The air behind them shuddered—as if the Vault itself exhaled after centuries of holding its breath.
Kaen didn't hesitate.
He ran—feet pounding up the obsidian stairs. Lira followed, the sword in his grip whispering in a language not yet his, yet somehow... familiar. As though it had waited for his hand.
"What was that thing beneath the throne?" he called, never looking back.
Lira's voice came between gasps. "I don't know. But I heard the old wardens whisper of the Hollowed Star. Not a creature, they said. A sentence made flesh."
Behind them, the throne shattered.
The quake rippled up the Vault's spine. Crystals trembled. Forgotten shards stirred—rising as though they remembered war.
Then came the sound.
Not a roar.
Not a scream.
A heartbeat.
Slow. Relentless. Wrong.
Kaen staggered. The mark on his arm ignited—not in warning…
In recognition.
Whatever stirred below, it knew him.
They reached the top. The entrance they'd come through was sealed shut—flawless obsidian, no seam to break.
Kaen raised the blade.
And the sword answered.
A beam of light lanced from its edge, cleaving reality itself. Not stone. Not air. But the idea of a door.
The Vault did not resist.
It let them go.
They stepped through—not into ruins.
But into a forest.
Ancient. Alien. Trees with crimson bark veined in gold. Above them, the sky fractured like a shattered mirror—shards suspended in a canvas of broken stars.
Lira turned, wide-eyed. "This isn't the surface."
"No," Kaen said quietly. "It's the Crown's Reflection."
Her face went pale. "That's a myth. A realm born from the first bearer's regret…"
"Then the myth's awake," Kaen murmured, staring at the sword.
It had changed.
Its name now etched in black flame across the flat of the blade:
Vothkarr — The Oath That Breaks
In its reflection, Kaen saw two paths.
One drowning in fire.
The other swallowed by silence.
And far below—in the Vault's pit where thrones go to die—
something opened its eyes.
And smiled.