Silence.
Not the quiet of still air, but a suffocating void—a silence so complete it devoured even the thought of sound.
Kaen drifted in it—burning and frozen all at once, disembodied, reduced to pain and flickering consciousness.
He had no limbs to move, no breath to draw—only agony threaded through the fabric of his being.
Somewhere far beyond, voices rippled through the dark—not words, but echoes of emotion: fury, sorrow, betrayal.
Then, something shifted.
A presence emerged from the gloom. Towering. Cloaked in shadow and memory, it wore a crown wrought from shifting smoke and sorrow. Its face was a blur—one moment a noble king, the next a gaunt corpse, then a boy no older than Kaen.
"You wear the shards," the presence said, voice calm, ancient. "And yet, you do not kneel."
Kaen tried to speak. Only a ragged breath escaped.
The crowned figure drifted closer. The darkness thickened, curling around them like sentient mist. "You carry what was abandoned. You are the fracture. The unmade heir."
Kaen's mind surged. Deep within, something resisted—the same stubbornness that had carried him through chains, fire, and death.
"I never wanted thrones," he whispered. "I only ever wanted to survive."
The crowned figure raised a hand. Chains burst from the void—burning cold and blistering hot—snapping around Kaen's form, pinning him in place.
"No one wants the crown," the voice murmured. "Until it calls them."
Pain lanced through him as the chains tightened. The figure leaned in, twin embers where eyes should be.
"Prove yourself… or be consumed."
Suddenly—violently—a memory struck. But it wasn't his.
A battlefield under a bloodless sky. Screams. Ash. Knights dying in silence. A throne toppled. A king's last breath. The ruined blade, the one Kaen had touched, driven through golden armor.
The grief. The rage. The despair—it wasn't just memory. It was legacy.
Kaen cried out—but this time, something inside answered.
A surge of raw, untamed force erupted from within. The chains exploded into shards of light.
The crowned figure staggered, its form wavering.
Kaen dropped to a floor that hadn't existed before—stone cracked like dried bone. He gasped for air. The shards of the Forsaken Blade burned under his skin, but no longer in defiance. They pulsed with purpose.
The crowned figure righted itself. In its ember eyes, something flickered—recognition.
"Very well," it said. "You have been marked."
A brand flared to life on Kaen's forearm—a twisted crown of flame and ash, seared into his flesh.
"You walk the path of the Hollow Crown," the voice intoned, fading. "But remember—power always demands a price."
The world shook. Light devoured the darkness.
—
Kaen gasped awake.
Stone. Dust. The dais shattered behind him. The armored sentinels were gone—reduced to rusted fragments and ash.
Lira knelt beside him, face pale, eyes wide. "Kaen. You're alive."
He blinked slowly. Every nerve screamed, but the power remained—a quiet storm inside him.
"Not sure what I am," he said, voice ragged. "But alive, I think."
Lira helped him up, eyes flicking to the scorched mark on his arm. Her expression darkened, but she asked no questions.
Behind them, the path they came from had vanished—sealed in stone.
Only one way remained: forward.
Kaen looked down. A flicker of gray-crimson flame shimmered across his fingers.
"We're not the same anymore," he said softly.
Lira gave a tired, grim smile. "Good. Because I think whatever's coming… doesn't care who we were."
Side by side, they stepped into the dark.