Beginning of the End

Darius and crew are finally on the path to the end of their journey.

He nodded once, then reached forward, and touched the crystal.
The chamber erupted in light.

The light receded like a tide, leaving behind silence. Not emptiness, but a silence so thick it rang in their ears, as if the chamber itself was holding its breath.

Darius stood still, hand still resting on the crystal, his face unreadable. The energy inside the stone had gone still, but the runes beneath his feet pulsed once then again in steady rhythm, like a second heartbeat layered beneath his own.

A song began to echo through the chamber.

It wasn’t sung with voices. It was a resonance chiming like bells made of bone, humming through the stone walls and vibrating the very air. A haunting melody that rose and fell in strange, forgotten cadences.

Kale took a step back. “That...that doesn’t sound natural.”

The song grew louder, and as it did, ghostly figures shimmered into view transparent echoes of people who once stood where they now stood. Warriors in ancient armor. A tall woman in robes carved with sigils. A young man who looked almost like Darius only not quite. Each figure stood still, gazing toward the center, toward the one who had claimed the crystal.

“It’s a memory,” Elara whispered, eyes locked on Darius. “The stone is remembering something.”

Rockford whimpered low in his throat.

Darius’s voice broke the stillness. “They’re not ghosts. They’re echoes of the bloodline.”

Elara stepped closer; voice cautious. “What does that mean?”

“It means I need to go home and face my father," he said, lifting the crystal from its pedestal. “There are questions that I need to have answers to now that I carry the full weight of my magical bloodline.”