The sky did not scream.
It sang.
A low, haunting melody—neither divine nor profane, but something that resonated in the marrow of the world. The air shimmered with tension, veils of reality thinning as Kael stood upon the obsidian balcony of the Mourning Citadel, his mantle fluttering in the rising wind like the wings of a sovereign revenant. The Trial of Echoing Fire had not broken him. If anything, it had made him more real. Where once he had been a shadow hiding behind intellect and manipulation, now he stood as a force—undeniable, untethered, and understood only by those who had walked the edge of oblivion and turned it into a path.
Below him, thousands knelt in formation—his army of chosen, reshaped through fire and blood. Among them stood the Heralds of the Covenant: Veyra cloaked in dusk, Isilra bathed in pale resonance, Valethra's armor exuding warlike silence, and Elira… no longer a follower, but a woman transformed by devotion, not obedience.
"Do you hear it?" Kael murmured, eyes fixed on the shifting constellations.
Elira stepped beside him. "The song?"
He didn't answer immediately. His gaze followed the black flame that now rose from the Citadel's heart, winding like a serpent toward the stars. "It's not just the song of Serion or the Choir. It's the sound of thrones trembling—because they know I'm coming."
Behind them, the air rippled.
Valethra approached, carrying the severed helm of a fallen god-prince. She knelt, offering it with a grin that betrayed bloodlust. "The Northern Spires have fallen. Their saints screamed your name when we broke them."
Kael took the helm, his fingers brushing against divine etchings scorched away by abyssal heat. "Let the world know. I am not merely here to conquer kingdoms. I will remake them."
A murmur of energy spread across the Citadel. From the lower chambers, old runes pulsed to life—warnings, perhaps, or invitations. It didn't matter.
Kael turned to face his court.
"Tonight, the Choir descends. Serion marches. But let me be clear—this is not the end of our rise. This is only the baptismal fire."
The Covenants flared behind him. Not just allegiances now—symbiosis. The four chosen shimmered with marks of his essence, their souls eternally bound to Kael's will. None were slaves. All were believers.
The stars bent. The blackened skies peeled open like torn parchment—and from the wound emerged the vanguard of Serion.
They did not fly. They floated, weightless in the air like forgotten sins given flesh. The Choir of Hollow Saints. Each one once mortal, now wrapped in divine decay—veils of bone-white robes, hollow visages where eyes had been, and burning glyphs of ruin trailing behind them like ghostly wings. They carried no weapons. Their song was the blade.
Lucian led them.
But it was no longer Lucian, the brother Kael once stood beside in the ashes of their youth. This was a vessel sculpted by Serion himself. His once bright hair was now shadow-silver, his features too perfect to be human. But the pain in his gaze—buried deep, hidden behind holy apathy—was unmistakable.
Kael stepped forward as the heavens rippled.
Their armies halted.
Two gods-to-be. Two paths.
Lucian's voice echoed without motion. "You defy the heavens. Again."
Kael's answer was fire. "Because the heavens are liars."
Lucian's fingers twitched. "You will not survive the Judgment Song."
Kael smirked. "I don't intend to survive it. I intend to rewrite it."
The first note of the Choir struck.
Reality broke.
Spires shattered from the frequency. Mountains wept dust. Mortals collapsed to their knees, blood running from ears and eyes. Even the most hardened of Kael's lieutenants faltered, grasping at the air as if it would grant them silence.
But Kael did not fall.
He absorbed the note.
Around him, flame and shadow rose like a crown of chaos. The Covenant inside him bloomed fully—sigils upon sigils, markings of each of the four bound women now seared into the very fiber of his being. Their love, their hatred, their faith… weaponized.
Kael's voice boomed—not in volume, but in clarity.
His words were not spoken.
They were commanded into existence.
"I hear your song, Lucian. Let me show you mine."
From Kael's chest surged a note of his own—richer, deeper, made of memory, betrayal, pain, and absolute will. The Choir faltered.
The battlefield was no longer terrain—it became theater. A song of war played by two orchestrators.
Lucian sang of judgment, Kael of liberation through domination. The battlefield twisted with each verse: cities rose and fell, rivers ran dry and refilled, time fractured. Soldiers aged in seconds, then returned to youth. The very concept of stability shattered.
Elira reached Kael's side, her hands glowing with pure resonance. "If you fall here, the world follows."
Kael's eyes remained locked on Lucian. "Then the world will rise with me."
Valethra, already slicing through a dozen saints with every breath, roared, "Let them hear the Mourning Flame!"
Isilra, the Voice of the Covenant, stepped forward and sang—a pure note of defiance, one that harmonized with Kael's.
It pierced the air.
The Choir screamed.
Lucian clutched his head.
For the first time in the war, the Saints fell from the sky—no longer invulnerable. Their robes caught fire, not physical, but soul-fire. Serion's grip was loosening.
Kael stepped forward, each footfall altering the terrain. Grass grew and died beneath him. Ash followed his shadow. He raised his hand—and time obeyed.
The Choir froze.
Lucian stared, trapped in the moment.
Kael moved to him—slowly, deliberately, until they were face to face.
"You were my brother," Kael whispered. "But you became his."
Lucian tried to speak, but Kael's will was stronger.
"I loved you once," Kael continued. "But love without understanding becomes tyranny. Just like your god."
He placed a hand on Lucian's chest.
And burned the lie from within.
The divine shell cracked. Lucian gasped—genuinely, for the first time in ages—as the godfire inside him shattered. The Choir fell with him, their song turned to silence.
The sky screamed again—this time, in rage.
Serion was watching.
His arrival had always been foretold as a cataclysm. But Kael didn't fear gods.
He challenged them.
A star fell from the sky—no meteor, but Serion's Eye. A massive construct of celestial flame and madness, falling directly toward the Citadel.
Kael stood unblinking.
Behind him, the four women placed their hands upon his back.
He drew from them.
Not their power—but their truths.
Veyra's shadow made him unseen.
Valethra's warpath gave him might.
Isilra's song gave him clarity.
Elira's heart gave him purpose.
He raised both hands, and stopped the star.
With a groan of dying time and the howl of torn heavens, the Eye disintegrated.
Kael stood beneath a sky torn open, divine blood raining from the heavens.
Lucian knelt, weeping—not in pain, but in freedom.
The Choir was broken.
And Serion had noticed.
From the split sky, a shape emerged.
A hand.
Not a metaphor, not an illusion.
The actual, divine hand of Serion.
Kael smiled.
Not with joy.
But with readiness.
"You want a throne, Serion?" he said, stepping onto a floating platform of molten memory and flame. "Then face me for it."
The hand surged.
Kael leapt.
And the sky ignited.
To Be Continued…