THE LAST KING OF EMBERWYLD : THE FINAL DAWN
Chapter 2: The Call from Beyond
The mountains were colder than Kaelen remembered.
He stood at the base of the pass, the wind whipping his cloak, the snow stinging his face. The Duskblade was warm at his hip. The key was hot in his pocket. The whispers were loud in his ears.
Help us. Please. Help us.
He had been walking for three days. Alone. Hope had wanted to come, but he had refused. This was his burden. His choice. His sacrifice.
He would not let her share it.
Not again.
The pass was narrow, barely wide enough for a single traveler, the walls on either side sheer and dark. He remembered this place. He had walked it twice before—once to close the door, once to face the first king.
Now he walked it again.
To answer a call he did not understand.
The door was different.
The wall he had built—the wall of stone and will and blood—was still there. But it was cracked. Not the crack of the nightmare breaking through. A different crack. Smaller. Deliberate.
Something had scratched its way out.
Or something had scratched its way in.
Kaelen walked to the wall.
He placed his hand on the stone.
It was warm.
Help us, the whispers said. Please. We’re trapped.
“Who are you?” Kaelen asked.
The whispers did not answer.
But the wall did.
It crumbled.
Beyond the wall was darkness.
Not the hungry darkness of the nightmare. Not the cold darkness of the void. A different darkness. Softer. Sadder.
The darkness of the lost.
Kaelen stepped through.
The darkness swallowed him.
He fell—not down, but sideways, through a space that had no direction, no time, no end. The Duskblade pulsed in his hand. The key burned in his pocket. The whispers screamed in his ears.
Help us. Help us. Help us.
And then he landed.
He was standing in a field.
Not the dead field of the nightmare. Not the green field of his childhood. A different field. Gray and silent, covered in mist, dotted with stones.
Gravestones.
Thousands of them. Millions of them. Stretching to the horizon.
Kaelen walked through the graveyard.
The mist swirled around his feet. The stones were old, worn smooth by time and weather. The names were faded, unreadable. But he could feel them—the people beneath the stones. The people who had been trapped here. The people who had been forgotten.
Help us, they whispered. Please. We’re so tired.
“Who are you?” Kaelen asked again.
A figure emerged from the mist.
A woman.
She was young—younger than Hope, younger than Lyra. Her dark hair was tangled, her white dress was torn, her bare feet were bleeding. Her eyes were the color of the door—the color of the wound—but they were not hungry. They were desperate.
“Please,” she said. “Please help us.”
“Who are you?”
“My name is Mira. I was a dreamer. Like Seraphine. I came to the door to seal it. To guard it. To protect the world.”
“What happened?”
Mira’s eyes filled with tears.
“I failed.”
Mira led Kaelen through the graveyard.
The mist parted as they walked, revealing more stones, more names, more forgotten souls.
“There were others,” Mira said. “Dreamers. Guardians. Warriors. People who tried to close the door. People who tried to fight the nightmare. People who tried to save the world.”
“What happened to them?”
“They died. Not the way people die. The way dreams die. They faded. They dissolved. They were forgotten.”
“But you’re still here.”
“I’m still here. Because I didn’t die. I was trapped. Trapped between the worlds, between the dreams, between the hungers.”
“How long have you been here?”
Mira looked at the graveyard.
“I don’t know. Years. Decades. Centuries. Time has no meaning here.”
They stopped at the edge of the graveyard.
Beyond was a forest.
Not the silver forest of the heart. A different forest. Dark and twisted, the trees like grasping hands, the branches like reaching fingers.
“The nightmare lives there,” Mira said. “The first king’s dreams. The first king’s fears. The first king’s hunger.”
“The first king is dead.”
“The first king is dead. But his dreams live on. They are the nightmare now. They are the hunger. They are the door.”
Kaelen looked at the forest.
At the darkness.
At the whispers.
“Why did you call me?”
Mira turned to face him.
“Because you are the only one who can end this. You closed the door. You faced the first king. You tamed the nightmare. You gave Hope a new life.”
“I didn’t do any of that alone.”
“You did enough. More than enough. And now we need you to do more.”
“What?”
Mira took his hands.
Her skin was cold.
“We need you to destroy the door.”
Kaelen’s blood went cold.
“Destroy the door?”
“Not the physical door. The idea of the door. The nightmare. The hunger. The thing that has been feeding on the world for a thousand years.”
“How?”
Mira looked at the Duskblade.
“The blade can cut anything. Even the door. Even the nightmare. Even the hunger.”
“But the blade is part of the door. It was forged from the heart of the nightmare.”
“It was. But it has been changed. By you. By your blood. By your will. By your soul.”
Kaelen looked at the blade.
It was warm.
Pulsing.
Waiting.
“You want me to cut the door out of existence.”
“I want you to free us. All of us. The trapped. The forgotten. The lost. We have been here for too long. We want to rest.”
“Will cutting the door kill you?”
Mira smiled.
It was a sad smile, small and tired and full of years.
“Yes. But we are already dead. We are already forgotten. We are already nothing.”
“You’re not nothing.”
“Then prove it. Help us.”
Kaelen gripped the Duskblade.
He walked toward the forest.
The trees loomed before him, dark and hungry. The branches reached for him, grasping and cold. The whispers screamed in his ears.
Help us. Help us. Help us.
He raised the blade.
And he swung.