Lucien sat alone in a room now—no longer with his wrists bound, but his mind unraveling. The others had left him after the scan, complaining about *Marks, *Eras, and a "Threadline Reversal"that would have to begin immediately.
The Vault wasn't a hideout. It was a cemetery.
Of timelines.
Of failed summoners.
Of lives like his, pulled from their worlds and left to rot.
He strode deeper into twisting halls, compelled by something invisible. Walls whispered names. Doors blinked like eyes. The farther he went, the colder it grew.
Finally, he arrived at a room without a door only a broken mirror on the floor, inches above black water.
Lucien stepped closer.
The mirror broke.
And he fell.
At first, it was a memory.
Lucien stood in his reality. The city of medicine. Laughter from people. Friends. A girl whose face was so familiar.
Then
Screams.
The sky exploded like shattered glass.
And then the cutting started.
He couldn't move.
His arms were pinned to a cross of fire and bone. His legs slack. He tried to scream and his mouth was tied shut. The world around him, eyes with voids spoke old languages.
And then out of the darkness a figure moved with mourning tunic wrapped around, face concealed, knife in front.
A soothing voice, near maternal:
"Shall we begin?"
The blade pressed against his left foot.
And it started.
At a crawl. Painfully slow.
From the sole of his foot, it began cutting up. Layer by layer.
Skin flayed. Tendons sprang like strings on a broken harp.
He felt it all.
He could feel the muscle ripping apart, the **burning of raw nerves, the buzzing of ghost flies singing "you deserve this" in voices that sounded like his own.
The shape edged up his shin.
Time crawled.
Pain didn't.
His knee. His thigh.
His hip.
Each moment took a lifetime.
Each inch of flayed skin felt like it was being written into the marrow of the earth.
He cried. But there were no tears.
He begged. But there was no mouth.
The knife reached his stomach.
Then his chest.
Then
His heart.
The figure paused.
"You've forgotten something," it whispered.
Then pushed the blade deeper.
And deeper.
Until
His neck.
He felt his flesh peel at the throat.
And then he saw his own body falling, lifeless, skinned to the bone, as the floor yawned open below.
As it descended upon the cold stone
Lucien screamed as he sat up—gasping, sweating, eyes wild.
The chamber was dark. Still. Empty.
But his chest still ached.
He reached out and felt his body — whole, untouched. But the pain still lingered as if it had really happened. He felt his lips and discovered blood.
A whisper was spoken within the room:
"You saw it, didn't you?"
"The CrownFall has already started."
And far, far away, somewhere deep in the Vault, something screamed back.
Lucien stumbled into the heart of the Vault, panting for air, eyes burning with rage and terror. His boots thudded against the obsidian floor, his hand shaking at his hip.
Kaela and Veyr stood at a long stone table, maps scattered across its surface written in red and violet runes.
They looked to him.
"Where in the hell did you send me?"
His voice trembled—not with anger, but with what he'd suffered.
Kaela's brow knitted. "The Vault reads minds. Memories. Bloodlines. Sometimes it gets too deep."
Lucien slammed his fist on the table. "That wasn't a reading. That was torture."
Veyr's jaw set. "What did you see?"
Lucien's words became a whisper. "Myself. Skinned alive. Cut from the foot to the throat. My own soul watching as my body fell dead. Something spoke to me something that said…The CrownFall has already begun."
The room became silent.
Kaela glanced at Veyr, then at Lucien. "You weren't supposed to see that."
"No one sees that unless they're tied to it."
Lucien blinked. "Tied to what?"
Veyr advanced, pulling his mask down. His eyes were black, its whites split with lines of age. Burned glass eyes. He looked at Lucien not with pity but with wariness.
"The CrownFall isn't a war, Lucien.
It's a reset. A ritual. A prophecy written in the marrow of being.
And you… just laid hands upon its beginning."
Lucien's throat went dry. "Why me?
Kaela kept pace with him, her voice muted now. "You weren't called by coincidence. You were labeled long before that world forgot your name."
Lucien shook his head. "No. I was normal. I was—"
"Lucien," Kaela said gently, "you died in a world that would have forgotten you.
And something resurrected you.
Not out of compassion.
But because you're a key.
A trigger.
Or worse… a vessel."
Silence.
Lucien turned away, pounding heart.
He breathed, "Then why save me at all?"
Veyr remained silent.
Instead, he slipped under the table and produced one thing: a sealed glass sphere, softly red-glowing.
Inside it was Lucien's reflection.
Screaming.
Still being flayed alive.
Lucien stumbled back.
Kaela finally whispered:
"Because it look like its hunting season for your skin, Lucien.
And the Vault is the only thing between you and them."
Lucien sat alone in the lower tier of the Vault, illuminated by a shivering rune torch that was burning with ghostly violet flame. His cloak was soaked with sweat. His hands shook around a mug of bitter root tea that was untouched.
He hadn't slept. Not exactly. Any time he attempted to close his eyes,
he felt that ghost pain — the cutting, the peeling of skin.
The echo of his own scream in a world no longer his.
The door opened.
Kaela stepped in, no weapons, no cloak. Just a plain grey shirt and tired eyes.
"You're thinking of leaving," she said softly.
Lucien didn't look up. "You tortured me."
Kaela crossed her arms. "The Vault did. Not us."
"That makes it better?"
"No. But it makes it truth."
Lucien stood slowly, mug tipping over onto the floor. "I didn't ask to be your key. Or your container. I didn't even ask to be here."
Kaela's face hardened. "So why haven't you left, then?"
No response.
Lucien's fists clenched. "Because I'm afraid. Because outside is worse. And because… I think you're keeping something worse than what I've seen."
She didn't argue.
Kaela stepped forward, her tone husky. "You leave here, you're not entering liberty. You're entering a storm with your name branded on every lightning bolt."
Lucien's throat constricted. "And if you stay?"
"Then you fight. With us. Until your body is broken or the truth devours your mind. And maybe just maybe you die on your own terms."
Lucien stood before the iron door behind him the only way out of the Vault. The runes on its frame pulsed softly, like veins under skin.
One step. He could go out through it.
He could vanish into the cursed wasteland, try to survive on instinct and rebellion.
Something inside him twisted. Not fear. Not anger.
Decision.
He stepped away from the door.
"I stay," he croaked. "But not for you. For answers. For revenge… if something's using me."
Kaela's eyes narrowed.
"Then it starts," she said. "The first Rite starts tomorrow. You'll need strength. And a will to kill."
Lucien looked up, his eyes hollow.
"Then I hope the gods bring coffins."