The Hollow Sky stretched out like a graveyard of forgotten stars, but the deeper Lyra and Raven walked, the more the space bent—curving in on itself like a living thing aware of their trespass.
Each step echoed louder than it should've, bouncing off walls that weren't there. Time fractured. Past, present, and never all collided in glimpses—visions flickering at the edge of their sight. Lyra saw her mother. Raven saw himself… dying. Over and over again.
"I can't tell what's real anymore," Lyra whispered.
"Then we don't look," Raven said, taking her hand. "We feel."
At the heart of the Hollow, a door waited. Not carved from wood or stone, but from memory. It pulsed with the rhythm of a heartbeat, and it spoke in riddles only the dead would understand.
"You carry a bond that was not meant to be touched," the door said.
"We didn't ask for it," Raven replied.
The door trembled. "Yet you nurtured it. You bled for it."
Lyra stepped forward. "Then open. Let us pay the price."
The door sighed open.
Inside was not a room, but a mirror. Not of their faces, but of their truths.
Raven saw himself as a boy—alone, caged by prophecy. He reached for Lyra, but the mirror fractured. "You don't deserve her," it whispered.
Lyra saw herself consumed by magic—her hands burning kingdoms without meaning to. "You will destroy him," the mirror hissed.
They stood still, breathing the shame in.
"I love her anyway," Raven said.
"I'll choose him again," Lyra answered.
The mirror shattered, and behind it, a throne carved from the bones of ancient time waited. It was empty.
"I thought someone would be here," Lyra said.
"They are," Raven said, voice hollow. "We are the ones meant to sit."
A figure crawled from the shadows. Not a monster. A child. One with white eyes and blood-stained lips.
"I am the first who touched the bond," it said. "I was split by it. Loved by none. Used by all."
Lyra knelt, heart aching. "Who did this to you?"
The child smiled. "The gods who feared what love could awaken."
Its hand reached for Raven. "And now you carry it. The bond will demand. It will tear. But if you survive… you'll remake everything."
The ground shook.
A sound like a scream—thousands layered into one—ripped through the Hollow.
"The Rift's opening," Raven said. "Something's trying to pull us out."
"No," Lyra said. "Someone's trying to pull us in."
The shadows behind the throne exploded.
From it emerged a form neither alive nor dead—an echo, wearing a crown of unraveling stars.
"You came," it said, voice made of all their fears.
"We came to end it," Lyra said.
It smiled. "Then step forward, children of the bond. Claim the name of what you are."
Lyra and Raven stood side by side. "We are the Unseen. The Unforgiven. The Chosen."
The Hollow Sky roared—and the veil cracked wider than ever.