The air behind them shuddered—as though the Vault itself exhaled after centuries of holding its breath.
Kaen didn't wait.
He sprinted up the obsidian steps, Lira close behind. The sword in his grip whispered things he couldn't understand yet, but it felt… aligned. As though it belonged in his hand, and always had.
"That thing under the Vault—what is it?" Kaen asked without turning.
Lira's voice was breathless. "I don't know. But I heard the old wardens speak of a 'Hollowed Star'… sealed beneath the first throne. They said it wasn't a creature. It was a sentence made flesh."
Behind them, the throne shattered completely.
A quake rippled upward, causing the crystal pillars to tremble. Shards rose from the ground like they remembered the war they were built for.
Then came the sound.
Not a roar.
Not a screech.
A heartbeat.
Slow. Terrible. Unnatural.
Kaen nearly stumbled. His mark flared again—this time not in warning, but in recognition.
Whatever was waking beneath them, it knew him.
They reached the top, where the door they entered had sealed shut behind them. Obsidian and seamless.
Kaen raised the sword—and to his surprise, it reacted. Light lanced out, slashing a rift in the stone, cutting through reality itself. The Vault did not resist—it allowed them to leave.
They emerged not in the ruin above… but somewhere else.
An ancient forest. Trees twisted with red bark and veins of gold. The sky above was fractured, as if someone had shattered a mirror and forgotten to fix it.
Lira looked around in disbelief. "This… isn't the surface."
"No," Kaen said slowly. "It's the Crown's Reflection."
She paled. "That's a myth. A realm created by the first bearer's regret…"
"Then it's real now," he said grimly, looking at the blade.
The sword had changed.
It bore a name now, etched along the flat of the blade:
"Vothkarr — The Oath That Breaks"
In the reflection of its metal, Kaen saw flashes—his own path, veering in two directions. One soaked in fire. The other in silence.
Behind them, far below in the Vault's deepest pit, something opened its eyes.
And smiled.