The Mourning Realm had begun to stir in ways Kael hadn't anticipated.
The gateway to the Astral Dominion had not merely bridged two realms—it had reverberated through the lattice of creation itself. Unseen eyes were now watching. Forgotten powers, once content to slumber beneath veils of obscurity, were whispering again. The very threads of fate seemed to pull taut, as if awaiting something—no, someone—to sever or seal them.
Kael stood atop the obsidian ramparts of the Apex Citadel, his gaze turned skyward. The stars shimmered unnaturally tonight. They pulsed not with light, but with intention.
Behind him, the black-marble throne chamber had grown ever more vast, reshaped by the will of dominion. The Mourning Sigil now burned with a deeper hue, closer to crimson than void. A sign of something changing within him. Or perhaps, something remembering its origin.
Valethra approached silently, as she always did before moments of consequence. Her war-etched armor reflected the faint starlight like fire caught in steel. "The oracles from the Nixian Depths have arrived," she said. "They brought the Mirror of Bound Fates."
Kael's jaw tightened slightly. "And the price?"
"They ask only one thing," she said, her voice quieting. "That you do not flinch."
Kael turned toward her fully. "Let them in."
A procession emerged, veiled figures of liquid shadow and starlight, gliding across the onyx floor like specters from an age before language. Between them hovered the Mirror. Oval, framed in twisted star-metal, and pulsing with a quiet malice, it spun slowly in the air as though alive.
Veyra, who entered just after them, hissed softly. "I do not trust relics that know our names before we speak."
Isilra, her song always a murmur at Kael's side, folded her arms. "It's not knowing that offends me. It's remembering."
The mirror stopped spinning.
A voice echoed from within, as if it had always been part of the room's breath. "Kael of the Crossed Realms. Bearer of the Mourning Sigil. Son of Ruin. Prince of Ash. You seek to reshape what is bound. But you forget—the bound reshape the unbound in return."
Kael's eyes narrowed. "Show me what lies beneath the veil."
The mirror did not shimmer. It opened.
Images surged forth—not illusions, but echoes made tangible. Possibilities that were once denied, now struggling to take shape.
Kael saw his own reflection—not as he was now, but fractured across timelines. One was a tyrant, throned atop bones and betrayal. Another, a martyr lost in the pursuit of unity. A third, unfamiliar even to him, held hands with beings of pure starlight, neither man nor god, yet something greater than both.
The fourth reflection did not move.
It was Kael, as he was now—yet different. The same obsidian armor, the same eyes of relentless intellect—but colder. Detached. Inhuman.
"What is this?" Valethra growled, stepping forward. "Some twisted future?"
"No," Kael murmured. "It's a possibility. One where I lose myself… to the path."
The mirror pulsed again. "Every path has a cost. Some cost your enemies. Others cost you."
Kael stepped forward. "I did not forge dominion to become its prisoner."
The mirror rippled like liquid glass. "Then you must break the lock. And the key lies in the one you abandoned."
Kael's gaze sharpened. "Who?"
The mirror darkened, and an image coalesced: Lucian.
But not the broken Lucian from before. No longer bound in shame, nor merely a puppet twisted by demonic blood. He stood within a realm Kael did not recognize—a twilight domain between existence and void, holding a blade forged from his own suffering. He was not sane. But he was certain.
Elira approached, frost trailing her steps. "You let him live."
"I left him defeated," Kael replied.
"You left him angry," Isilra added. "And anger untempered becomes legacy."
The mirror crackled. "He seeks the Cradle of All Things. If he succeeds, not even the stars will remain constant. Your conquest will become footnote."
Kael turned, his mind already calculating. "Then I intercept him. Not as ruler, not as conqueror… but as judge."
Valethra stepped forward. "Then we ride for the Weeping Divide. The only known path to the Cradle begins there."
Kael's hand raised. "No. This journey demands more than strength. This path tests truth."
The harem fell silent. Each of them, for all their power, had known Kael's command to be law. But this time, his voice carried not just command—it carried finality.
He turned toward the mirror. "You opened the path. Now seal it behind me. Let no one follow."
The Nixian oracles bowed, the mirror folding into itself like a dying star. In its place, only silence.
The Weeping Divide was a place the world had tried to forget. A scar between realms, where memory bled into form. The sky above it was colorless. Not gray, not black—just absent. The earth cracked with forgotten footsteps. And above all, the air carried the sound of weeping—no source, no voice, just eternal mourning.
Kael entered alone.
Each step into the Divide stripped something from him. Not flesh. Not power. But anchors—concepts of self. Pride. Hatred. Regret. Even ambition dimmed under the endless weeping.
And then… silence.
A figure stood before him. Cloaked, featureless, yet familiar.
"Lucian," Kael said.
"No," came the reply. "Not yet."
The cloak unraveled, revealing a woman—neither mortal nor divine. Her eyes were endless, reflecting every choice Kael had made.
"I am Memory," she said. "And you, Kael, have come to claim the cradle."
"I've come to prevent a mistake," Kael corrected.
She nodded. "Then face yours."
A sphere rose between them. Within it, moments flickered: Kael betraying Auron. Kael allowing his demon mother to raze kingdoms in his name. Kael manipulating Seraphina. Kael crushing the last loyal general with a whisper.
And then… one final image.
Kael alone. Sitting atop a throne of stars. And weeping.
"No one forced you to become," she said. "But now you must choose what you will be."
Kael stepped forward, touched the sphere. It burned. It reminded. But he did not flinch.
"I will be what the world needs, not what it understands."
And the sphere shattered.
Memory smiled. "Then face him. But remember—he is not the only ghost of your path."
Kael walked beyond her, into the final breach.
And there stood Lucian.
His form was a war of contradictions. Half-shadow, half-light. Wings of broken crystal. Eyes of wildfire and void.
"So," Lucian said. "You came after all."
Kael did not draw a weapon. "You seek the Cradle."
"I was the cradle," Lucian growled. "Until you stole it from me."
"No," Kael replied. "You abandoned it. I merely claimed what you discarded."
Their words struck like blades.
Lucian raised his hand. "Then speak no more. Let fate be written in silence."
The two charged.
Their battle was not of blade and fire. It was will against will. Each strike reshaped the Weeping Divide. Each clash tore echoes from their souls.
Kael moved like inevitability. Lucian struck like vengeance given form.
Where Kael struck with calculation, Lucian countered with fury. But something had changed. Lucian was no longer broken. He believed. And belief, Kael knew, was the most dangerous weapon of all.
They clashed across the realm until neither could stand.
Breathing heavy, Kael stared into Lucian's eyes.
"You still hate me," Kael said.
"No," Lucian replied. "I understand you. And that is why you must not reach the Cradle."
Kael closed his eyes. "Then you leave me no choice."
He raised the Mourning Sigil—and for the first time, not to dominate, but to embrace.
Lucian's eyes widened. "You would… risk it?"
"I already have," Kael whispered.
The sigil pulsed—and the Divide collapsed into light.
When Kael awoke, he was alone. No Divide. No Lucian. Only stars.
And in the distance, the Cradle.
It was not a place. It was a choice made manifest.
Kael stepped forward.
"Not as tyrant," he whispered. "Not as god. As Kael."
The Cradle responded.
And the next phase of his dominion began.
To be continued...