Aion awoke beneath the Vault of Silence, the fragments of the Hollow Crown still drifting like dying embers in the air.
His mind buzzed with voices—not thoughts, but truths—stories, timelines, people who'd been erased so cleanly the world forgot they ever existed.
One name echoed above them all.
The Architect.
---
Kael helped him up, eyes filled with worry.
"You stopped breathing."
Aion wiped blood from his nose. "I was busy remembering things that never happened."
"Normal. Totally normal."
---
Above ground, the sky had shifted. Ether currents twisted unnaturally, and the stars above blinked in the wrong rhythm.
Seln was waiting at the edge of the crater.
He saw Aion's face and knew.
"You saw her."
Aion nodded.
"She created the First Laws," Seln said quietly. "But before she was called the Architect, she had another name: Seraphine Valis. A high seer. A visionary. A destroyer."
"She's coming back," Aion said. "And when she does—she'll overwrite everything. Ether, Law, Null… all of it."
Kael muttered, "That sounds bad."
---
Meanwhile, in a hidden sanctum beyond the fractured borders of Scoria, a council was forming.
Not of rulers. Not of generals.
Of broken things.
Fractured Circle survivors. Exiled Lawbreakers. Nullmarked rogues.
And at the head of the table, seated in a cloak of unraveling shadow: The Warden of Chains.
"We have watched the Nullborn awaken," the Warden said. "The Hollow Crown has chosen."
One of the figures leaned forward. "Then we move?"
"No," the Warden said.
"We prepare. The Architect does not come for war. She comes for rewrite. And we… we must decide what version of the world survives her."
---
Back in the Ashlands, Aion stood at a cliff's edge, watching lightning crawl sideways across the sky.
He whispered the name again. "Seraphine Valis…"
A flicker pulsed in his palm—an echo from the Hollow Crown's memory.
A vision opened before him—one final fragment.
---
A throne of white flame.
Seraphine standing atop it, untouched by time.
She turned toward him, as if seeing through the vision.
"You wear my legacy like a mask, child of unmaking. But you do not understand it."
Her hand rose.
"You are not my heir."
The flame surged—
---
Aion snapped back, breath ragged.
He looked at Seln.
"I'm not the only one she's touched."
Seln said nothing.
But Aion could see it in his eyes.
He already knew.