My mind, still reeling from the command to conquer a dungeon alone, struggled to process the final, insane instruction. I stared at my father, the words catching in my throat.
"Consume it?" I finally managed, the question laced with incredulous disbelief. "You want me to… eat a rock? A glowing, magical rock from the guts of a monster-infested tomb?"
For a fleeting moment, I saw a flicker of something in his icy eyes. It wasn't amusement. It was the profound, weary annoyance of a master craftsman dealing with a particularly dense tool.
"Do not be a simpleton, girl," he rumbled, his voice echoing slightly in the stone chamber. "You do not chew it like a piece of dried meat. To 'consume' a Heartstone is to absorb its essence. To draw its power, its very nature, into your blood and soul. It is an Aetheric process, an act of predatory assimilation. It is the fundamental gift—and curse—of our line. All Pendragons can do it. It is how we survive in this frozen wasteland. It is how we rule."
He gestured back to the map, his tone shifting from irritated lecture to cold command. The first trial, the Frost-Veil Barrow, was just the beginning.
"The Barrow is a simple test," he said, and the casual way he dismissed a Class-Three dungeon sent a fresh wave of ice through my veins. "It is a whetstone to see if you have been sharpened at all. Its Heartstone is young, weak. Consuming it will be your first taste of true power, a necessary step to prepare you for the real trial."
He drew a long, sharp finger across the map, tracing a line from the Barrow deep into the most desolate, jagged peaks at the very edge of the known world, a place marked on the map with a single, ominous rune: a stylized, shattered gateway.
"After you have conquered the Barrow and absorbed its Core, you will go here," he declared. "To the Sundered Vault."
The name felt ancient and broken on his tongue. "Another dungeon?"
"Not another dungeon," he corrected, his voice dropping, taking on a strange, almost reverent quality. "The dungeon. It is not some random festering sore upon the land that any adventurer with a sword and a death wish can attempt to plunder. The Vault is ours. It is an echo of the Progenitor's power, a splinter of reality he carved out at the dawn of our house. It is a crucible. It is a tradition."
He turned his full attention to me, and the weight of his gaze was a physical force. "The Sundered Vault is the true trial of a Pendragon. It is where you will be judged. Not by me, but by the legacy of our blood itself. No one can enter that place without the blood of a Pendragon flowing in their veins. The entrance is sealed by ancient wards that would boil the soul of any outsider who dared approach."
I felt my blood run cold. The training yard was one thing. A controlled environment where Andorra would pull her killing blows and my father would halt his torturous Aetheric pressure before my spirit shattered completely. This was different. This was real.
"More dangerous," I whispered. It wasn't a question.
"The Grendelkin in the Barrow are mere pests," he said with a contemptuous sneer. "The creatures that dwell within the Vault are… older. They are born of the Progenitor's rage and sorrow, echoes of foes he faced and conquered millennia ago. They are stronger, cleverer, and they will feel you the moment you step inside. They will hunt you."
My hands, hidden at my sides, clenched into fists so tight my knuckles ached. My mind was screaming, a frantic litany of no, I can't, this is a death sentence.
"And the Heartstone within the Vault," he continued, oblivious or indifferent to my rising terror, "is unlike any other. It is not born of festering magic, but of our own bloodline's concentrated history. It is a thousand generations of Pendragon might, distilled into a single, perfect crystal. Consuming it will be like drinking from the source of our power. It will change you. It will cement your place as my heir."
He wasn't finished. There was more. Of course, there was more.
"The Heartstone is not the only prize within the Vault. The Progenitor seeded the deepest chambers with veins of a unique ore. We call it Dracarite. It is harder than adamantium, lighter than mythril, and it drinks Aether like a thirsty god. When you are inside, you will find it. Most of the veins will be dormant, cold and dead. But one lode, one single shard, will be alive. It will glow with an inner light. It will call to you, resonating with your specific Aetheric signature. It has been waiting for you since the day you were born."
He jabbed a finger toward the wall where a magnificent sword hung, its blade the colour of a starless midnight sky, runes glowing with a soft, crimson light along its fuller. It was his sword, Wyrm-Ender. "That shard is what your weapon will be forged from. A blade bonded to your very soul. You will bring that stone back to me. The glowing one, and only the glowing one. It will have chosen you. Do you understand?"
I understood all too well. He was laying out the blueprint for my future or my funeral. The new strength I had gained over six months, the hard muscle and the awakened Aether, felt like a paper-thin shield against the abyss he was pushing me toward. I took a half-step back, a reflexive, cowardly retreat.
"I… I can do the first mission," I said, my voice trembling despite my best efforts to control it. "The Frost-Veil Barrow. I will conquer it. I will bring you its Heartstone. But the second trial… the Sundered Vault… Father, I am not ready. I don't think I can do it. I am not like you."
"You are exactly like me," he snarled, his patience finally snapping. "The same blood fills your veins. The same fire sleeps in your soul. I have spent six months fanning it into a flame. Are you going to let it be extinguished by fear?"
"This isn't just fear!" I shot back, a surge of desperate anger overriding my terror. "It's logic! You've trained me for six months. You say yourself that you've faced creatures in that Vault from ancient times. How can I possibly be ready for that?" My voice cracked, the carefully constructed facade of the hardened warrior crumbling to reveal the terrified girl beneath. "Then you come with me. If it is a trial for our bloodline, then face it with me. Teach me inside. Show me how."
It was a foolish, childish plea, and I knew it the moment the words left my mouth.
His expression did not soften. If anything, it became more remote, colder, as if he were looking at a stranger.
"I cannot," he said, and the finality in his tone was like a door slamming shut in a tomb.
"Why not?" I pressed, my voice begging. "You are the Duke. The rules are yours to command!"
"Not this one," he said, turning away from me to gaze at the map of his frozen kingdom. "The Sundered Vault is not just a place of power; it is a sentient entity, a judge. Its laws are absolute, laid down by the Progenitor himself. The trial is a solitary one. It must be. The moment a Pendragon consumes the Vault's Heartstone and claims their Dracarite, they are marked as having passed the trial. The Vault recognizes them as complete, as forged. And it seals itself to them forever."
He turned back to me, his icy eyes holding a strange, distant light, a flicker of a memory so ancient and cold it seemed to lower the temperature of the room. "I passed my trial when I was sixteen years old. I can no longer enter the Sundered Vault. No one can help you, Seraphina. No one has ever been helped. Every Lord and Lady of this house since the very first has walked into those depths alone. That is the way of it. That is the price of our power."
His words hung in the air, heavy and absolute. I was utterly, terrifyingly alone in this. My breath hitched, a sob catching in my throat. I saw my death, torn apart by ancient horrors in a lightless, forgotten cavern at the edge of the world.
I looked at him, my eyes pleading for a scrap of mercy, a single word of comfort. I found none.
"What if I fail?" I whispered, the words barely audible. "What if I die in there?"
He was silent for a long moment, studying my face as if he were assessing a piece of faulty equipment.
"Your mother will be cared for. She will live out her days in comfort as the Dowager Duchess," he said, his voice devoid of all emotion. It was a cold, practical statement of fact. "But the direct Pendragon line will die with you. Our legacy will fall to a lesser cousin from a branch family. This house, this kingdom, everything I have built, will crumble within a generation without a true heir at its head."
He took a step closer, leaning down until his face was level with mine. His breath was cold, smelling of winter.
"So do not fail," he commanded, his voice a low, chilling whisper that bored directly into my soul. "And here is a piece of advice. When you are in the dark, and you hear the scraping of claws and the slithering of things that have not seen the sun in a thousand years, when you are surrounded and you feel your courage breaking, you will remember this one, simple truth."
He paused, letting the silence stretch, letting the terror build.
"You are a Pendragon. And you are, by blood and by right, the single most dangerous thing in that dungeon. Now, go and act like it."