THE LAST KING OF EMBERWYLD : THE DYING LIGHT
Chapter 4: The Guardian’s Price
The cavern did not change.
The walls remained black, the carvings remained still, the throne of bones remained cold and empty. The guardian sat on his seat of death, his gray skin cracked, his black eyes fixed on Kaelen, his hands folded in his lap.
He had not moved in hours.
Neither had Kaelen.
They sat in silence, the only sound the distant drip of water and the soft hum of the Duskblade. The blade had not stopped pulsing since Kaelen entered the cavern. It was hungry. It was waiting. It was watching.
Kaelen looked at the guardian.
“You were like me once,” Kaelen said.
The guardian’s lips twitched.
“Once,” he agreed. “A long time ago. In a world that no longer exists.”
“What was your name?”
The guardian was silent for a long moment.
“I don’t remember,” he said. “The door took it. The way it takes everything. Names. Faces. Memories. The person I was before I became this.”
“This?”
The guardian looked at his hands. Gray. Cracked. Dead.
“This,” he said. “The guardian. The lock. The key. The thing that sits between the world and the nightmares and holds them back with nothing but will and bone and blood.”
“How long have you been here?”
The guardian looked at the walls. At the carvings. At the darkness.
“A thousand years,” he said. “Maybe more. Time has no meaning here. The door does not care about days or months or years. It only cares about hunger.”
Kaelen stood.
His legs were stiff, his back was sore, his head was pounding. He walked to the throne and stopped in front of the guardian.
“Tell me about the door,” he said. “The truth. Not the stories. Not the legends. The truth.”
The guardian looked up at him.
His black eyes were depthless.
“The door is not a door,” he said. “Not in the way you think. It is a wound. A tear in the fabric of the world, made by the first king when he tried to become a god. He reached for power he could not control, and he tore a hole in reality.”
“And the nightmares?”
“The nightmares are what live on the other side. The dreams of the sleeping gods. The fears and hungers and terrors that they dream while they wait for the world to end.”
“The gods are dreaming?”
“The gods are always dreaming. They have been dreaming since the beginning of time. And their dreams are our reality.”
Kaelen’s head spun.
“If their dreams are our reality, then the door—”
“The door leads to the place where the gods dream. And if it opens fully, their dreams will spill into our world. And we will become part of them.”
“What does that mean?”
The guardian smiled.
It was not a kind smile.
“It means we will cease to exist as individuals. Our thoughts will become their thoughts. Our fears will become their fears. Our hungers will become their hungers. We will be absorbed. Consumed. Forgotten.”
Kaelen gripped the Duskblade.
The blade pulsed.
Warm.
Hungry.
“And the blade? What is its purpose?”
The guardian looked at the sword.
“The blade was forged from the heart of a fallen star. A piece of the gods’ own power, stolen and shaped by the first king. It was meant to be a weapon. A tool. A way to control the door.”
“Did it work?”
“For a time. The first king used the blade to seal the wound. To hold back the nightmares. To keep the gods asleep.”
“What happened?”
“The blade grew hungry. It had tasted the power of the gods, and it wanted more. It began to feed on the guardian. On his soul. On his memories. On his self.”
Kaelen looked at the blade in his hand.
It was warm.
It was pulsing.
It was hungry.
“And now?”
“Now the blade is starving. It has been a thousand years since it last fed. And it will not be denied much longer.”
The guardian stood.
His bones creaked.
His armor clattered.
He walked to the wall of carvings and pressed his hand against the stone.
The carvings glowed.
Scenes came to life—kings and gods, battles and bargains, doors opening and closing. Kaelen watched as the first king knelt before a being of light and shadow, as he made his bargain, as he took the blade and sealed the wound.
He watched as the guardian before this one took his place.
And the one before him.
And the one before him.
A chain of sacrifice stretching back a thousand years.
“The blade needs a soul,” the guardian said. “Not any soul. A soul of the old blood. A soul that carries the magic of the first king.”
“That’s why the king sent me.”
“The king sent you because there is no one else. The old blood is dying out. The magic is fading. You are the last.”
Kaelen felt the weight of those words settle onto his shoulders.
“What happens if I refuse?”
The guardian turned.
“The door will open. The nightmares will come. The world will end.”
“And if I accept?”
The guardian walked back to his throne.
He sat heavily.
“You will take my place. You will sit on this throne. You will hold the blade. And you will watch. For a hundred years. For a thousand years. For as long as the door needs you.”
“And my soul?”
“The blade will take it. Piece by piece. Memory by memory. Until there is nothing left but the hunger.”
Kaelen looked at the throne.
At the bones.
At the darkness.
“Is there no other way?”
The guardian was silent for a long moment.
“There is always another way,” he said. “But it requires a sacrifice you are not ready to make.”
“Tell me.”
The guardian leaned forward.
His black eyes burned.
“You must go through the door.”
Kaelen’s blood went cold.
“Through the door?”
“Into the place where the gods dream. Into the nightmares. Into the hunger. You must find the source of the wound and close it from the other side.”
“And if I fail?”
“Then you will become part of the nightmare. Your soul will be consumed. Your body will be forgotten. And the door will remain open.”
“How is that better than becoming the guardian?”
The guardian smiled.
“It’s not better. It’s different. The guardian endures. The guardian suffers. The guardian watches. But the one who goes through the door—” He paused. “The one who goes through the door has a chance to end it. To close the wound forever. To free us all.”
“No one has ever done it.”
“No one has ever tried.”
Kaelen looked at the Duskblade.
At the key.
At the door.
“Why me?”
The guardian stood.
He walked to Kaelen and placed his hand on his shoulder.
His touch was cold.
“Because you are the last,” he said. “Because you have nothing left to lose. Because you have already lost everything that matters.”
Kaelen thought of Lyra. Of his father. Of the children with hollow eyes.
He thought of the village, dying in the dark.
He thought of the world, fading into nothing.
“I’ll do it,” he said.
The guardian’s eyes widened.
“You’ll go through the door?”
“I’ll go through the door.”
The guardian stepped back.
He bowed his head.
“Then may the gods have mercy on us all.”
The guardian led Kaelen to the crack in the ice.
The fissure was narrow, barely wide enough for a man to squeeze through, leading down into darkness. The cold was worse here—so cold that Kaelen’s breath froze in his lungs, that his tears turned to ice on his cheeks, that his blood seemed to slow in his veins.
“The door is at the bottom,” the guardian said. “The key will open it. The blade will protect you. But once you go through, I cannot help you. No one can help you. You will be alone.”
“I’m used to being alone.”
“No. You’re used to being lonely. There’s a difference.”
Kaelen gripped the key.
It was warm.
“Any last advice?”
The guardian looked at him.
His black eyes were soft.
“Remember who you are,” he said. “The door will try to make you forget. The nightmares will try to make you fear. The hunger will try to make you feed. But if you remember—if you hold onto the person you were before all of this—you might survive.”
“And if I don’t?”
The guardian smiled.
It was a sad smile, small and tired and full of years.
“Then you will become one of them. And the world will have lost its last hope.”
Kaelen turned to the crack.
He took a deep breath.
And he stepped into the darkness.
The cold swallowed him.
The key blazed.
The blade hummed.
And Kaelen fell.
He fell through darkness, through cold, through silence. The world above disappeared—the cavern, the guardian, the throne of bones. There was only the key, burning in his hand, and the blade, pulsing at his hip, and the door, waiting somewhere below.
He fell for what felt like hours.
Or days.
Or years.
Time had no meaning here.
And then he landed.
He was standing in a field.
Green grass. Blue sky. White clouds. The sun was warm on his face, the wind was soft in his hair, the flowers were blooming all around him.
It was beautiful.
It was wrong.
He knew this place.
It was the field behind his childhood home. The place where he had played as a boy, where he had learned to fish, where he had first kissed a girl.
But the girl was not there.
The house was not there.
The sun was not the sun.
It was a dream.
And he was inside it.
“Hello, Kaelen.”
The voice came from everywhere and nowhere.
He turned.
A woman stood behind him.
She was young—beautiful, with dark hair and dark eyes and a smile that was almost kind. She was wearing a white dress, simple and clean, and her bare feet were pressed against the grass.
She was the dream.
She was the nightmare.
She was the door.
“Welcome,” she said. “Welcome to the place where gods dream. Welcome to the end of everything.”
Kaelen drew the Duskblade.
The woman laughed.
It was a beautiful sound—warm and bright and full of joy.
“You cannot hurt me with that,” she said. “I am not your enemy. I am your salvation.”
“Who are you?”
The woman stepped closer.
Her eyes were not eyes. They were windows into infinity. Into eternity. Into the heart of the nightmare.
“I am the first,” she said. “The one who was here before the beginning. The one who will be here after the end. I am the dreamer. And you—” She reached out and touched his face. Her fingers were cold. “You are my favorite dream.”