Chapter 53: Artifact Coincidence

They did not leave immediately.

By the time they had crossed far enough beyond Korrandis to put the estate out of sight, the eastern horizon was already beginning to pale. Shaul brought them into the shelter of a ruined watch station half-swallowed by the surrounding forest, where a narrow stone staircase led beneath the old foundations.

"We’ll stay here for a week,"

Shaul glanced at the coffin resting on the ground between them.

"There are things you need to know."

He looked exhausted now that they were no longer running. The control he’d maintained inside Korrandis had begun to wear thin, and there was a faint strain around his eyes that Eldrin had not noticed before.

"Get some sleep," Shaul said. "We’ll sort out everything else later."

Eldrin nodded.

"Alright."

He had intended to ask at least a dozen questions.

Where had Shaul been all these years? Who were the others? How many Novaryns had survived? What had happened to their family?

Instead, the exhaustion of the last several hours caught up with him all at once.

He barely made it to the blanket laid against the wall before sleep took him.

When Eldrin woke, he had no idea how long he’d been unconscious.

The room was dim, lit only by a small lantern burning beside the stone wall. His body ached from the flight and the night’s events, but the pain felt distant compared with the confusion waiting for him.

Shaul sat several feet away, leaning against the wall with his arms folded across his chest.

His eyes opened when Eldrin moved.

"You’re awake."

Eldrin pushed himself upright.

Shaul rose.

"Come with me."

Eldrin followed him through the lower passage of the ruined station. The further they descended, the colder the air became. What had looked like an abandoned ruin from above turned out to conceal an old stone staircase leading deep beneath the ground.

The passage eventually opened into a wide underground chamber.

Eldrin stopped at the entrance.

His father’s coffin stood in the center of the chamber, surrounded by six people.

For a moment, the sight confused him.

Then recognition hit.

Three of the faces belonged to men he’d seen before.

The warehouse.

The search for the courier.

The men who had been looking for the ledger before Eldrin ever understood why it mattered.

Shaul noticed.

"You know them?"

Eldrin nodded.

"I’ve seen three of them before."

The six people turned toward him.

Then, almost together, they lowered their heads.

"Welcome back, young master Eldrin."

The words struck him more strangely than the reunion with Shaul had.

Young master.

He hadn’t heard that title spoken to him in years.

Eldrin instinctively returned the gesture, bowing his head.

"Thank you."

When he straightened, he found all six still watching him.

Shaul moved beside him, "There is something else you need to understand."

Eldrin looked at him.

Shaul’s expression was unusually serious.

"Can you use Silver Tongue?"

Eldrin’s brows lifted.

He glanced toward the others.

No one reacted with surprise.

That alone was an answer.

It was a family secret. At least, part of it was.

Eldrin nodded.

"Yes."

Shaul gave a faint smile.

He reached beneath his coat and drew a short blade.

Eldrin watched the metal catch the lantern light.

"Shaul?"

His brother stepped closer.

"Give me your hand."

Eldrin frowned, "Why?"

"Because there is something your father left behind that only you can awaken."

Before Eldrin could ask another question, Shaul took his wrist.

The blade flashed.

A shallow cut opened across Eldrin’s palm.

A few drops gathered against his skin before Shaul turned his hand over and guided it toward his father’s resting form.

There, beside the sword that still lay across their father’s body, was a small dark artifact.

Eldrin recognized it immediately.

The same artifact they’d discussed.

"Put your blood on it."

Eldrin hesitated.

Shaul’s gaze remained on the artifact.

Eldrin let the blood fall.

The moment it touched the artifact, the chamber changed.

A violent pulse tore through the room.

The lantern flames bent sideways.

A sharp crack rang through the stone chamber as the artifact lit with a deep crimson glow.

Eldrin jerked his hand back.

"What the..."

The object moved.

It tore itself free from his father’s fingers as though pulled by an invisible force and shot toward Eldrin.

He barely had time to react before it struck his palm.

Pain exploded through his arm.

"Ahhhhh!"

Eldrin dropped to one knee.

Something seemed to burrow beneath his skin.

He could feel the artifact moving through his blood, through nerves and bone, until the sensation reached somewhere deeper than flesh.

For an instant, his entire body went rigid.

Then everything stopped, the artifact rested against his palm.

Its glow faded.

Eldrin stared at his hand, breathing hard.

Shaul watched him, "That’s it."

Eldrin looked up.

"What the hell was that?" Eldrin asked.

Shaul stepped forward and pulled Eldrin into an embrace.

Eldrin’s arms slowly came around him.

Shaul held him tightly for a few seconds before finally letting go.

"We have it now," he said.

Eldrin glanced down at the artifact.

"What exactly do we have?" Eldrin asked.

Shaul looked toward their father.

"The key."

"To what?"

"To everything House Novaryn lost."

Eldrin said nothing.

Shaul continued quietly.

"The family vaults. The weapons. The reserves. The things our ancestors kept hidden across the old territories. After the fall, the people who came looking for what belonged to Novaryn found the vaults...but they couldn’t open them."

His gaze returned to the artifact in Eldrin’s hand.

"They didn’t have the key."

Understanding slowly spread across Eldrin’s face.

"You’re saying this is the key to the Novaryn treasury?"

"Yes."

Eldrin looked back at the coffin.

The answer came together with unsettling clarity.

"That’s why they kept him."

Shaul’s expression changed.

Eldrin continued before he could speak.

"Korrandis had his body. They knew he was carrying something they couldn’t access. They preserved him because they thought the answer was still with him."

"Exactly." Shaul said.

Eldrin stared at the artifact.

"So they’ve been searching all this time."

"Not just Korrandis."

Shaul’s voice hardened.

"There were people searching before them. Some wanted the weapons. Some wanted the wealth. Others wanted something much more valuable than either."

Eldrin looked toward his father’s hand.

"The artifact was with him." he said.

"Yes."

"Why couldn’t you use it?"

Shaul’s expression became distant, "Because I can’t use Silver Tongue."

Eldrin blinked.

"What?"

"It is sealed in me." Shaul looked at his own hand.

"After my awakening, I lost access to it. I don’t know whether the ability was sealed deliberately or whether something happened during the awakening itself. I’ve tried more than once to use it since then."

He gave a faint, humorless smile.

"Nothing. maybe in near future i can use it.’

Eldrin turned the artifact over in his hand, still trying to understand what had just happened.

"So, if I hadn’t been at the Korrandis estate, you wouldn’t have been able to open it?"

"No."

Shaul’s answer came without hesitation.

Eldrin looked at him.

"And what were the chances of you choosing that particular day to retrieve it...the same day I happened to be there?" Eldrin asked.

Shaul leaned back against the stone wall, considering the question.

"Very low."

"How low?"

"We’d been operating around the Korrandis military district for nearly twenty days before the operation. We spent most of that time studying their movements, waiting for the right opportunity. The night we went in wasn’t chosen because we expected you to be there."

Eldrin glanced toward the artifact again.

Shaul continued, "If you’d arrived even a day later, we probably would’ve missed each other entirely. You would have found the body without us, or we would have taken it and left before you ever reached the chamber."

Eldrin let out a quiet breath.

"So I was lucky." Eldrin asked.

"Maybe."

Eldrin looked up.

"Maybe?"

Shaul’s expression remained thoughtful.

"I don’t know."

Eldrin gave him a skeptical look, "What does that mean?"

Shaul was silent for a moment before answering.

"It means I don’t like how neatly everything fell into place."

Eldrin’s expression changed slightly.

Shaul folded his arms.

"We spent twenty days preparing that operation. You happened to arrive on the exact night we moved. The J7 material had already been transferred by then, forcing us to search the storage facility ourselves. You happened to be there when we entered. And the thing we needed to recover could only be activated by someone who still carried Silver Tongue."

His eyes settled on Eldrin.

"That’s too many coincidences for me to ignore."

Eldrin thought about it.

The ledger.

J7.

The courier.

The people who had been searching for the ledger.

The transfer.

His own decision to enter the military district that night.

Even his earlier suspicion that something had been pulling several unrelated events toward the same place.

"You think someone arranged it?" Eldrin asked.

Shaul shook his head.

"I said it’s a theory."

"I believe something doesn’t add up."

Shaul looked toward their father’s coffin.

"Whether it’s coincidence, someone’s plan, or simply a series of decisions that happened to collide at the right time, I don’t know yet."

He looked back at Eldrin.

"But I’m not going to assume we got this lucky without a reason."