sorrow. Perhaps not all is lost."

Suddenly, the stone behind it collapsed inward, revealing a shallow chamber. Inside, three stone pedestals rose each bearing a relic.

The first: a twisted circlet with three coiled sigils.

The second: a crystal orb glowing faintly with flame inside.

The third: a scroll sealed in molten iron.

Ilara gasped. "First Epoch artifacts."

Thalen approached, slowly. The creature did not move to stop him.

"What are these?"

The being’s voice echoed again.

"Memories. Roots. The first truth of Spirit. Take them. But know when you do, the world will try to silence you."

Thalen reached toward the scroll first. The iron cracked but did not burn him. He lifted it, and the glyph seal lit up with soft violet.

Instantly, a pulse surged through the vault.

Above them, alarms rang. The echo of emergency horns from the Citadel itself.

Ilara’s eyes widened. "That signal it means a breach."

Thalen turned. "Seal this chamber. We move now."

The being did not resist.

As they climbed, the relics packed and sealed, the vault door behind them shimmered shut with a final hum of aura.

They reached the surface as riders galloped toward the dig site.

Varos met them at the ridge. "Thalen, you need to see this."

They crested the hill and saw it.

A second dig site that’s unauthorized, blazing with smoke. One of the liaison camps had been sabotaged. The Crown flag was burned. A Shadehand sigil scorched into the dirt.

Thalen narrowed his eyes. "They’re trying to divide us. Again."

Renal rode up, face pale. "False reports went out last night. Said Reuven mages opened the vault to summon something. Crown soldiers are pulling out from Watchpost Nine."

Varos cursed. "Exactly what they want."

Thalen turned to him. "We don’t fight that with denial."

He lifted the scroll and the relics in his arms.

"We fight it with truth."