Chapter 2752: Story 2753: Beneath the First Grave

The mountain shuddered as something clawed its way toward the surface.

Ronan hovered above the broken stone, his chest glowing with three distinct heartbeats. Black energy twisted around him, while the red light beneath his ribs pulsed like a living wound.

“Mother is waiting,” he repeated.

Then he vanished.

“RONAN!” Lyra screamed.

The chains around her wrists shattered as she ran toward the place where he had stood. Only a circle of blackened stone remained, its surface marked by a symbol none of them recognized.

Kael knelt beside it.

“The first grave,” he whispered. “He has gone to the place where everything began.”

Darian tightened his grip on the ancient sword. “Then we follow him.”

“No,” Cael said. “That place was sealed before the First Kingdom existed. Nothing living can enter.”

Elias wiped blood from his mouth. “Good thing we’re not entirely living anymore.”

He reached for Aren, who steadied himself against the wall. Together, the brothers approached the fissure.

The enormous eye beneath the gate watched them.

“FOUR SONS,” it rumbled. “DO NOT FOLLOW THE FIFTH.”

Darian turned toward the darkness.

“I’m not afraid of another secret.”

The eye narrowed.

“YOU SHOULD FEAR WHAT YOUR MOTHER LOVED.”

The fissure widened.

A staircase appeared beneath the mountain, descending into absolute darkness. Each step was carved from white bone, and faint whispers rose from below.

Lyra descended first.

“I’m bringing Ronan back.”

Kael followed, carrying his ancient weapon. The brothers came after him, leaving the masked stranger alone beside the gate.

Before Elias entered the darkness, he looked back.

“Who are you really?”

The stranger lowered his mask.

His face was identical to Ronan’s, but older, scarred, and exhausted.

“I am the brother she sacrificed to save him.”

Elias stopped breathing.

“You said the fifth was inside Ronan.”

“It is.” The stranger looked toward the staircase. “But I was born before the fifth blood was placed inside him. Your mother made me its guardian. When I failed, she erased me from your memories.”

“Then why are you trying to kill him?”

The stranger’s eyes filled with sorrow.

“Because the thing wearing his heart has finally remembered its mother.”

He stepped into the fissure.

“And she will never let it leave alive.”

Far below, Lyra reached an enormous chamber filled with thousands of sealed graves. At its center stood a black stone coffin surrounded by five empty cradles.

Ronan knelt before it.

A pale woman emerged from the shadows, her white hair floating around her face.

“Mother,” Ronan whispered.

She touched his cheek.

“My stolen child,” she murmured. “You have come home.”

Lyra raised her bow.

The woman turned, revealing red eyes and a smile filled with grief.

“You brought my sons to me.”

Every grave in the chamber opened.

Then the woman whispered, “Now I can finally bury them all.”