Theron did not flinch from the murderous darkness rolling off Malakor. The old scholar leaned further upon his iron-tipped cane, his withered face etched with the grim fatigue of a man who had outlived empires.
"A passionate declaration, warlord," Theron wheezed, the emerald glow from the hearth casting sickly green hollows across his wrinkled cheeks. "Spoken like a man who believes steel and spite can turn back the tides of the earth. But the Leviathan does not care who you love, nor does it care who wears the crown of bone. When it wakes, the sky itself will collapse into the magma sea. There will be no empire to burn. There will be no stone left for you to stand upon."
"Then we slay the beast," Aurelia said, her voice cutting through the rising terror like a honed dirk.
She stepped forward, placing a pale, steady hand over Malakor’s knuckles where they dug into her hip. Her touch was warm, carrying a gentle, rhythmic pulse of starlight that eased the frantic clench of his fingers. She looked up at him—not with despair, but with the cold, predatory resolve that had carried them across the Ashen Wastes.
"We do not feed my heart to the deep, Malakor," she said softly, holding his wild, amber gaze. "And we do not surrender our people to the dark. If the serpent wakes, we drag it from its cradle and cut out its venom."
A dark, savage tremor rippled through Malakor’s jaw. The blind panic in his eyes receded, replaced instantly by the cold, tactical brilliance of a butcher planning a slaughter.
"How deep?" Malakor asked, turning his lethal focus back to the arch-scholar.
Theron blinked his clouded eyes, startled by the sheer audacity of the two mortals standing before him. "The Sunken Tombs of Kar-Drakor lie four leagues beneath the volcanic shelf of the Obsidian Maw. The air there is sulfuric poison. The pressure alone would crush an unshielded legion into jelly within minutes. And the gates are sealed by the Titan's Anvil—a barrier that requires blood older than the First Throne to unlatch."
"Blood older than the throne?" Aurelia tilted her head, her silver hair catching the morning light spilling from the shattered balcony. Beneath her collar, the six marks burned with quiet, imperial dominance. "I carry the essence of the Six Shards. My blood was rewritten in the crucible of the Primordial Crown. There is no older power walking this world."
"The Shards are the key to the barrier, yes," Theron conceded, his tone turning cautious. "But the descent cannot be made with an army. The shelf cannot support the weight of six thousand men. If you march with the Vanguard, the tunnels will collapse, burying you before you reach the first threshold."
"Then we don't take the Vanguard," Malakor growled, stepping away from the bed to retrieve his dark leather trousers and steel-toed combat boots from the floor. He pulled a thick, shearling-lined arming doublet over his scarred chest, strapping his combat harness across his broad shoulders with brisk, practiced motions. "The army stays here under Lady Vespera’s command to hold the capital and execute the traitorous barons. We take a strike team. Five blades at most."
"Three," Aurelia corrected, moving to the weapon rack where her ancestral blade hung. She drew the steel three inches from its scabbard, the blade whispering a clean, silver note that resonated with the Shards in her chest. "Myself, you, and Vespera. The admiral knows subterranean sapping and deep-water currents better than any general in the realm."
"And the old man," Malakor added, his voice dropping into a dangerous rumble as he cast a sideways glance at Theron. He finished buckling his broad leather sword-belt, resting one heavy, calloused hand upon the pommel of his great sword. "He guides us to the gate. If he leads us into an ambush, I will feed his liver to the subterranean salamanders before I draw my steel."
Theron offered a crooked, humorless smile, unbothered by the threat. "Fair enough, butcher. But we must ride before the second moon rises. The tremors have already begun in the eastern provinces. When the three moons align, the first coil of the serpent will turn—and the mountains will begin to slide into the abyss."
Aurelia strapped her dark cuirass over her chest, the leather groaning as she tightened the side-buckles. As she stepped toward the door, Malakor caught her by the nape of her neck, pulling her back against his broad chest in a fierce, sudden embrace.
His mouth came down on hers, hard and brief, branding her with the taste of his dark devotion.
"No dying today, empress," he muttered against her lips, his breath hot against her skin. "We still have an empire to rule."
"Not today, my warlord," she replied with a wicked, breathless smile. "Today, we hunt a god."