The King Trials 2: Beyond.

After she arose. Aurora fell back into a deep sleep.

But she’s alive, and that is all that matters.

The shaman managed to heal her daughter back to full health. Out of instilled fear, she refits her leather corsage, readying her for a lengthy travel, even supplying him with restorative vials to aid her recovery. The daughter, her pain eased to blunt stabbing sensations, bearable as she strenuously manoeuvres her way through their dwelling, eager to flee with her mother before an auxiliary, Emikrollian troop arrives, in search of the one that they had dispatched.

Primus Kelan had promised them safe passage from the besieged Pantheon; that they will soon ride their horses to meet Captain Devwar at the west station. Amidst the hustle of making ready to depart. Something beyond beckons to him. He obeys and cautiously marches out of the dwelling, stalking the otherworldly presence that exudes prehistoric power. Creeping between the watchful trees, branches and trees crunching under foot, until, he stops.

Among the clacking boughs, in the bowls of the woodland, Cimmerian darkness roams, it moves and hurtles like an avalanche of black fog, flooding its way toward him. Sieves of mist devour the flaking bark. Adding its phantasmal vapour to the damp breath of the woods, a hollow echoing, like the hushed tones of the fallen entombs the wood. It glides with deadly intent. It’s deadened sound, haunts the glade, pouring and skulking. A sepulchral silence overhangs where he stands.

A chorus of rumbling voices reverberate all at once. Pure dark energy eddying, growing around him, caught in the centre of a controlled hurricane, a mild breeze whirling. Primus Kelan, unphased, begins to revolve.

“I should have known it was you,” he says with untold of acrimony. “It was you that told me that fortune favours the patient. Which is why you waited thousands of cycles for your grand return. You meant to lose Pavelia, it was never about revenge, you lost the battle so that this time… now. You will win the true war.”

In a flourish of hellish black, the temper of the tempest flays and churns, the winds whip, the velocity harshens, sending wisps of his hair to flail, his eyes narrowing.

“You wanted to destroy them all from the inside. Turning ally against ally. Foster their greed, feed into their ambitions with delusions of grandeur. Using Emikrol as your instrument to do it. The terrorism of the insurgents as a ploy to force our military to the outskirts, far enough that when the time came to strike the castle, the High King would be undefended enough for him to be stricken.”

Kelan laughs to himself bitterly. “Rather shewed. To make people believe that they had the power when this time you were controlling them all, orchestrating their movements for so many moons. You wanted the Qhar line to arise, you wanted them seal back the portal so that you could find their strength; your weakness, the sun crystal shattered, the onyx stones scattered. To find a way to completely abolish the threshold between this world and the hellscapes.”

The dark energy swirls whilst it constricts, spiralling into a towering squire-like stature before descending, the essence like the shadow of a landform in the distance that begins to take shape upon arrival. Weaving together until a mortal-like figure stands before him. A cape of shadows trail after him, the rims flickering with crackling sparks of fire.

He laughs; a dark, menacing sound. “Always so clever, Krashu. But you have grown slow. Weak.” Tone venomous. He circles him thoughtfully. “But that tends to happen when you are surrounded by the lesser. All this time, I grieved; I thought you were dead. But now that you live, a testament to your great power like mine. Join me and lead my armies once more. You and I. Together. We will be invincible.”

Vilnus stops to stand before him, eyes of the night staring at him. “My son,” he says with an abundance of pride.

Kelan bows his head instinctively. “Father.”