Kael stood over the corpse of the fallen king.The throne behind him still pulsed, but the chainlight had gone dim. The blade in Kael’s hand had stopped humming. It now lay silent, warm, as if it had taken a breath and was holding it in the dark.Lira moved first. Her face was pale, sweat across her brow, blood on her knuckles. “You should not have been able to kill him.”Kael looked down at the broken blade the corpse had wielded. It lay in pieces beside the pool, its shadow flickering like dying memory. “I didn’t kill him,” Kael said. “He let me.”Nyra limped over, her cloak torn and burned. “He was testing you.”“No,” Kael said quietly. “He was warning me.”The chamber around them had begun to shift. The pool receded, folding into the stone. The fleshwalls pulled back, and the ceiling groaned like the tower itself was exhaling. The throne cracked. The corpse slumped once more, lifeless now in truth.Kael turned away from it.There was no triumph. No celebration.Just silence.They

Kael did not remember falling.He remembered becoming.Every thread of fire in his veins flared open as the veil consumed him. There was no flesh anymore. No barrier between thought and flame. His soul unraveled like parchment to a torch. But it did not burn away.It reformed.The Watcher welcomed him. Not as a master. Not as prey.As twin.Their minds collided across a void of silence. Kael stood at the center of a spiral larger than stars, and within it he saw himself again and again—on battlefields, on thrones, in chains. In every version, fire clung to him. Some wore it like armor. Some were devoured by it.Only one turned away.Only one walked through the flame and left it behind.That one looked at him now.Spoke in his voice.“You are not the curse. You are the choice.”Kael gasped.Breath returned to his body. Pain followed. But it was real. Tangible.He was alive.He opened his eyes.He was kneeling in front of the altar again. But it was cracked now. Shattered in three place

The spiral was gone.But the wound remained.Kael could feel it beneath the earth. Like a breath held too long. Like something ancient exhaling after a thousand years. The city might rejoice, but he knew better than to mistake calm for peace.He stood atop the broken steps of the temple as the sun pierced the clouds. Its warmth touched the blood on his armor, the soot on his skin, and the fresh darkness pulsing beneath the spiral mark on his chest.The mark had not vanished.It had changed.Now it bled no light, no fire.Only silence.“What is it doing?” Nyra asked, eyeing the spiral as if it might lash out again.Kael didn’t answer. He didn’t know.“It’s not reacting to anything anymore,” Lira said, folding her arms. “Almost like it’s waiting.”Kael nodded slowly. “It is.”They turned toward the gathering crowd. Survivors, guards, clerics, even thieves and debt collectors stood shoulder to shoulder. Some were crying. Others knelt.And all of them were looking at Kael.He hated it.He

The first breath Kael took outside the ruin was thin and sharp, as if the air itself had forgotten how to welcome the living.All around them, the ground trembled. Not violently. Not yet. But like something had stirred deep beneath the stone and was turning in its sleep.The tower had vanished, leaving behind only a black crater that pulsed with cold light. No dust. No debris. Just emptiness that hummed with the echo of a curse undone—but not destroyed.Kael stood slowly. His legs shook, but not from weakness. His body remembered what the Hollow had tried to offer. The spiral still burned on his palm, no longer flaring wildly, but steady. Like it was waiting.Lira stepped beside him, her voice low. “We should move. That was never the true end.”Kael glanced back at Nyra. She stood at the edge of the crater, eyes fixed on something only she could see. The wind pulled at her cloak. Her hair danced like shadows caught in a slow fire.“They always called it the final trial,” Nyra said wit

Silence roared.Kael fell through light.The tower had vanished. Not crumbled, not broken, but simply ceased to exist the moment the Veiled God's name left his lips. Now there was no ground, no sky, no walls—only the endless void between moments, between death and whatever came after.He couldn't feel his body.But he could feel the spiral.It burned hotter than ever.Not like fire. Like a wound that refused to close.Somewhere behind him, voices echoed through the dark.Lira's scream.Nyra's curse.Then—nothing.Kael opened his eyes.He lay in a field of ash.Above him, the sky bled stars, slow and red, as if the heavens themselves were mourning. The wind was still. The world, quiet.He sat up.Ash fell from his shoulders. His armor was scorched, half-melted across his chest. His sword was gone.He looked at his hand.The spiral was no longer a mark.It was carved into his flesh, raised like fresh brandings, black veins running down his arm and into his chest. It pulsed with every br