Chapter 2754: Story 2755: The Child Beneath the Coffin

The child’s voice echoed through the chamber.

“Mother, why did you leave me alone?”

The pale woman covered her ears, trembling.

“I never abandoned you.”

The skeleton inside the coffin began to move.

Its tiny fingers curled around the black cloth. Red light seeped between its bones, and the symbol on its chest spread like burning veins.

Ronan staggered backward.

“No,” he whispered. “That voice is inside me.”

The child laughed.

“Of course, brother. You have carried my loneliness for your entire life.”

Lyra reached Ronan and caught his arm.

“Don’t listen to it.”

But Ronan could not look away from the coffin.

“What are you?”

The skeleton’s skull turned toward him.

“I am the child who died so you could live.”

The words silenced everyone.

Kael raised his ancient weapon, his face drained of color.

“That cannot be true.”

The mother slowly stood.

“It is.”

Darian stared at her. “Explain!”

She looked at her four surviving sons, and grief twisted her expression.

“Before Ronan was born, the fifth blood had already awakened. It lived inside the unborn child, consuming his life before he could draw his first breath. I searched every forgotten temple for a way to save him.”

“And you found this?” Elias demanded, pointing toward the skeleton.

“I found a vessel capable of taking the hunger away. A child created from the first blood, untouched by the kings’ curses.”

Cael closed his eyes.

“You used the child as a sacrifice.”

“I thought I could save them both!”

Her voice cracked.

“I placed the fifth blood inside the newborn Ronan and sealed the child’s soul within the coffin. But the ritual failed. The child died, and his hunger remained.”

The coffin shook violently.

The skeleton rose, its bones suspended in red light.

“You saved him,” the child said, “but you left me with nothing.”

Black tendrils erupted from the coffin, striking toward the mother.

Ronan moved instinctively.

His sword appeared in his hand, and he severed the tendrils before they reached her.

Everyone stared.

For a heartbeat, the darkness inside him had obeyed his will.

“Ronan!” Lyra cried. “You’re still in there!”

He looked at her, and recognition briefly softened his face.

Then the child spoke again.

“Do you remember the fire, brother?”

Ronan froze.

A vision tore through his mind: a burning chamber, his mother screaming, and a tiny hand slipping from his grasp.

He fell to his knees.

“I remember...”

The child’s empty eye sockets glowed.

“You promised you would take me with you.”

Ronan clutched his head as black veins spread across his throat.

“I was only a baby!”

“And I was only a child!”

The coffin exploded.

A towering figure emerged from the darkness, wearing the bones of countless dead as armor. At its center, the child’s tiny skeleton floated inside a cage of black roots.

The mother screamed, “Run!”

The creature turned toward Ronan.

“Now, brother,” it said, “we will finish the life you stole from me.”