Three months had passed since Elias left the abandoned chapel.
Greyhaven was waking beneath a gray sky.
Rainwater crawled through the cracks in the streets, carrying mud and filth toward the overflowing gutters. Rats scurried between broken buildings. A woman shouted at a merchant over the price of bread while two children searched through a pile of garbage nearby.
Nobody stopped to help them.
In Greyhaven, suffering was ordinary.
Far above the slums stood the royal district.
Golden towers pierced the clouds. Magical lamps floated above spotless streets, and enormous gates separated the royal quarter from the people below.
Elias watched it all from the window of an abandoned apothecary.
Three months ago, he had been nothing more than another boy trapped beneath those towers.
Now maps covered the table behind him.
Greyhaven.
Eldermere.
Lunaris.
The capital.
Trade routes.
Noble families.
Military outposts.
Hidden passages.
Everything he had managed to learn.
His fingers rested on the black book beside the maps.
It was silent.
It had been silent for days.
Elias had learned that its silence was almost more frightening than its whispers.
He closed his eyes.
And remembered the chapel.
THREE MONTHS EARLIER
The abandoned chapel smelled of wet stone and decay.
Broken stained glass covered the floor. Vines crawled through the walls, and the remains of old candles surrounded a ruined altar.
Beneath the altar was the book.
Elias remembered reaching toward it.
The moment his fingers touched the cover, everything disappeared.
There was no light.
No warmth.
Only darkness.
Then came the whispers.
Hundreds of voices seemed to surround him.
Some sounded ancient.
Some sounded terrified.
Some spoke words he couldn't understand.
Then—
Silence.
When Elias opened his eyes, the chapel was empty.
The book was gone.
But something had been left inside him.
Something he couldn't explain.
Something powerful.
He didn't understand what had happened.
He barely had time to try.
A few days later, royal soldiers captured him.
They dragged him beneath a royal outpost and threw him into a cell.
The room smelled of damp stone, rust, and old blood.
Every night, the same questions came.
"What did you see?"
"What did you touch?"
"Where is the book?"
Elias had no answers.
But eventually, he realized something.
The soldiers weren't questioning him because they wanted information.
They were afraid.
They knew about the book.
And whatever it was, the royal family desperately wanted it.
Then an old prisoner was thrown into the cell beside him.
The man's body was covered in scars, but strangely, he was smiling.
"You touched something they have spent centuries hiding," he whispered.
Elias stared at him.
"What?"
"The truth."
The old man told him what he knew.
Villages destroyed for refusing royal orders.
Children taken from their families.
Nobles buying judges.
People disappearing for speaking against the crown.
Royal soldiers killing witnesses.
Entire families erased from records.
Elias had always known Dregmoore was cruel.
He hadn't realized the cruelty was deliberate.
It was a system.
The nobles ruled because everyone beneath them had been taught to accept their place.
Then the old prisoner told him something even stranger.
The royal families weren't merely protecting their power.
They were protecting a secret.
A secret connected to the First King.
A secret connected to the strange absence of magic among ordinary people.
Elias leaned closer.
"What secret?"
The old man's expression changed.
"I don't know."
"Then how do you know it exists?"
The old man looked toward the ceiling.
"Because everyone who discovered it disappeared."
That answer stayed with Elias.
He escaped the prison soon afterward.
But freedom wasn't kind.
He slept beneath bridges.
He hid inside abandoned buildings.
He stole food when he had nothing.
He crossed entire districts without letting royal soldiers see his face.
And everywhere he went, he saw the same thing.
People starving beneath buildings owned by nobles.
Children sleeping beside overflowing gutters.
Workers dying in mines while noble families celebrated above them.
Royal soldiers beating people for speaking too loudly.
One night, Elias watched a royal carriage pass through a slum.
A man lay dying beside the road.
The carriage didn't slow.
Elias stood there in silence as the golden wheels passed inches away from the man's body.
That was when something inside him changed.
The book had given him power.
But Dregmoore had given him a reason to use it.
He began learning.
He memorized noble family names.
Military routes.
Trade networks.
Criminal organizations.
Royal officials.
Weak points.
Secrets.
He watched people.
He listened.
He learned which nobles hated one another and which soldiers could be bought.
He learned where weapons were stored.
Where prisoners were taken.
Where royal messengers traveled.
He stopped thinking like someone trying to survive.
He started thinking like someone preparing for war.
But Elias knew one thing.
He couldn't do it alone.
He needed people.
Not ordinary followers.
People strong enough to become pillars.
So he began searching.
His first destination was an underground fighting arena beneath Greyhaven.
The entrance was hidden beneath a ruined tavern.
The deeper Elias went, the louder the crowd became.
The arena smelled of sweat, iron, smoke, and cheap alcohol.
Men shouted from the darkness as fighters battled beneath hanging lanterns.
Money changed hands.
People laughed.
People screamed.
And in the center of the arena stood a young man.
Bruised.
Exhausted.
Barely standing.
Royal soldiers surrounded him.
The crowd wanted blood.
Elias watched from the shadows.
The young man raised his head.
For some reason, his eyes found Elias.
Their gazes met.
And suddenly, Elias felt the book stir beneath his coat.
A whisper slipped into his mind.
"Begin."
Elias smiled.
He had found the first of his three.
But he still didn't know what waited beyond the secrets he had uncovered.
He didn't know what the First King had hidden.
He didn't know why magic had been separated from the world.
And he certainly didn't know what the book truly wanted from him.
Those answers would come later.
For now, Elias had only one goal.
The royals had spent centuries building their kingdom above everyone else.
Elias would build something beneath them.
Something they wouldn't notice until it was too late.
He turned away from the arena.
Behind him, the crowd erupted.
The first battle of his new life was about to begin.
And somewhere deep within the black book...
Something whispered again.
"Begin."