Chapter 7 - The Blood Moon Rises
Through the high, barred windows of the palace’s lower levels, the moon began to rise—a massive, swollen sphere burning with an eerie, unnatural crimson light. The blood moon.
The time had come.
Led by Captain Marcus, Lucy and Prince William sprinted through the damp, shadow-drenched service tunnels that bypassed the grand staircases. The castle around them seemed to be holding its breath; the stone walls were completely silent, the furniture mute, as if even the inanimate objects were terrified of what was about to transpire.
“The entrance to the inner vault is just past the old boiler room,” Marcus whispered, signaling for them to halt behind a thick stone pillar.
Ahead of them, torches flared brightly against the dark corridor walls. Four elite guards clad in full black plate armor stood motionless before a massive, rune-carved stone archway. Beyond that archway lay the heart of the mountain—and the Chancellor.
“Four of them,” William murmured, resting his hand on the hilt of a dagger Marcus had slipped him. “We can't take them all in a direct fight without raising the alarm.”
“You don't have to fight them,” Lucy whispered, her eyes locking onto the ancient, rusted steam pipes running along the ceiling directly above the guards.
William looked down at her, confused. “What are you—?”
“Watch,” Lucy said.
She closed her eyes, focusing her mind past the stone, past the iron, reaching out with that strange, forbidden sense she had spent her whole life trying to ignore. She found the pipes. She found the rusted, stressed joints just above the guards’ heads.
“Please,” she whispered mentally into the metal. “Just a little crack. Just let go.”
For a second, nothing happened. Then, with a sudden, metallic shriek, the main pressure valve on the steam pipe fractured. A blinding blast of scalding white steam erupted downward with the force of a geyser, filling the corridor with a deafening roar.
The four guards dropped their weapons instantly, screaming in agony as they scrambled backward, clutching their scalded armor and fleeing down the hallway in utter panic.
“How did you...?” Marcus stared at Lucy in absolute astonishment.
“Don't ask,” William said, grabbing her hand with a grin. “Run!”
They bolted past the hissing steam vents, diving straight through the rune-carved archway before the heavy stone doors could close.
The inner vault was vast, circular, and dominated by a towering stone altar directly beneath an open ceiling grate that framed the bloody, glowing moon above. Standing at the center of the altar was the Chancellor.
He had discarded his formal robes. His bare chest was covered in ancient, glowing runes carved directly into his withered skin. In his hands, he held the golden crown, which was writhing and shrieking like a trapped animal as its internal spikes bled a dark, viscous fluid.
“You’re too late,” the Chancellor rasped, his voice echoing off the cavernous stone walls like a chorus of ghosts. “The alignment is complete. The blood moon is at its zenith.”
William drew his dagger, stepping forward with absolute fury in his eyes. “It ends tonight, old man.”
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“It only ends when the vessel is emptied,” the Chancellor snarled, raising the crown high above his head as a beam of crimson moonlight slammed down from the ceiling grate, enveloping him in a blinding halo of dark power.
The ground beneath their feet began to fracture, and from the deep chasms below, shadowy, skeletal hands of pure magic began to rise, reaching out to drag them down into the abyss.
