Chapter 2776: Story 2777: The Heart Behind the Door

Ronan forgot how to breathe.

Behind the golden door stood another version of himself, holding his mother’s heart in one blackened hand. The organ pulsed faintly, its red light illuminating a face identical to Ronan’s, except for the emptiness behind its eyes.

The First Mother struggled against her chains.

“Don’t let him take it!” she screamed.

The other Ronan tilted his head.

“You always arrive too late,” he said.

Then he squeezed.

The heart cracked.

Ronan felt the pain inside his own chest. He dropped to one knee, gasping as golden fire erupted beneath his skin. His sword vibrated violently, and his mother’s memories poured through him: her arms cradling him as a newborn, her blood running across a stone altar, her desperate promise to hide him from the thing that had once called him its heir.

“Mother!”

He charged toward the door.

Lyra caught his arm before he crossed the glowing cracks.

“Wait! That thing wants you to come closer.”

“She’s dying!”

“And if you lose yourself, she dies anyway!”

Her words struck harder than any blade. Ronan stopped, trembling with fury.

Behind the door, the heart pulsed again.

The First Mother lifted her face toward him. Tears ran down her pale cheeks, but beneath the fear, Ronan saw something else.

Recognition.

“My son,” she whispered. “Look at his hand.”

Ronan stared.

The false Ronan’s fingers were wrapped around the heart, but no blood dripped between them. Instead, thin black threads stretched from the heart into his wrist, feeding something invisible.

“That isn’t my heart,” Ronan realized.

The forgotten child crawled toward the door, clutching his own glowing chest.

“It’s the memory of her heart,” he said. “The real one was divided long ago.”

Ronan looked at him sharply.

“Divided between whom?”

The child’s red eyes filled with sorrow.

“Between you and the one who has no shadow.”

The false Ronan smiled.

At that instant, the colossal prisoner below the staircase began thrashing. The remaining chains snapped one after another, and the entire mountain groaned. The Nameless King’s voice echoed from the darkness.

“Open the door, First Son. Give your other self what he came for.”

Elias dragged Aren away from a collapsing wall while Darian raised violet flames to shield them. Cael, barely visible now, reached toward Ronan.

“Don’t listen,” he whispered. “That creature isn’t your reflection anymore. It is the life you abandoned.”

Ronan raised his sword.

“Then why does it have my face?”

Cael’s expression crumpled.

“Because you were the one who abandoned it.”

The false Ronan pressed the cracked heart against his chest.

A second heartbeat thundered through the mountain.

The golden door flew open.

The First Mother’s chains dissolved, and she collapsed into Ronan’s waiting arms as the false figure stepped through the threshold.

Lyra released an arrow.

It passed straight through him.

The figure stopped before Ronan and smiled with terrible tenderness.

“You have kept my name,” he whispered. “You have kept my heart.”

His eyes turned red.

“Now give me back my life.”

Ronan’s sword slipped from his fingers.

Because the stranger’s face suddenly changed.

For one heartbeat, it became the face of the forgotten child.

And the child beside Ronan screamed, “THAT ISN’T ME!”