CHAPTER 305: CHAPTER 305: THE TEMPLE BLEEDS SALT

Vangal Kingdom

The sea hammered the cliffs beneath Virehall Temple, angry and endless. Storms here never stopped. The wind tasted of iron. Sarul stood at the edge of the stone gallery, arms folded under soaked robes, watching the black tide churn.

A priest approached behind him, breath hitching in the cold. "The Meranite Speaker waits."

Sarul didn’t turn. "Where?"

"Lower sanctum. With the Deep Guard."

He nodded once. "Prepare the altar."

...

The lower sanctum wasn’t a holy place. It was a warning buried in stone. Carved centuries ago, when Vengal still feared the ocean instead of sailing it. Braziers hissed in the damp air. Moss clung to the walls like rot.

Three Deep Guard stood in silence—bare-chested, scaled skin gleaming with oil, gills fluttering along their necks. Their eyes were flat, fishlike. Old blood ran in their veins. Not fully human anymore. Their leader, Dorram, had speared a sea serpent when he was thirteen. He bowed when Sarul entered but said nothing. He didn’t need to.

On a raised stone platform stood a woman draped in barnacle-white robes. Thin, small, with bone bangles clicking down her arms. The Meranite Speaker. A seer raised by sea cults older than the kingdom itself.

She looked at Sarul without blinking.

"You come late."

"I come with purpose," Sarul replied.

"You ask for salt gods. You ask for drowned knowledge. You want the deep to answer."

"I want to drown Kaen’s fire before it spreads."

Her lips split in a cracked smile. "Then you’ll pay a price."

"I always do."

She turned toward the altar at the chamber’s end. It wasn’t made of stone. It was made of teeth—black, wet, and still slick with ancient oils. Thousands of them. From beasts no one hunted anymore. Not even the Deep Guard.

The Speaker began to chant in Old Vengali. Her voice was rough, guttural, older than the high tongue of court.

Water began to drip from the ceiling. Not rain. Seawater. Salty and thick. The altar pulsed.

Sarul stepped forward.

"Offerings?" the Speaker asked.

He pulled a small pouch from his robe and dropped it at her feet. Inside were three fingers, cut clean. She didn’t ask who they’d belonged to. The deep gods didn’t care.

"Blood calls to blood," she whispered.

The Deep Guard stepped forward, kneeling around the altar. Dorram began humming low, his chest reverberating with unnatural tones. The water rose—not from the ground, but from the walls. The temple sweated salt. The altar screamed—quiet at first, then rising, a keening from another world.

Sarul didn’t flinch.

"I want a storm that shatters ships," he said. "I want creatures that don’t fear."

The Speaker’s eyes turned glassy. "Then awaken what sleeps in the trench."

Hours later, Sarul stood again at the cliffside gallery. His robes were dry. The wind was colder.

Behind him, Dorram approached, silent as always. He knelt on one knee.

"We’ll dive tonight. The trench stirs. The gods are watching."

Sarul nodded. "The Speaker told me as much."

Dorram hesitated. Then added, "Stormhall trains daily. Kaen drills his men like a madman."

Sarul’s gaze didn’t shift from the sea.

"Good. He’s in a rush. He’ll make mistakes."

He didn’t smile. Sarul never smiled.

...

Stormhall, the same day.

Kaen sat alone in his private chamber, staring at maps. New ones. Bernardian aerial scans etched on fine parchment. Roads. Bases. Weak points. His people had never even seen this level of detail. He knew it gave him an edge—and it pissed him off.

Because none of it was his.

He poured himself a glass of old wine. Didn’t drink it. Just held it, feeling the cold.

A knock. Three quick raps.

"Enter."

Helmut walked in, stiff-backed, uniform crisp despite the mud outside.

"We have a problem."

Kaen raised an eyebrow. "Which kind?"

"The betrayal kind."

Kaen put the glass down.

...

They marched the traitor into the courtyard with no ceremony. Just two soldiers holding him by the arms—Captain Grevin, former knight of the northern pass. A big man with hands like tree trunks, but eyes that wouldn’t meet Kaen’s.

Rain fell steady. The rest of the command staff stood in a semicircle.

Helmut stood beside Kaen, stone-faced.

"You were caught attempting to sabotage the Bernardian ammunition crates," Kaen said.

Grevin said nothing.

"You were going to hand our battle plans to Sarul."

Still silence.

Kaen stepped forward, water dripping from his shoulder plate. "You fought beside my father. You swore blood and blade."

Grevin lifted his gaze—bloody, but unbowed. "Your father had pride. He never licked a foreign boot."

Kaen’s voice turned to steel. "And now he has worms."

Grevin bared his teeth. "Better worms than chains. You’re not Vengal anymore. You’re a Bernardian hound. They throw gold, and you roll."

Kaen’s expression didn’t change.

"I’d rather be a living dog," he said coldly, "than a dead lion rotting on a flag."

He turned to the soldiers.

"Strip his insignia. He dies like a traitor."

There was a pause—one heartbeat too long. Then a guard stepped forward. With deliberate hands, he tore the emblem from Grevin’s chest and tossed it into the mud.

A second soldier raised his rifle.

He shot Grevin through the head. Point-blank.

Grevin’s body collapsed. Blood sprayed onto the wet stone. Some of the men flinched.

Kaen faced the watching officers. His voice was low but clear.

"Anyone else still clinging to noble pride can join him. We’re at war. Pick your side."

No one moved.

...

Later that night, Kaen sat on the training field alone.

His hands trembled—not with fear, but with the burn of choices made. His stomach turned. He hadn’t eaten. Couldn’t. There was something in him now, something darker than ambition.

Tolvet came quietly, holding two mugs of bitter tea.

He bowed stiffly, offering a steaming mug. "Your drink, my lord."

Kaen accepted it without a word.

Tolvet remained standing.

After a long moment, he said carefully,

"The men are shaken, but they understand. They’ll follow. Fear... is still discipline."

Kaen nodded once, barely. "Let it settle in their bones."

Tolvet lowered his head. "As you command." Then left.