The world didn't end with an explosion.
It ended with a whisper… and the scent of burning flesh.
They said the ritual was for him. That the blood-soaked altar, the silverbound runes, and the chanting priests were all part of his "Ascension."
He believed them.
Of course, he did.
Lucan Malryk, orphaned boy turned loyal disciple, stood beneath the midnight sky with stars reflecting in his wide, naive eyes. They had clothed him in white—ironic, really—and told him he was chosen. That the gods had finally opened their eyes.
But what he didn't know, couldn't know, was that his ascension was nothing more than a well-timed execution.
The High Inquisitor kissed his forehead like a father would a beloved son…
Then drove a ceremonial blade straight into his chest.
Lucan's scream never reached the heavens.
It gurgled in his throat, swallowed by the blood that poured like a crimson river.
As he collapsed onto the runes, the symbols flared red—feeding not on his power, but on his pain.
He saw their faces.
All of them.
The mentors who raised him.
The friends who trained beside him.
Even her—Aelira, with tears in her eyes and a knife in her hand.
"You were too pure, Luke," she had whispered as she twisted the blade.
"And purity… doesn't survive in our world."
Then darkness.
But death didn't take him.
No… something else did.
---
Somewhere beneath the altar, in the cold spaces between breath and oblivion, Lucan's soul sank.
And something was waiting... Watching.