From Deadbeat noble to Top Rank Swordsman
Chapter 113: The Ascent

Chapter 113: The Ascent

The slope didn’t end at the treeline.

It bent upward, steep and narrow, carved between two ridges like a forgotten scar. Leon kept his pace steady, even as the gravel slipped beneath his boots. Behind him, Mira adjusted the strap of her pack, eyes never still. Tomas trailed last, muttering as he wiped sweat from his brow.

"You’d think escaping death underground would buy us flat land for once," Tomas grumbled.

Leon didn’t respond. The path ahead demanded focus. Every turn narrowed, every ledge grew tighter. The trees here were twisted, windblown. Old. Not like the growth of the lower valley. These had seen things. Bled sap in storms not written in any record.

Halfway up, Leon stopped.

Ahead, a cairn of black stones blocked the trail. Not natural. Each one was flat, carved at the edges, marked with sigils half-worn by time.

Mira knelt by them. "Wardstones. But not ours."

Leon studied the shapes. The spiral was there again. Smaller, less defined, like a seed of the greater seal.

Tomas crouched and prodded one. "Think it was meant to keep something in, or keep something out?"

Leon didn’t answer. He stepped around it.

As they climbed, the wind changed.

No longer stale. It carried voices. Not loud. Not clear. Like whispers through teeth.

Mira touched the blade at her hip. "You hear that too?"

Leon nodded.

Tomas squinted up the slope. "If the mountain’s talking, I’d prefer it shout. This creeping stuff’s worse."

They reached the crest.

A plateau. Wide, broken by the remains of a circular platform. Cracked stone radiated from a central point where something once stood. Now only dust remained. Around the edge were more cairns, arranged in perfect intervals.

Mira knelt beside one. Her voice came low. "These weren’t just watchers. They were warnings."

Leon turned slowly. The air here felt wrong.

"We’re not alone," he said.

A shape emerged from the far side of the ring. Tall, hooded, face hidden behind a mask of grey iron. Its hands were bare, but cracked with ash. It carried no weapon.

Yet none of them moved.

It stopped a dozen paces away.

Then it spoke. The voice was male. Dry. Old.

"You bear the mark."

Leon stared at him. "Who are you?"

"A keeper. Of what you sealed."

Mira stepped forward, cautious. "You’re one of them?"

The figure shook his head. "No. I am one who chose to remember. When others chose to forget."

Leon glanced at the sigils around the platform. "This place. It was part of the old seal."

"It was the gate before the roots," the man said. "Here, the First Witness stood. Here, the chains were cast."

Tomas raised a brow. "And let me guess—we broke something by walking in, right?"

The keeper turned his head. Not toward Tomas. Toward the path they’d come from.

"No. You woke it. As you were meant to."

Leon stepped forward. "And now?"

"Now," said the keeper, "you climb higher. Or you fall. The next seal isn’t here. It waits in the shadow of the Ash Court."

Mira frowned. "That’s across the valley. Days from here."

The keeper nodded. "Then you must not waste them. The leash holds, but not for long."

Leon narrowed his eyes. "Who told you about the leash?"

The keeper turned to go. "The one who wore the first crown."

Without another word, he vanished into the stone. Not walked. Vanished.

Tomas exhaled. "You know what I hate more than riddles? People who turn into rock mid-sentence."

Leon moved to the center of the broken platform. He knelt, ran his hand over the cold surface. There was no pulse. No light.

But he felt something.

Not memory.

Expectation.

He rose. "We head east."

Mira adjusted her coat. "To the Ash Court."

Tomas groaned. "Let me guess. It’s not a vacation spot."

Leon didn’t smile.

"It’s where the Third Crown fell."

And with that, they began the descent. Toward another truth waiting to be unburied.

Leon didn’t look back as the plateau vanished behind them. The path east wound through frost-slicked stone, weaving along a high ridge that split the valley. The light changed as they walked—sun bleeding into clouds, and clouds into mist. Time passed slower here, or maybe it just felt that way.

No birds. No insects. Just wind and the crunch of gravel.

Tomas was the first to break the silence again. "Third Crown. You want to unpack that, or should we just keep pretending we’re not walking into another deathtrap?"

Leon slowed but didn’t stop. "The First Crown was the leash. The Second was the blade. The Third was the price."

"That’s not an answer," Tomas said.

"It’s all I have," Leon replied.

Mira walked alongside him, eyes on the horizon. "He means it was the cost they couldn’t pay. Or the one they chose to forget."

The ridge dipped. They followed it down into a ravine carved deep into the earth, where black bark trees loomed like watching sentinels. Roots jutted through the stone like veins. Some still glowed faintly with residue from the seal’s light—echoes that hadn’t fully faded.

Here, the trail split.

To the left, the path wound into fog, broken by old wards strung with rusted bells. To the right, a narrow causeway led into a broken shrine, half-swallowed by vines and bone ash.

Leon paused. "The Ash Court’s east."

Mira pointed toward the fog. "And that shrine’s due north."

Tomas scoffed. "I vote fog. At least we might die without seeing what’s coming."

Leon turned toward the shrine. "We go through."

Tomas groaned. "Of course."

As they stepped inside, the air grew thicker. Warm, but wrong. The interior was a ruin—pillars cracked, the altar caved in. Scorched symbols marked the floor, unfamiliar yet oddly similar to those from the cavern. On the far wall, three iron hooks still hung above a charred dais.

Mira whispered, "Rite of chains."

Leon nodded. "This is where they bled the binders."

He walked toward the altar, and the room trembled—not violently, but enough to kick dust into the air. Tomas stayed by the doorway.

"Tell me again why we keep walking into these places?"

"Because if we don’t," Leon said, "someone else will."

He placed his hand on the altar.

No reaction.

Then—

The iron hooks sang.

A long, low hum that pressed into bone.

Leon winced, withdrawing his hand, but it was too late. The shrine responded.

From behind the broken wall, a figure stepped forward. Not masked like the keeper. Younger. Female. Eyes glowing faintly blue.

She didn’t speak.

She walked slowly to Leon, then stopped.

And knelt.

Tomas blinked. "Okay. Didn’t expect that."

The woman looked up at Leon. Her voice was a whisper, barely audible.

"You carry the wound."

Leon froze. "How do you know that?"

"I was its witness. Before the crowns. Before the chains."

Mira stepped forward. "You’re not alive."

The woman smiled faintly. "No. But I remember."

The shrine pulsed again.

And outside, the mist parted.

Far in the distance, beyond the ravine and forest, a silhouette rose.

A spire of stone.

Burned at its tip.

Crowned by ash.

Leon stepped back. "The Ash Court."

The woman nodded once, then faded—like smoke blown from a candle.

Silence returned.

But none of them spoke.

They had seen what waited.

And they would walk toward it anyway.

The shrine left a mark.

Not on their skin. On their breath.

As they stepped back into the cold, every word they spoke fogged strangely, curling in the shape of runes. The mountain had heard them. And it would remember.

They made camp just below the ridge, using what remained of an old hunter’s hollow—long abandoned, but dry. Mira lit a fire with flint and old pine bark, her hands shaking less than expected.

Leon sat apart.

Staring at the horizon.

At the Ash Court.

Tomas brought over a ration pack and dropped it beside him. "You planning to eat or stare until the sun dies?"

Leon didn’t answer.

But he took the pack.

Night fell slow.

And somewhere below, the ash wind began to stir.

It whistled faintly between the trees, soft at first. Then stronger. The fire snapped sideways in its pit. Mira sat up straighter.

"That’s not normal wind," she said.

Tomas leaned forward. "You think it’s another storm?"

Leon shook his head. "Storms don’t sound like breathing."

The wind rolled again, but deeper this time—thicker, like lungs pulling against stone. The ground didn’t shake, but the trees swayed. From the hollow’s edge, Mira rose and peered into the dark.

"Something’s moving below us," she whispered.

Leon grabbed his blade and stood. "Stay behind the ridge. If it passes, we let it. If it doesn’t—"

"We run?" Tomas offered.

Leon gave a short nod. "Only if I say."

A flicker of light appeared through the trees. Not fire. Pale green, like rotting moss. It hovered, floated, then vanished. Another appeared further left. Then another.

"Spirits?" Mira asked.

"No," Leon said. "Worse. Leftovers."

The lights were moving uphill, slow and unsteady, flickering like dying lanterns. Shapes emerged in their glow—shadows dragging long limbs, hunched forms with bone-white masks. They didn’t speak. They didn’t breathe. But the wind grew louder the closer they came.

Leon whispered, "Don’t let them see you."