“The gods beneath Vaelgrave are dead. That is the first lie.”
——
Kael Veyran always could hear the voices of the dead and they always whispered their deepedt, darkest secrets.
For thousands of years Vaelgrave has survived beneath the protection of the.Dead Gods. The corpses of the Gods beneath the great cities. The temples were powered by chips of bones that the Priests used these chips to power their own special magics.
The only problem was that Karl didn’t believe that the bone chips were really from the Gods. Gods couldn’t die and if they did they wouldn’t leave bones or any other body part.
Kael’s father had been someone special in the Military as he had been gifted with the magical weapons that had bonechips in them. He had been a truly gifted fighter. It made his death even harder for Kael because there was not a single warrior close by that could defeat him in combat.
Wars against other Kingdoms used to be common but in the time of his Grandfather the wars stopped and battles were few and far between.
Kael had one job and that was being the kingdom’s executioner. It was a job that had to be done but it was never something he ever wanted. He wanted to be one of the Priests or a warrior like his father. Those paths had been blocked by enemies of his family.
——
“You have been found guilty of sedition Serah Veyne and are destined to die. At noon you will meet the Executioner and his sword.”
Kael stood there looking stoic in his black uniform with the hood pulled up with the mask covering two thirds of his face. He had a dagger on his hip and he also had a two handed sword that was stained red.
The lady had eyes that held no sanity as soon as she heard the verdict. She was wringing her hands as if they pained her. Kael all he could see was crazy but they didn’t execute the insane in this kingdom. Obviously his mind was playing tricks on him.
They dragged her to the centre of town where the stone slab with shackles was there as well as posts that they did public floggings for less serious crimes.
He watched as two guards pulled her over to the slab and secured her tightly to the stone slab. Kael reached over his shoulder showing how big his arm muscles had become. He pulled the huge two handed sword out of the back sheath. Everyone saw the stains on the sword and the jewel as a knut on the pommel.
Kael had his own ritual for this and he brought the sword up and tapped the stone three times with the side of the blade.
The first knock is for the condemned.
The second is for those they leave behind.
The third is for whatever waits beyond death.
He didn’t explain this as it was personal to him. After he finished he looked at the condemned and raised the blade again and quickly and without thought slashed down as quickly and as hard as he could. All you could see was the head roll free of the body and close to the crowd. The crowd cheered.
Kael looked at the body keeping his eyes calm when his insides rolled and rebelled against what he did. The sword had the blood from the lady as well as the stains from those victims.
—-
Kael dreamed of the execution block.
Only this time, he was the one kneeling.
Rain fell across Vaelgrave, cold and black, running through the cracks between the stones like veins of ink. Thousands of people surrounded the square, but none of them had faces.
They simply watched.
Kael tried to move.
His hands were bound behind him.
A heavy iron collar circled his throat.
Then he heard it.
Tap.
A finger against wood.
His signal.
Tap.
Again.
Kael slowly looked toward the executioner standing behind him.
The figure wore Kael’s armour.
His cloak.
His sword.
But where his face should have been there was only darkness beneath the hood.
Tap.
The executioner raised the blade.
Kael struggled against the ropes.
“No.”
The crowd whispered together.
Executioner.
The word rolled through the square.
Executioner.
Kael pulled harder.
“I carried out the sentence.”
The faceless crowd stepped closer.
Executioner.
“He was condemned.”
Closer.
Executioner.
“I did my duty!”
The executioner lowered the sword.
Not striking.
Waiting.
Then the crowd suddenly went silent.
Someone walked between them.
The lady Kael had executed.
Her severed head hung unnaturally to one side, the wound across his throat still dripping blood.
“You never asked if the Crown lied.”
Kael froze.
The dead woman stepped closer.
“You only asked where I wanted to kneel.”
Behind him, more figures appeared.
Men.
Women.
Soldiers.
Prisoners.
Some Kael recognized.
Others he didn’t.
Every one of them bore the wounds of execution.
The dead woman leaned close enough that Kael could smell blood on her breath.
“How many?”
Kael said nothing.
“How many people must die before duty becomes obedience?”
Something touched Kael’s head.
Metal.
Cold.
He looked upward.
A crown was being lowered onto him.
Not gold.
Bone.
Black iron twisted between human teeth and finger bones.
The moment it touched his skull, whispers flooded his mind.
Kill.
Obey.
Protect the Crown.
Kill.
Obey.
Protect the Crown.
Kael screamed and grabbed at it.
His hands were suddenly free.
He tore the crown away.
But underneath—
another crown waited.
He ripped that one away.
Another.
And another.
Each time, the whispers grew louder.
Until finally Kael tore the last crown from his head.
Everything became silent.
He looked down.
He was standing over the execution block.
Someone else knelt before him.
A child.
Kael’s hand was wrapped around his sword.
The child looked up.
“Please.”
Kael’s finger moved.
Tap.
The sword came down.
Kael woke before it struck.
He shot upright, reaching for the weapon beside his bed.
His breathing came hard and fast.
The chamber was empty.
No crowd.
No execution block.
No child.
Only darkness.
Kael slowly lowered his hand.
Then—
Tap.
He froze.
Across the room, something had tapped against the window.
Kael stared into the darkness.
Nothing was there.
But somewhere deep inside his mind, a voice whispered:
Protect the Crown.
Kael closed his eyes.
For the first time in his life, he wondered whether the voice belonged to him.
—–
The dream continued for many nights and Kael thought he was going insane. How could a woman who he has executed on orders be haunting his very being?
He was in a cold sweat due to seeing the child restrained for execution. This was never something he had agreed to do. Children are learning and don’t always know what they are doing.
He hadn’t immediately recognized the child which was good but his mind had started to remember bits and pieces.
—–
The tapping came again.
Tap.
Tap.
Tap.
Kael opened his eyes.
He wasn’t in his chamber.
He stood in the execution square beneath a colourless sky. There was no crowd this time. No guards. No priests.
Only the stone block.
And a child sitting upon it.
His bare feet dangled over the edge.
Kael couldn’t see the boy’s face.
“Who are you?”
The child didn’t answer.
“Are you dead?”
A quiet laugh.
“You always ask the wrong questions.”
Kael stepped closer.
The boy couldn’t have been more than eight or nine.
There were black marks around his wrists.
Shackles.
“You were executed.”
“Yes.”
“By whom?”
The child finally looked at him.
Kael stopped breathing.
Something about those eyes hurt.
Not because he recognized them.
Because he almost did.
The boy tilted his head.
“You don’t remember me.”
“No.”
“They made sure of that.”
“Who?”
“The priests.”
Kael’s stomach tightened.
The child slid from the block.
“When someone dies, people remember them.”
He took a step toward Kael.
“So they had to do more than kill me.”
Another step.
“They had to kill the part of you that loved me.”
Kael shook his head.
“I don’t understand.”
“You will.”
The boy reached for him.
His fingers passed through Kael’s hand.
For an instant—
Kael saw two children running through a stone corridor.
Then nothing.
Kael staggered.
“What was that?”
“Me.”
Another flash.
A little boy laughing.
A wooden sword.
Kael deliberately falling when the child struck him.
Gone.
Kael grabbed his head.
“Stop.”
“You used to let me win.”
“Stop!”
“You said when I got bigger, Father would teach us both.”
Kael stared at him.
Father.
Something cracked inside his memory.
A dinner table.
His mother smiling.
His father sitting at one end.
Kael sitting beside—
Someone.
There had always been an empty space in that memory.
Now a child sat there.
Kael stumbled backward.
“No.”
The boy’s eyes filled with tears.
“Yes.”
“What did they do to you?”
The child’s expression changed.
Fear.
“I could make the bones sing.”
Kael froze.
“What?”
“I was a Bone Mage.”
The words seemed to shake the dream.
The boy looked toward the execution block.
“They said children weren’t supposed to hear the Gods.”
Kael felt sick.
“They wouldn’t execute a child.”
“They did.”
“No.”
“You watched.”
Kael’s breath stopped.
The boy stepped closer.
“You were there, Kael.”
“No.”
“They made you watch.”
“NO!”
The world changed.
Crowds surrounded them.
Priests stood beside the block.
A small child screamed as guards dragged him forward.
Kael saw himself in the crowd.
Young.
Terrified.
His father held him back.
His mother was screaming.
The boy beside Kael whispered:
“Remember.”
A sword rose.
Kael closed his eyes.
“Remember me.”
The blade fell.
Something inside Kael shattered.
He remembered a name.
He remembered tiny hands pulling at his sleeve.
He remembered whispered conversations after dark.
He remembered his little brother climbing into his bed during thunderstorms.
Kael fell to his knees.
The ghost stood before him.
Kael whispered his name.
“Erynn.”
The boy smiled.
For the first time, he looked like a child instead of a ghost.
“There you are.”
Kael began to cry.
“They took you from me.”
Erynn shook his head.
“No.”
He touched Kael’s forehead.
“They took you from me.”
Behind the boy, something enormous moved beneath the stones of Vaelgrave.
Erynn’s smile disappeared.
“You need to remember everything now.”
“Why?”
The child’s ghost began fading.
“Because I wasn’t executed for being a Bone Mage.”
Kael stared at him.
“Then why?”
Erynn looked down.
Beneath his translucent skin, something black moved through his bones.
“I heard what was inside them.”
Kael’s blood went cold.
Erynn whispered:
“And it heard me back.”
—–
Kael had to learn the truth. Sera was accused of sedition, did she really commit that heinous crime or did the courts make it up to prevent this lady from doing right.
“Sera Veyne, come to me, bring me information of who and what you were”
Kael stared at the apparition.
Sera Veyne stood before him exactly as she had appeared in his nightmare.
Her body was pale and translucent, her clothing stained with the blood of her execution. She carried her severed head beneath one arm as casually as someone might carry a helmet.
Her head smiled at him.
“You called, Executioner?”
Kael swallowed.
He had spoken with the dead before.
But never someone he had killed himself.
“The charge of sedition,” Kael said. “Was it true?”
Sera’s smile disappeared.
“There are always those who believe anyone different is a threat to the order they have created.”
“That doesn’t answer my question.”
“No.”
Kael stiffened.
“No?”
“I was not guilty of sedition.”
His hand tightened around the edge of the table.
“Then why were you condemned?”
Sera lifted her head with both hands and placed it against the stump of her neck.
For a moment, black mist curled around the wound.
Then flesh joined flesh.
She rolled her neck slowly.
“Because the bones sang to me.”
Kael stopped breathing.
Erynn’s words returned immediately.
I could make the bones sing.
“My brother said the same thing.”
Sera’s eyes widened.
“Your brother?”
“Erynn Veyran.”
The ghost recoiled.
For the first time since appearing, Sera looked afraid.
“Don’t say that name.”
“Why?”
“Because some names were erased for a reason.”
“He was my brother.”
“I know who he was.”
Kael stepped toward her.
“You knew Erynn?”
“No.”
Sera looked toward the chamber door as though expecting someone to be listening from the other side.
“But I heard him.”
Kael’s blood went cold.
“He died years ago.”
“The dead don’t measure time the way we do.”
Sera walked toward the wall.
She pressed her hand against the stone.
“The temples teach that the bones beneath Vaelgrave belonged to gods. They tell us their priests were chosen to hear those gods and draw power from their remains.”
“I know.”
Sera looked back at him.
“That is another lie.”
Kael felt his stomach tighten.
“What are the bones?”
“I don’t know.”
“Then how do you know they’re not gods?”
“Because gods don’t beg.”
Kael stared at her.
Sera pressed her ear against the stone.
“The first time I heard them, I thought I was imagining it. A whisper beneath the streets. So quiet I could barely understand it.”
“What did it say?”
“Help me.”
Kael felt suddenly cold.
Sera continued.
“Then another voice answered.”
Her fingers trembled against the wall.
“Then another.”
Kael remembered Erynn standing before him.
I heard what was inside them.
“What did they tell you?”
“Names.”
“Whose?”
“People who died thousands of years ago.”
Sera turned toward him.
“Kings. Soldiers. Children. Prisoners. People who remembered sunlight. People who remembered kingdoms whose names don’t exist anymore.”
Kael shook his head.
“That doesn’t make sense.”
“No.”
Sera walked toward him.
“It doesn’t.”
Her voice dropped.
“Unless those bones never belonged to gods.”
Silence filled the chamber.
Kael looked toward his sword.
The jewel set into its pommel suddenly seemed different.
His father’s weapons had contained bone chips.
Priests carried them.
The temples were powered by them.
The kingdom had built its entire civilization around them.
“What are they?” Kael whispered.
Sera looked toward his sword.
“I think you already know enough to be afraid of the answer.”
Kael reached for the weapon.
The instant his fingers touched the hilt—
a whisper entered his mind.
Kael.
He ripped his hand away.
Sera stared at him.
“You heard it.”
Kael said nothing.
“You heard the bone.”
“My sword has never spoken to me.”
“Perhaps it has.”
She moved closer.
“Perhaps you simply couldn’t hear it before.”
Kael remembered the priests.
Erynn.
His missing memories.
His father’s impossible death.
And the voice that had followed him from the nightmare.
Protect the Crown.
Kael looked at Sera.
“Why did they execute you?”
“I found records beneath the eastern temple.”
“What records?”
“Execution records.”
Kael frowned.
“That wouldn’t be unusual.”
“These were.”
Sera’s expression hardened.
“Every person on those lists had been accused of a different crime. Sedition. Heresy. Treason. Murder. Blasphemy.”
She stepped closer.
“But every one of them had something in common.”
Kael already knew.
“They heard the bones.”
Sera nodded.
“Some could hear them.”
Another step.
“Some could command them.”
Closer.
“Some could wake them.”
Kael’s mouth went dry.
“And Erynn?”
Sera’s eyes met his.
“Your brother did something none of us could.”
“What?”
“He made something beneath Vaelgrave answer.”
The chamber seemed suddenly colder.
Kael remembered Erynn’s final warning.
And it heard me back.
“What answered him?”
Sera’s ghost flickered.
“I don’t know.”
“You must know something.”
“I know the priests were terrified.”
“Of Erynn?”
“No.”
Sera looked down at the floor.
“Of whatever noticed him.”
A deep sound rolled beneath the chamber.
Kael froze.
It wasn’t thunder.
It came from underground.
The candles trembled.
Dust fell from the ceiling.
Then—
Tap.
Kael looked toward the window.
Tap.
Sera backed away.
Tap.
Three knocks.
Kael’s ritual.
Except he hadn’t made them.
Sera’s eyes widened.
“You should not have called me.”
“Why?”
The ghost began disappearing.
“Sera?”
She looked down at the floor.
“It knows you can hear us now.”
Kael grabbed for her.
His hand passed through her body.
“What knows?”
Sera vanished.
The chamber became silent.
Kael stood alone.
Then something whispered from the jewel in the pommel of his executioner’s sword.
Not Sera.
Not Erynn.
Something much older.
Veyran.
Kael stared at the weapon.
The voice whispered again.
Your father heard us too.
