**Chapter 6: Hollow Star, Empty Throne**
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The room had no door. No stairs led to it. It was not drawn on any of the Seminary's countless diagrams or floor plans, and even the city's historians had no record of it.
And yet, it existed.
Aether called it the **Chamber of the Hollow Star**, though that was not its true name. If it had one, it had been erased from every memory except his.
The walls were etched in shifting runes that refused to stay still. Each symbol seemed to rewrite itself when not being directly watched—fragments of language from forgotten pantheons, once worshipped, now buried under the weight of time. Above the stone dais at the center hovered a shape—neither solid nor smoke, a pulsing star that glowed dully like the last ember in a long-dead fire.
Five stood around it.
Not scholars. Not students. Not even true names.
They were those who had seen the cracks in the world and chosen to step through them.
> **Watcher of Lies** — whose sight pierced illusions even truth itself dared not face.
> **Bearer of Echoes** — who remembered words no one had ever spoken.
> **Child of Dust** — whose very breath was made of the dead's silence.
> **Unnamed Blade** — whose weapon could cut thoughts before they were formed.
> **Voice Without Tongue** — who preached with no sound, and was always heard.
They had no allegiance to Kaelmire. They owed the gods nothing.
They were Aether's first shadows.
Not followers.
**Witnesses.**
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Aether stood with his back to them, gazing into the flickering Hollow Star. His right hand clutched a worn notebook, its pages filled with diagrams, theories, and phrases written in a language that bled ink when stared at too long.
"We begin," he said without turning.
"The first rite?" asked Watcher of Lies, her voice soft as old paper.
"No. The first correction," Aether answered.
He turned, his eyes darker than they had been before—one gold, the other black, both too still.
"I've found the first flaw," he said. "And she remembers a version of the world that never came to pass. Which means…"
"Which means causality is already rupturing," murmured Bearer of Echoes. "She should not exist."
"She does," Aether replied simply. "And she saw the mirror."
The chamber dimmed, as if the Hollow Star reacted to the word.
Watcher of Lies stepped closer. "Do we eliminate her?"
Aether didn't respond at once. He stared at the glow of the star, watching it flicker between existence and metaphor.
"No," he said at last. "We observe."
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High above, in the Seminary's stone towers, Seren Veyne stared at her reflection.
But something was wrong.
It didn't blink when she did.
Didn't tilt its head quite right.
Didn't look like her, though it had her face.
And behind her reflection, she could see… something else. A second silhouette. Taller. Cloaked. Watching.
When she turned around, nothing was there.
But the reflection smiled.
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Deep underground, the Hollow Star pulsed again.
And this time, it whispered a name in a language no one alive should know.
> *"Umbrael."*
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**To be continued…**
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