Tales by Lia

  CHAPTER 2 – The First Thorn: Hall of Echoes There was no light in the descent. Only the soft sound of breath and shifting metal as they moved deeper into the gullet of the world. Kael lost track of time. The stairs were steep, the stone slick with condensation that smelled faintly of rust and lilies. The walls were wrong—every few seconds he caught glimpses of movement within them, reflections of himself turning to stare. Behind him, the prisoners walked in silence. Five remained. Kael. The Golden-Chain Priest—a man called Serrik. The Scarred Alchemist, Renna Vex, missing her left eye and sanity in equal measure. The Mute Mage, Corin, who hummed backward lullabies. And the Branded Beast, Tholl, a brute who once ate a noble’s liver on stage during an execution. They entered the First Thorn without ceremony. The Hall of Echoes. The corridor opened wide—far wider than any building should have allowed. The ceiling arched into darkness. The floor became black marbl...

  Chapter 1 : Sand Below the World The desert groaned as if it remembered. A wind of black grit swept across the scorched bones of the Dreadspire Expanse, howling through the broken ribs of long-dead leviathans, worn down by centuries of heat and silence. From horizon to horizon, nothing but cracked earth and bleached wreckage. And then—there it was. Narth Khuul. A city buried for one hundred years, now risen anew. Its monolithic black towers jutted from the sand like obsidian fangs. No windows. No visible doors. Only ancient spires wrapped in spidery chains of metal older than any empire. The sky above it rippled faintly, as though reality strained to contain what pulsed beneath. A procession wound its way toward the city’s jagged maw—a caravan of condemned souls chained to rusted poles, dragged by iron-clad sandcrawlers belching steam and cinder. They were five. Five chosen to die in a tomb no one returned from. Five meant to feed the Labyrinth’s hunger. Kael Draven sat at the...