The City 2

This short story follows a scribe attached to Ironspire Fortress's royal archives, who is chosen to accompany Lord Erbak's army to confront the neighboring Lehintron Kingdom-blamed for strange disturbances in Ironspire's border hamlets, where people vanish and children dream of voids. The journey takes them through rain-soaked forests and wind-swept passes, where whispers in unknown tongues fill the air. Upon reaching Lehintron's capital, they find the city adorned with the same spiraling symbols described in Ser Wilson Liawn's dispatch from the hidden underground metropolis. Led to the Hall of the Golden Throne, they meet King Edwin, who reveals he speaks for Corthos, the Monarch in Gold, one of The Elder Ones, and the realm of Corthossa. He explains the hidden city is not a prison but a door between worlds, that Ironspire's King Aldric also bears the sacred Golden Mark, and that the "missing" people have simply found their way home. As the truth unfolds, the scribe feels the spiraling mark appear on his own palm, and Lord Erbak, shaken by the revelation, orders the army to withdraw. On the return journey, the scribe hides his glowing mark, feeling it pulse in time with a vast, unseen force beneath the earth. Now, in the dead of night, he hears wheels on stone and knows doors to Corthossa are opening for those who carry the mark.

Part of the Transfinitian Myths Universe/TMU, a sequel for the short story "The City" part one.