The silence of the hidden library was absolute, save for the frantic scratching of Andrea's quill as she cross referenced Queen Ilyana's final entries.
The term Nixorath appeared more frequently toward the end, always associated with a "cold light" and a "hollow hunger."
"It wasn't just a physical ailment," Andrea whispered to the empty, blood-lit room.
"They weren't just dying; they were being replaced."
A shimmer of movement at the edge of the circular room signaled the King's return.
Theroren materialized from the shadows, his expression unreadable, though the faint scent of smoke still clung to his heavy cloak. The fire above was contained, but the damage was done.
"You have been staring at my mother's journal for hours, Stiltwort," he said, his voice a low vibration.
"Have you found the evidence of your family's 'innocence' yet?"
Andrea stood, holding the journal with trembling hands.
"I've found something far worse than a simple poison. Your mother wrote that your father believed the Stiltworts were cultivating a parasite. But look at the descriptions—the 'ash leaf' wasn't the killer. It was a vessel for something called the Nixorath."
She stepped forward, braving the chill of his presence.
"Tell me, Your Majesty... who else was there? In those final weeks when the King and Queen grew cold? Who administered the restoratives? Who witnessed the end?"
Theroren's jaw tightened.
"My Chief Keeper, Varas, was a youth then. And my father's personal guard, Kaelen. But Kaelen is a name we do not speak.
He fled the night the crowns were placed upon the funeral pyre.
He was branded a coward and a traitor for abandoning his post.
"He didn't flee out of cowardice," Andrea said, her green eyes wide.
"He fled because he saw what the Nixorath truly was.
We need to find him, Theroren.
If he is alive, he is the only one who saw the nixorath without the filter of your regents' lies."
Theroren was silent for a long time, his Burning Heart pulsing a dull, rhythmic crimson through his armor.
The idea of seeking out a 'traitor' went against every royal instinct, but the fire in the archives had proven that his enemies were already inside his walls.
"Kaelen was sighted decades ago in the Whispering Marches," Theroren finally said. "A wasteland where the light of the sun and the moon are equally dim. If he survives, he lives as a hermit, or a madman."
By midnight, they had left the Citadel.
It was an surreal sight the Vampire King and the exiled Stiltwort witch, riding together across the petrified plains.
Without her magic, Andrea felt the biting wind more keenly, but the heat radiating from Theroren usually a source of dread now acted as a shield against the freezing night.
They found the trail in a crumbling watchtower on the edge of the Marches.
A lone vampire, his skin greyed by starvation and his eyes clouded with age, sat amidst a circle of strange, glowing stones.
"Kaelen?" Theroren's voice was a thunderclap in the small stone room.
The old guard looked up, his lips peeling back in a ghastly grin.
"The pup returns and he brings a daughter of the vine. Have you come to finish what the Nixorath started, King?"
"Tell us the truth of the Sundering," Andrea pleaded, stepping toward him.
"The Nixorath... it wasn't a parasite in the herbs, was it?"
Kaelen laughed, a sound like grinding glass. He reached into a tattered pouch and pulled out a jagged, pulsing shard of Lumen Stone a crystal usually known for its healing light. But this stone was different.
Deep within its core, a swirling, oily darkness writhed, defying the crystal's natural glow.
"A parasite? No," Kaelen hissed.
"The Nixorath is an Ancient Spirit of the Void. It cannot exist in our world without a host. The Stiltworts didn't brew a poison; they provided the crystal-infused herbs that the Nixorath used as a bridge."
He held the stone closer to Andrea.
"It doesn't eat the flesh. It eats the essence. It turned your parents into hollow shells, Theroren, so it could feed on the heat of their hearts. And now"
The darkness inside the stone suddenly flared, the oily smoke pressing against the crystal walls.
"it has run out of food in the Marches. It wants a King again."