The Hollow Spire rose like a black flame against a sky beginning to mend.
Jack stood at its base, wind tugging at his cloak, the Blade of Echoes sheathed but humming faintly with every breath he took. Beside him, Nyssa ran her fingers along the stone—smooth, ancient, untouched by time or storm. Marek crouched at the threshold, inspecting the twisted runes carved into the archway. Lola stood back, her expression tight, her fingers glowing softly with warding sigils.
"This place shouldn't exist," she murmured. "Not anymore."
"It didn't," Jack replied. "Not until I drew the Blade."
The Hollow Spire wasn't just architecture. It was a memory made manifest—a place locked in the dream of time, now drawn into the waking world by Jack's presence. The Sundering wasn't just repeating. It was converging.
As they entered, light vanished completely.
The inside was hollow, as the name promised. A spiraling well of void stretched both above and below. Floating steps wove through the air like bones rearranged into a staircase. At the center of the tower—suspended by nothing—hovered a stone altar etched with constellations no longer found in any sky.
Jack climbed first.
Each step triggered a pulse in the Blade—like it was remembering paths it had once walked. Lola followed close, whispering protective incantations. Marek and Nyssa exchanged a glance, then stepped into the dark behind them.
The ascent was silent. Time refused to follow.
When they reached the altar, something waited for them.
A throne—not of gold, not of bone—but of mirrors. Cracked and fogged, it reflected not their faces, but their fears.
Jack saw himself seated upon it—his eyes hollow, the Blade of Echoes impaled through the world beneath him. Nyssa saw herself alone on a battlefield of corpses. Marek saw a burning village. Lola… saw herself vanishing into the void again.
The throne spoke.
"One must sit."
"No," Jack said at once. "We're not here to rule. We're here to stop this."
The Blade of Echoes pulsed—harder now. It wasn't resisting the throne.
It was responding.
Lola stepped forward, voice tight. "This is the first lock."
Jack turned. "What?"
She nodded. "Thalon made a pact here. Not just with the Devourer, but with something older. The throne was the price. He didn't just tear open the Veil—he anchored the rupture by crowning himself."
"So to break it…" Nyssa said slowly, "someone has to sit. To uncrown it."
Lola hesitated. "Yes. But only if they carry the Blade. Only if they've been marked by the First Sundering."
Marek looked at Jack. "You're the key."
Jack stared at the throne.
It shimmered faintly, and for a moment—he saw Kael. Chained in darkness. Not dead. Not corrupted.
Waiting.
Jack stepped forward, placed the Blade across the altar.
And sat.
The world cracked.
He was not in the Spire.
He was everywhere the Sundering had touched—at once.
A thousand versions of himself stared back at him—some monstrous, some noble, some broken beyond repair. All of them carried the Blade.
All of them had chosen differently.
"You are not a hero," said one.
"You are not a destroyer," said another.
"You are the hinge."
The throne pulsed around him.
Jack saw the root of the Sundering—not as a war, or a god's fall—but as a decision made by one who thought they could save the world by dividing it. That decision had echoed across time, becoming prophecy, then cycle, then curse.
"You can end it," the voices whispered. "But not by unmaking. By remembering."
Jack opened his eyes.
He sat in the Hollow Spire, the Blade in his lap, the mirror-throne fractured beneath him.
The throne was empty now.
Not destroyed.
Released.
The lock had been undone.
The tower trembled.
Nyssa caught him as he rose. "Are you—?"
"I'm here," Jack said. "Still me."
Lola reached toward the altar. "There are others. Five more. Five locks."
"And one of them," Jack said, "is still Kael."
The spire cracked—light spilling through the fractures.
They ran.
Behind them, the Hollow Spire collapsed, not into rubble, but into stardust—dispersing into the air, returning to whatever memory had once dreamed it.
They emerged into daylight.
Real daylight.
For the first time since the Ashen Wastes, the sky was blue. Not perfect. But real. And the land stirred. The wind carried scents of soil and stone. The world… was waking.
Marek shielded his eyes. "You did it."
"No," Jack said, holding the Blade close. "We started it."
Far away, in a chamber made of voidglass and starlight, Kael opened his eyes.
Chains no longer held him.
He stood in a circle of seven thrones—empty, waiting.
A figure stepped forward, cloaked in white flame.
"Welcome back," she said. "The first lock has turned. And the Hollow Crown has noticed."
Kael stared at her. "Who are you?"
She smiled faintly. "I was the last Starlighter. I forged the Blade you now seek to master."
Kael blinked. "I don't have it."
She stepped closer, touching his chest.
"You are not meant to wield it. You are meant to guard it. The world will need both blade and shield."
The thrones around him began to flicker—each one bound to a different soul across the planes.
Jack.
Lola.
Nyssa.
Marek.
Others still unnamed.
And one—dark, burning from within.
Kael felt it.
The next trial wasn't war.
It was choice.
And the Hollow Crown was watching.