Gard had known better than to expect things to be easy. When he had headed to investigate the Bonewright Guild’s Marrowvault passages, he’d done so with the full understanding of what it might cost. The Chapter members under his command had understood that too, or so he hoped.

  Since arriving in Marrowfen, time and time again, he’d been forced to revise more than a few of his assumptions about the Hollowstone Table. For all their rough edges and questionable reputations, its members had a way of surprising him—of showing courage and resolve when it mattered most. Perhaps that was a testament to their Chapter-Master’s leadership. The man had a gift for inspiring something greater than loyalty.

  And right now, Gard wondered if those with him resented the man for it.

  Eleven.

  That was the number of people—out of the twenty he’d brought down here—who would not be returning. Eleven men and women he’d spoken to on a weekly basis. Eleven lives spent on a single mission.

  Gard was no stranger to loss. Few veterans of the Tribulations were. But it had been years since he’d put down roots anywhere. Years since he had familiarized himself with this many people. This many faces. Losing so many of them, even if they weren’t close friends, stung more than he cared to admit.

  And unfortunately, he couldn’t even be sure it would end up mattering.

  He walked through the aftermath of what their sacrifice had led them to, boots crunching over bone splinters and shattered stone. The chamber was lined in black shale and cracked marrow, the floor littered with the ruined remains of stitched horrors—limbs of bone and tendon twisted into grotesque mockeries of life. The same constructs he had seen beneath the Marrowvault. A strain of the Tetherborn once used by the Pale Reconciliation.

  They were strong. Terrifyingly so, given their numbers. Each one fought on the level of a Kindled at minimum, and more than a few had even posed a real threat to Gard. And unless you completely obliterated them, tore them apart, or burned them until nothing but cinder remained, they kept moving.

  Gard clenched his jaw as he approached the far end of the chamber. Carved out of the floor was a massive pit, ringed by intricate channels of bone and dark resin that flowed inward like veins into a series of smaller, shallower basins, each filled with a faintly shimmering liquid. They were empty now, but it wasn’t hard to guess what they had been used for.

  The assault on the Bonewright Guild itself had gone strangely smooth. There had been no Concord guards. No guild workers. No resistance whatsoever. All of the people were gone, and all that was left were the signs of hasty departure.

  Gard had known it was wrong. Foreboding. But they’d pressed on anyway, descending through the guild’s private tunnels that connected to the Marrowvault. There, they’d found clear evidence of the infrastructure Veralyth Mournvale’s so-called butler had mentioned—supply lines, hauling platforms, and reinforced channels that proved the guild had been moving materials into the vault for months. Yet not a soul had remained to guard it.

  Though the Tetherborn had eventually found them. Whether the creatures had sensed their presence or stumbled on them by chance, Gard couldn’t say. He had planned for the possibility, and it was likely the only reason any of them had survived. Even so, nearly half of his people had fallen fighting through the vault’s galleries.

  Now they stood in the chamber where the Tetherborn’s trail had led them. And Gard wasn’t sure what to make of it.

  He looked down at the basins below, a hard scowl pulling at his face. Each one was empty, but whatever ritual was responsible for this, it was almost certainly how those things had been made.

  That alone was vile enough. But what unsettled him more was the feeling that had crept stronger the deeper they’d gone.

  The basins were nearly identical to the single large pit he’d seen beneath the Marrowvault. Though significantly smaller in scale, they all pulsed with the same current of Resonance. And there were too many for any sigilist even somewhat attuned to the vault’s ambient Resonance not to have noticed them if they had been here for any longer duration of time. Their presence distorted the air itself.

  And yet Gard hadn’t sensed anything until he entered this chamber. It was as if something had drawn a curtain over reality to hide them.

  A veil of silence.

  He realized now it had been there the entire descent—an unseen weight pressing on their ears, muting their movements, dulling the world around them. Even now, he could barely hear the men at his back. Their breathing was nothing more than the ghost of sound.

  He had tried an Ashmark earlier, attempting to send word to the surface, but the sigil had gone dead in his hand.

  Gard lifted his eyes, scanning past the pit toward a narrow opening in the wall. He hadn’t noticed it before, though it must have been there the whole time.

  He moved toward it.

  The passage was tight, uneven, and unnaturally cold. The hairs on his arms rose as a chill slid down his spine. With every step, the sound of his boots on the stone faded more, until even that was gone.

  The tunnel opened into a smaller chamber, walls of black-veined obsidian glimmering faintly with embedded sigils. Hundreds of them. The markings spiraled across every surface, overlapping in maddening precision and brimming with power. The air inside was heavy enough to taste.

  Gard’s breath caught in his throat. He could tell that this was the heart of this quiet pressure. The source of it all.

  At the chamber’s center stood a single throne of white bone, carved so smooth it seemed to drink the lighkt. Its shape was elegant, almost regal, but wrong in ways he couldn’t quite articulate.

  And it was empty.

  fSearing Gatebreak.

  Vanded’s gauntlet tore through the Tetherborn’s torso, flame roaring back as heat rippled through the creature’s body and it collapsed into a heap of writhing bone and flesh that began disintegrating into dust.

  “Blazegrip.” Whitefinger’s calm voice carried across the ruins of the Pale Hall. “Did you know the one you just killed had three daughters?”

  Vanded’s growl split the air. The ground cracked beneath him.

  “Well,” Whitefinger continued, his tone almost amused, “a part of it, at least. Another had two sons, if memory serves.”

  Breakstep.

  Vanded lunged. He crossed the distance between them, crushing another Tetherborn beneath his heel as he swung for the man. His Resonance flared bright red along his gauntlets. “Don’t mock their lives!”

  Whitefinger smiled faintly. A sigil bloomed before him as he met Vanded’s blow with his arm. Something cracked, but he didn’t care. “Unlike you, I’m actually honoring them.”

  The sigil folded as a surge of Resonance rose and a great scythe of luminous bone formed above, sweeping downward. Vanded raised both arms, meeting the attack head-on. The impact tore through stone, hurling debris even as it stopped against his armor and numerous defensive Marks.

  This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

  Embercast Spiral.

  A flaming spiral exploded from him and Whitefinger retreated. When the fire faded, both of them stood amidst the devastation their fight had wrought till now. There was very little of the Pale Hall’s central chamber left, and the plaza before it had been reduced to rubble and shadow. The moon hung pale above the Marrowvault’s spire as it looked over them, its light cutting through the smoke.

  Whitefinger was strong. Too strong for Vanded to kill him easily. And his Tetherborn seemed almost to multiply, more appearing to replace those who fell. The Bound Witness and other Table members had withdrawn to the outskirts of this battle simply to hold them off and buy time, but Vanded could still feel the tide pressing inward.

  This man needed to die. Soon.

  But even Vanded’s Fifth Seals weren’t breaking through Whitefinger’s defenses fully. They shattered limbs, opened torsos, but the man always recovered somehow. If it came down to a battle of attrition, Vanded couldn’t ensure he would win.

  He needed something else. And he was considering his alternatives.

  Whitefinger tilted his head. “Playing the tactician, Blazegrip? Thinking of a method you can win with? You were never good at that.”

  He began invoking another Mark, pale light rippling across the sigil-scars that webbed his exposed arms.

  Then the air cracked. Multiple surges of Resonance converged on the battlefield.

  Whitefinger’s eyes widened as a blur of grey slammed into him. A spectral hoof, translucent and solid all at once, struck his ribs and hurled him through a rapidly formed column of bone that barely absorbed the impact. The creature that appeared beside him was a mare with a mist-woven frame of sinew and light, breath spilling frost into the air.

  Vanded paused.

  A Hollowstep Mare.

  He hadn’t seen one in years.

  “What—” Whitefinger rasped, forcing himself upright as bone re-formed around him like armor. He’d barely found his footing when the ground beside him split apart. A tree of pale wood erupted upward, its trunk spearing toward his heart. The bone plating reacted instantly, surging forward and bursting into splintering shards that shredded the wood to fragments. From the torn roots, however, green light pulsed outward, flooding the ruins in waves of grass and moss.

  Through the spreading growth, an elk emerged, its antlers glowing with golden spores and its hide carpeted in moss. It halted atop a newly grown mound, watching him with calm, regal eyes.

  A Verdant Bloomtreader.

  Not far behind, the skeletal frame of a reptilian beast crawled forward, ribs hung with flickering alchemical lanterns that burned menacingly. A Lanternback Skelvern.

  And looming in the haze behind them, Vanded spotted the lean, long-limbed silhouette of an Ashveined Strider, its obsidian veins pulsing like molten metal beneath its hide.

  Four powerful beasts, each strong enough that even a Tenth Binding would have to act with some care. And all of them had appeared at once.

  “What is this?” Whitefinger hissed, anger seeping into his composure for some reason. His gaze snapped to Vanded. “You think these will save you tonight, Blazegrip?”

  Vanded didn’t answer. His attention had already shifted to a fifth figure approaching—a rider atop a fang-faced Sablegrip Vargyr. The man’s face, lit by the eerie red eyes burning beneath him, was one Vanded did not expect to see now.

  “…Caldrin Emberlain?”

  The rider inclined his head with a faint smile. “Chapter-Master. It has been some time.”

  Vanded frowned. Veralyth Mournvale’s servant. What was he doing here? Unless—

  “You…” Whitefinger’s voice sharpened with recognition. “The rat I left failed to kill. I see you’ve grown your arm back.”

  Caldrin’s gaze shifted toward him, lingering for several quiet seconds. “…It pains me to see what you have become. Once, you were a man worth respecting.” His eyes turned back to Vanded. “Chapter-Master, in my lady’s absence, we will lend our strength to Marrowfen’s defense.”

  Vanded’s focus swept over the assembled beasts, each one lowering its head toward Whitefinger like predators awaiting a signal. Then he looked back at Caldrin.

  …For a moment there, he’d almost thought Veralyth herself had come. Of course she hadn’t. But if anyone had collected an array of powerful beasts like this, it would’ve been her. It seemed that, even if she wasn’t around, Vanded and Marrowfen would owe her more debts.

  He gave Caldrin a curt nod. “You have my thanks.”

  Caldrin dipped his head in acknowledgment.

  Whitefinger’s lips curled into a faint, humorless smile. “Their arrival is meaningless, Blazegrip. Me humoring you doesn’t mean there’s anything you can do to change the outcome. In the end, this city will be gone come dawn.”

  Vanded brought his gauntlets together with a thunderous clap, sparks of crimson Resonance flaring between them. “The tale of Old Carren at the Wraithhold taught us there’s always something, Whitefinger.”

  “More of your myths,” the man sneered. He invoked another Mark, a chill spreading through the space as all movement seemed to slow.

  Vanded lunged. So did the beasts.

  The ground nearly split open as the Hollowstep Mare burst forward, its ghostlike hooves striking through more walls of marrow and shattering them for the Verdant Bloomtreader to follow, antlers sweeping wide and uprooting stone with living root and grass that crackled with Resonance.

  Whitefinger grabbed the Mare by the throat, skin tearing open as he forced its muzzle down. Spears of bone pierced from above and below to bar the paths of the Bloomtreader and other beasts, even as more Tetherborn appeared as if from nowhere to leap at them. The Lanternback Skelvern’s lanterns flared, burning holes into two Tetherborn while the Ashveined Strider separated legs from torsos.

  Vanded charged through the chaos. He and Caldrin’s Vargyr flanked Whitefinger from opposite sides, its fangs clamping down on the plating of bone that still protected Whitefinger even as Vanded’s gauntlet came flying in.

  The blow connected. Whitefinger reeled back, a shockwave of bone dust scattering through the area.

  From there, the battle didn’t slow.

  The beasts pressed him relentlessly, working in rhythm with Vanded’s movements as if guided by a single will. The Hollowstep Mare broke free and circled like a phantom blur, trampling through the Tetherborn and flanking with its impressive speed. The Bloomtreader’s roots coiled through the ground, seizing limbs and slowing with its mass. The Skelvern’s lanterns scoured the air, burning through flesh and bone alike, while the Strider slipped between moments, striking and vanishing before Whitefinger’s retaliations could properly land.

  For every wall of marrow he raised, someone was there to tear it apart. For every Mark he invoked, Vanded bore what damage he could. The area shook under the pressure of conflict—bone, fire, ash, and thunder layered together into something close to a tempest’s roar.

  And then, finally, Whitefinger bled. It wasn’t true blood, but as Vanded punched through an obsidian cylinder of spinning marrow that cracked the plate of his armor, he saw a gash form on the man’s arm, bleeding away into fading Resonance.

  Whitefinger staggered, his expression flickering between disbelief and fury. He started invoking more Marks, but the Resonance sputtered—interrupted by the Bloomtreader’s roots piercing through the cracks beneath him. The ground shifted, vines and bone grinding together until the air filled with the smell of burning resin.

  Vanded didn’t let up. He surged forward again, each step cracking the stone. His next blow sent Whitefinger skidding across the ruined street into the side of a collapsing building. The impact shattered its spine, half the structure caving in and raining debris across them both.

  More Tetherborn rallied around their master, like grotesque silhouettes merging from mist, but the Hollowstep Mare and other beasts met them head-on.

  Vanded approached Whitefinger who stood amidst the falling dust, brushing shards from his shoulder, hatred burning in his eyes.

  Mark of Hollow Binding.

  Mark of the Ember Refrain.

  Redoubled Grasp.

  Breakstep.

  Vanded’s attacks rained down—echoing strikes, burning glyphs, anchored shadows. Every blow landed with the force of conviction. He didn’t hold back.

  Whitefinger resisted. He struck back. But his counterattacks came slower and more labored. Each defense broke faster than the last, his control unraveling under the pressure.

  Vanded could have been bleeding from every pore and still kept going.

  He drove a knee into Whitefinger’s chest, followed by a hammering strike that formed a crater around them. Whitefinger collapsed to one knee, gasping, bone plate splintering away like a molted husk.

  Resonance seethed around Vanded’s fists as he struck again. And again. And again. Each impact dimmed the marrow glow within Whitefinger’s frame, cinder and fury coursing through Vanded’s veins until his own body thrummed like a barely contained forge.

  The ground trembled.

  The air split.

  And Whitefinger laughed—low, broken, teeth flashing through the ruin of his mouth.

  Vanded’s fist rose.

  And then, for an instant, everything went utterly still.

  The wind. The flames. Even the pounding in his ears.

  The Resonance in the air inverted, folding in on itself like a dying pulse.

  Vanded’s instincts didn’t scream. They hushed. The temperature plummeted. Light bled out of the world until only outlines remained, the area caught between one heartbeat and the next.

  Vanded’s eyes dragged sideways, drawn to a space that had been empty a moment before. Now, a single figure stood there.

  They were tall—taller than Vanded, yet somehow thinner than the shape allowed—and draped in vestments of ash-white mourning cloth, stitched with lines of living Resonance. Their limbs were long, gauntleted in ossified gray, and their face…

  It was a smooth mask of polished ivory. Featureless, save for a single inverted crown carved into its brow where a mouth or eyes might’ve been.

  There was no sound from them. No breathing. Yet when they inclined their head, the entire world seemed to tilt with it.

  A pressure descended. Not a physical force, but an unbearable weight of memory. The echo of every silence ever kept. Every grief that had been swallowed and never spoken.

  Vanded stared at the being he had hoped wouldn’t be able to show themselves this soon.

  Veyrith. The Silent Lord. Vowpale Ascendant. Unbreaking Silence of the Hollow King.

  In that moment, Vanded understood the truth as instinct.

  This was not an opponent he could face.