Chapter 25 - The Door Under the KingdomThe passage was hidden beneath the royal chapel.
King Aldric had known about it since childhood, but the stone entrance had always been sealed.
Now it stood open.
Cold air drifted upward from the darkness.
Ethan held a torch while the king descended the ancient staircase.
"Why would someone build this?"
Aldric shook his head.
"The chamber existed before our kingdom."
At the bottom, they discovered a corridor lined with carved portraits.
Every portrait showed a young boy wearing a crown.
Ethan approached the first.
The face was his.
He looked at the second.
Again, his face.
The third was identical.
But the dates beneath the portraits were hundreds of years apart.
"How is that possible?"
Aldric read the oldest inscription.
The First Returned Child — Year 402.
The next read:
The Second Returned Child — Year 611.
Then another:
The Seventh Returned Child — Year 1189.
Ethan felt sick.
"Am I one of them?"
The king could not answer.
They reached a circular chamber containing twelve stone coffins.
Eleven stood closed.
The twelfth was empty.
Above it, ancient writing had been carved into the wall.
When the twelfth child returns, the kingdom shall remember what was stolen.
Ethan stared at the empty coffin.
"That's supposed to be mine."
Aldric grasped his shoulder.
"Not while I'm alive."
Suddenly, a voice echoed through the chamber.
"Father said that to me, too."
A young man stepped from behind one of the stone pillars.
He appeared about twenty years old.
His dark hair, blue eyes, and scar were identical to Ethan's.
He wore rusted royal armor.
And around his neck hung a broken-crown pendant.
The stranger looked at Ethan with exhausted eyes.
"Don't believe him," he said.
"Believe who?" Ethan whispered.
May you like
The young man pointed toward the king.
"Any of them."
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