Chapter 3 - Binding

  King Johanne stood at the entryway, bathed in scalding, blinding light. The air grew heavy, suffocating. Mardukai’s shadows pulled away.

  Elrin blinked rapidly, his vision struggling to adjust after staring into darkness for so long. When his sight finally cleared, he found himself wondering how such a being could walk among mortals at all.

  He had never seen the King in flesh, only the carved statue in the square, chiseled five hundred years ago. Yet Johanne had not aged a single day.

  The King stood tall, his radiance blurring man and legend. Long hair like spun silk, framing sharp angles and regal bone structure. A red gem gleamed on his forehead.

  A golden sun emblem protruded from his armor. Tiny etched eyes moved across it, staring into the darkness. Behind him, sun rays fanned out like frozen flames. Johanne paused for a moment, his gaze shifting to Wildree—for a heartbeat—his light flickered.

  Wildree’s legs trembled, his breathing grew thin and strained.

  “Wildree,” Johanne’s voice rang clear, devoid of anger yet somehow more terrible for its calm. “You stand in my domain, wielding forbidden knowledge, conducting rituals that violate every law of this kingdom. Explain yourself.”

  “Your Majesty!” blurted Wildree, with reckless desperation. “I-I came to finish what you began five centuries ago! To free you from this burden! The Monteferri Deathbringer bears the Craostyr, a weapon capable of—”

  “I know what it is,” the King interrupted. “I also know you did not come here for my sake.”

  The gem on Johanne’s forehead pulsed with brighter light. “You came for a crown,” he continued, his voice steady, inexorable. “The Eryth Thyra—Red Cult—favors you. The Monteferri persuaded to move against the throne. Ambitious.”

  Wildree shook his head weakly, sweat pouring down his face. “No, Your Majesty, I would never!”

  The King paused, ignoring the demonic presence coiled in the darkness around him. His attention remained fixed on Wildree alone.

  “You struck a deal with demons,” said the King, certain.

  Wildree parted his lips in denial, but the words died in his throat.

  A rumbling laugh rolled through the chamber. “Johanne, we’re both being usurped,” came Mardukai’s gritty voice, as the countless eyes stared at Johanne. “Release me. Let us rule this realm together. We can squash the insects beneath us.”

  “Silence,” Johanne commanded.

  The shadows flinched as if struck. Mardukai’s laughter cut off mid growl, replaced by a low, irritated rumble. His many eyes narrowed, burning with resentment at being dismissed.

  Elrin stared, stunned. The King didn’t raise his voice, didn’t move, didn’t even look at Mardukai. And yet…the Demon King obeyed.

  Johanne’s gaze shifted. The moment it left Wildree, the pressure lifted so suddenly that the Chancellor staggered, sucking in air like a drowning man pulled to shore.

  The King’s attention settled on Elrin and the boy felt it immediately. The golden radiance pressed against his skin, warm and unbearable at once. He felt a strong compulsion to lower his gaze and bow.

  Johanne began walking towards him. Each step pushed the shadows back, carving a widening circle of light across the chamber. The darkness resisted, writhing and retreating, unwilling to yield ground to him.

  Johanne knelt.

  Up close, he was no longer an untouchable monument of legend. Elrin could see the fine lines at the corners of his eyes. The faint strain beneath the glow. The way the light around him pulsed, not steady, but rhythmic, like a heart working harder than it should.

  Concern flickered across the King’s face. Not the distant pity of a god for an insect, but genuine human worry. “You’re that brave boy’s friend who came to warn us.” Johanne said, his voice gentle.

  Awe stirred in Elrin’s chest, with it a quiet pride as Wean’s face surface in his mind. You actually did it, Wean. You pulled it off.

  “Elrin, was it?” continued the King.

  Elrin’s body felt hollow, drained nearly to death and his face sunken in. When he tried to speak, the words came out as barely more than a slur.

  “Yes…Your Majesty.”

  The King studied him in silence. The gem on his forehead dimmed slightly, as though drawing inward.

  Elrin felt a strange sensation then, like fingers brushing against his chest, not touching flesh, but something deeper, something fragile.

  Johanne’s brow furrowed. “You’re nearly empty,” the King murmured. “They took too much.” Then he straightened, rising to his full height. His attention shifted away from Elrin and locked onto another presence in the chamber.

  “Monteferri,” Johanne said, his voice once again carrying command. “This ends now. Release the Craostyr and return to your clan.”

  The Deathbringer, now even paler than before, his blood slowly consumed by the ancient blade stared Johanne in the eyes. “I cannot,” he answered, quietly.

  “You misunderstand,” the King replied. “This is not a request.”

  “It is not a choice.” The Deathbringer swallowed. “Only the offeror may dissolve a binding contract,” he continued, his voice rough but controlled. “Until then, my body, blood, and life remain loyal to the contract.”

  Johanne turned his gaze to Wildree.

  The effect was immediate. The chancellor stiffened as though struck, his breath hitching in his throat.

  “Wildree Felgost,” Johanne said, each word precise. “You orchestrated this ritual. You invoked forbidden law. You bound a man to a weapon designed for extinction.”

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  Wildree clenched his jaw.

  “By royal decree,” Johanne continued, unmoved, “you are sentenced to hanging until dead. Your estates forfeit. Your name stricken from record.” His eyes hardened. “Now release the Deathbringer, and retain what little honor remains to you.”

  For a heartbeat, Wildree seemed small. Then his expression twisted. Hatred crept across his face like rot. His gaze slid to the Monteferri, and his hand drew slowly across his own throat.

  Johanne did not look away.

  “As expected,” the King said. “Spineless.”

  The Deathbringer moved.

  The Craostyr firmly held in his trembling hands, aimed toward the King’s heart—his strides lengthening with each step. His movement slowed while his speed accelerated, creating a fatal split-second of hesitation.

  For three decades the Deathbringer had trained this ability to absolute perfection. Nobody had ever survived it.

  Against the King of Jotun—

  CRACK!

  A massive hand of pure light slammed into the assassin mid-step.

  Stone exploded beneath the impact. The Deathbringer’s body struck the floor with catastrophic force, blood spraying across the chamber as the ground caved inward, leaving a crater where he lay broken and gasping.

  The Craostyr skidded from his grasp, clattering across the stone just out of reach.

  But the Monteferri was not dead. His training—his inhuman resilience—kept him conscious even as his bones shattered.

  Johanne lowered his hand.

  “For the sake of your clan’s master—my old friend Mownke,” the King said, his voice heavy now, “I offer mercy once more. Your contract is void. Leave Jotun. Never return.”

  The Deathbringer’s fingers clawed across the blood-slicked stone. Every movement brought fresh agony, but to the Monteferri, pain was fuel. His hand closed around the Craostyr’s hilt.

  Johanne eyed the struggling assassin with pity.

  The Deathbringer rolled onto his back, blood pouring from his mouth as he raised the trembling blade above his chest. His voice came out as a wet rasp, but carried absolute conviction.

  “Not… yet,” he rasped. “Only death completes all contracts.” And he drove the Craostyr into his own heart.

  The Craostyr ignited.

  Red light burst from the assassin’s body in violent lances, ripping through flesh, stone, and air alike. His corpse convulsed as the weapon drank him dry, bones cracking, blood vaporizing in incandescent spray.

  Wildree did not hesitate. The moment the light blinded him, he turned and ran. His robes caught on shattered stone. He tore them free and fled down the tunnel, the red priestess scrambling after him, both vanishing into the smoke and ruin.

  Stone split and rained from the ceiling. One beam punched clean through the roof, tearing open the mountain itself. Through the jagged wound above, pale sky bled into the cavern.

  Johanne moved without thought.

  He threw himself over Elrin, wrapping the boy in a cocoon of golden light as the world collapsed around them. Rocks slammed against the radiant barrier, cracking and shattering, yet never breaking through. Each impact sent a tremor through Johanne’s body. His breath hitched. His light flickered.

  Elrin grunted as the shock-wave tore through him. Even shielded, the force rattled his bones, drove the air from his lungs. His body curled instinctively, mind blank with terror.

  Then, amid the settling dust and falling debris, a slow laughter rose.

  The darkness that had been bound within the chamber poured outward like floodwater through a shattered dam. Shadows slithered across broken stone, stretching and twisting, no longer constrained. Within them moved a presence that had been starved, denied, and restrained for half a millennium.

  Elrin noticed the King wince, a crack in that stoic composure.

  “Great show of power, Majesty,” Mardukai’s voice rumbled through the dark like grinding stone. “Do you still believe you can challenge me?”

  The shadows writhed with hundreds of laughing mouths, their cackling echoing off the shattered remnants of the chamber. They began creeping toward the King, engulfing the edges of his golden radiance, dimming it degree by degree.

  Johanne’s entire body blazed with blinding light, a surge of power that pushed the darkness back. For a moment.

  “Impressive.” More shadows gathered in the darkness, coiling like serpents preparing to strike. Hundreds of them. Thousands. “But five hundred years of bleeding your life force to keep me bound...you’re hollow inside, aren’t you? A beautiful shell wrapped around emptiness,” said the Demon King as his shadows launched a relentless barrage from every direction.

  Johanne staggered as if struck by an unseen force. His golden radiance flared—not in defiance, but inward, folding around himself like armor drawn too tight. For the first time, fear flickered across his eyes.

  “He’s not trying to escape,” Elrin rasped.

  Johanne didn’t look at him. His jaw was clenched, light blazing brighter as the shadows strained closer.

  “He’s trying to take you,” Elrin said. The realization struck the boy with sudden, sick clarity. If the cave fell—if the chains failed—Mardukai wouldn’t need stone.

  He would need flesh.

  “M—Majesty,” Elrin shouted, pain tearing through his bones as he forced himself upright. “Don’t let him—”

  The ground buckled violently. A section of ceiling collapsed with a thunderous crash, driving Johanne back another step. His back hunched, sweat streaming from his face. The mighty King looked as though he barely clung to life.

  And that was all Elrin needed to see.

  “Bind him to me.”

  Johanne turned sharply. “No.”

  “But he must not have you!”

  “You don’t understand what you’re offering,” the King said, voice strained as golden blades tore through another wave of shadow. “He will hollow you. Wear you down. He will turn your mind against itself until there’s nothing left but him.”

  Elrin swallowed, chest burning. “I know,” he lied. “I’m Commonborn,” he went on, forcing the words past the pain. “No power and no influence for him to use.”

  Another tremor shook the cavern. Johanne faltered, one knee nearly buckling as shadows surged closer, grasping.

  Elrin dragged himself forward, every inch agony. “If he takes you,” he said, voice breaking, “this world ends.”

  The King was silent for a long moment.

  Then his gaze sharpened. “Your life would be misery. They would come for you—for you'd carry the heir to their throne. There's no turning back from this.”

  Elrin swallowed hard, understanding nothing but the gravity in those words. He nodded anyway. The image of his brother’s last breathing moment still burned behind his eyes.

  “Elrin. To survive, you must grow strong. That is the only way.”

  Johanne took one deep, trembling breath. Golden light roared back into him, stolen from five centuries of sacrifice. His body straightened, muscles swelling, his voice deepening with divine authority. He stood tall and faced the shadows, extending one hand toward a specific point in the darkness, the other aimed at Elrin’s chest.

  “Mardukai, by the blessing of Skara, the Sun Queen, be bound!”

  A beam light erupted from Johanne’s palms, piercing the darkness like a spear through flesh. Mardukai shrieked—hundreds of demonic voices overlapping in one impossible sound of anguish.

  Elrin’s chest exploded with fire. His heart glowed, visible through skin and bone.

  He couldn’t feel his limbs, couldn’t feel the ground beneath him.

  Only burning, as if his very bones were melting, his blood boiling, his soul being reforged in eternal flame. The light consumed everything.

  He couldn’t see. Couldn’t think. Could only endure.

  Then, for a split-moment, he got a glimpse of the world around him. The ceiling was falling. The shadows were gone. Only Johanne remained, barely standing. He was no longer a young man, but a skeleton wrapped in sagging skin. His pupils turned white, his hair thin and dry, his eyes completely sunken. He tried to speak but only a moan came out. Elrin read his lips.

  “Bring peace, young warrior. The world will need you.”

  Darkness.