The gates closed behind them with a sound like ribs snapping into place.

  The noise echoed through the necropolis, deep and resonant, and with it came silence. Even heavier than the waste of the Deadlands. It was expectant. A silence that waited.

  Seris felt it settle into her chest.

  The city rose around them in tiers and spirals, architecture grown rather than built. Towers of fused bone and blackened stone twisted upward like grasping fingers, their interiors lit by a dull crimson glow that pulsed faintly, as if the structures themselves possessed a heartbeat. Walkways arched overhead, latticed with vertebrae and iron. Above them, something enormous shifted and groaned, unseen.

  Everywhere she looked, they were watched.

  Figures lined the avenues leading inward, kneeling in precise rows. Some bore banners stitched from skin. Others held offerings aloft; bowls of blood, weapons rusted with age, relics scavenged from empires long dead. No one spoke. No one moved.

  The Bone Harrower walked the centre path alone. Seris followed where his shadow allowed.

  The shadows clung tighter here, thickening until she felt half-removed from herself. Her hands looked wrong when she lifted them; blurred at the edges, unreal. Her breath sounded distant, like it belonged to someone else.

  She leaned closer to him without meaning to.

  “I don’t like this,” she whispered.

  You are not meant to, he replied through the bond.

  That did nothing to help.

  They reached the heart of the city and the Bone Harrower stopped.

  Do not draw attention here, he said. Do not speak unless I permit it. And do not test me here.

  "What do you mean?"

  She felt anger across the bond.

  Just lay low. I will explain after. Now stop talking before I change my mind.

  "You can't kill me," she replied smugly.

  Oh, I know that. But I can make survival far worse than death. You'll be begging that I kill you.

  "I won't say a word," she gulped, and they walked ahead.

  If she could see behind the Harrower’s mask, she suspected she would not like what she found.

  Before her mind could drift off, they arrived at the Court of Bones. But the court was not like any court she had seen in Varenthol. It couldn't be described so much as a hall, or even a court, in fact it was more like a void.

  A vast, circular chamber yawned open before them, its ceiling lost to darkness above. The floor descended in shallow steps, carved from obsidian veined with bone, leading down to a dais at the center. The air was colder here, dense with incense and decay and something metallic that coated the back of Seris’s tongue.

  The throne rose from the dais like a carcass picked clean and rebuilt, ribs forming its arch, a spine curving upward behind it, skulls fused into its base. Old crowns were embedded into the bone at irregular intervals, half-melted, their jewels dull and cracked.

  Kings, she thought. Conquered.

  The court was already full.

  They stood along the edges of the chamber in ranked layers. Generals of bone, their armour fused to their remains; priests with hollowed eyes and mouths sewn shut; creatures Seris had no language for, their forms shifting subtly as if undecided on what shape to hold.

  A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

  And among them—

  The living.

  Human men and women knelt in chains at the lowest tier, heads bowed, backs straight, terror held rigidly in place. Some trembled. Some looked dazed. Some wore expressions of reverence so intense it made Seris’s stomach twist.

  Offerings.

  The Bone Harrower stepped onto the dais and the effect was immediate.

  Every figure in the chamber dropped to one knee. Every head bowed. Even the dead.

  The sound was like a storm breaking, bone striking stone, armour clattering, chains pulling taut. Seris felt the impact ripple through the ground, through her bones, through the bond itself.

  The truth of it pressed down on her chest until she could barely breathe.

  The Undead King.

  “Harrower,” a voice rasped from the dark.

  Another followed. Then another.

  Titles referring to him layered over one another, spoken in dead languages and living ones alike. Conqueror. King of Remains. Sovereign of the Last Breath. Warden of the Deadlands.

  He did not acknowledge them.

  He sat. The throne accepted him with a low, satisfied groan.

  Only then did the court rise.

  Seris stood frozen, heart pounding so hard she thought she might faint. The shadows shielded her mostly, but the sense of scrutiny was unbearable. She felt eyes slide across her hiding place, testing the veil, lingering.

  “What is that?” someone whispered.

  The words were not aimed at her. They were aimed at him.

  A murmur rippled through the court.

  The Bone Harrower lifted one gauntleted hand. Silence fell instantly.

  “She is under your protection,” another voice said carefully. “Is she claimed?”

  The question made Seris’s breath catch. They could see her?

  Yes, they can see you. Some of you.

  A pause.

  "Yes," he confirmed.

  The word struck like a blade driven into stone.

  The reaction was visceral. Some bowed deeper. Others recoiled. A few lifted their heads, interest sharpening into something dangerous.

  Seris recoiled. His voice, unfiltered by the bond, settled into her bones like a curse. Claimed?

  “By what right?” a priest asked, skeletal fingers tightening around a staff made of fused femurs.

  The Bone Harrower leaned back against the throne.

  "By mine," he responded.

  No one challenged that.

  The court shifted, uneasy but obedient. Attention turned elsewhere; back to ritual, to order. A procession began at the edge of the chamber as attendants dragged the first offering forward.

  A woman.

  Human. Young. Clean, dressed in white linen that trembled with her shaking body. Her eyes were wide but dry, she had already cried herself empty.

  She was guided to the foot of the dais.

  “Do you accept?” a priest intoned.

  The Bone Harrower regarded her in silence.

  Seris looked at him in panic. What would he do with these offers? Were they to kill? To devour? To... she shivered at the thought. The horror took her over as she looked at the woman, who looked not much older than she was, presenting herself to the Harrower.

  Seris felt something through the bond, as the Harrower looked down at the woman.

  The woman lifted her chin, gaze flicking upward. For just a moment, her eyes met Seris’s blurred figure, and something like confusion crossed her face.

  Then the Bone Harrower stood from his throne.

  The court held its breath.

  He descended the steps slowly, shadows trailing after him like a cloak. He stopped before the woman, towering over her. Seris's heartbeat quickened immediately.

  “You may speak,” he said.

  Her breath hitched. “I—I offer myself,” she whispered. “Willingly. I was told—”

  "I do not care for what you have been told," he said, slowly. His voice was not cruel, but it somehow chilled her to the bones.

  He lifted her chin with two fingers and studied her face. His grip lingered a fraction longer than necessary.

  Seris’s chest tightened painfully.

  “She will not be harmed,” a priest said quickly. “She is for your indulgence.”

  Seris looked at her, and the Harrower, in sheer panic.

  "No," the Harrower responded.

  Seris gasped.

  The word cracked through the chamber. Other gasps rippled outward.

  The Bone Harrower released the woman and turned away. “Take her to the sanctum,” he said. “Feed her. Clothe her. She will be returned to her people at dawn.”

  The court erupted.

  Protest. Confusion. Outrage thinly veiled as reverence.

  “That is not the custom—”

  “The offerings—”

  “They will think us weak—”

  He turned and the chamber froze.

  "I do not have to indulge to prove my power."

  The silence that followed was absolute. The only sound was the woman being dragged away, sobbing. Not in terror, but in relief.

  Seris stood shaking.

  “What would you—” she whispered. “Do you—”

  I have, he responded. But I do not have to. I do as I please, Seris.

  The honesty of it was a wound. He returned to the throne.

  The court slowly resumed, subdued now, careful. More offerings followed; blood, relics, weapons, bones. All accepted and catalogued. Rules spoken aloud in ritual cadence:

  What is given is owed.

  What is owed is taken.

  The living kneel.

  The dead serve.

  Seris listened, horror layering into understanding.

  This was not chaos. This was the Court of Bone.

  As the court dragged on, something shifted beneath the terror, something quieter. Fatigue and weight. When the final procession ended and the chamber began to empty, the Bone Harrower remained seated, motionless.

  The shadows loosened slightly. Seris dared to step closer.

  “Did you do that because I was there,” she said softly, voice trembling.

  He did not look at her. Instead, he turned away to leave the Court.

  “Come,” he said quietly, the first time he'd acknowledged her out loud. “It is time you saw what belongs to you now.”