Chapter 8 – The King of Broken Songs
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The Throne of Shards towered at the center of the Cradle.
It wasn't made from stone or wood or memory alone—it was built from choices.
Each shard glinting in the low, wrong light held a decision never made, a life never lived.
They twisted together into a monument of almosts, maybes, and nevers.
The figure seated upon it—the Choir King—was wrapped in a patchwork cloak stitched from banners of dead nations and prayers from dead gods.
His face was veiled, not by cloth, but by mirrors that reflected only what the beholder feared becoming.
Anterz stepped into the square first.
Elaria flanked him, her dagger still slick with the dust of the Herald.
The air crackled with thick, heady tension.
As if the world itself hesitated to interrupt this meeting.
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The Choir King's voice rang out—not loud, but inevitable:
> "You have come far, Ruin-Bearer."
Anterz said nothing.
He would not give the King the satisfaction of answering a summons.
The King chuckled softly.
It was a sound like a choir humming a funeral dirge.
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The Choir King rose slowly from his throne.
Even that motion distorted the ground beneath him, pulling at memories, tugging at visions that tried to bloom into reality and failed.
Around them, the city shivered.
Glass towers leaned inward.
Streets re-knitted themselves from dreams and broken regrets.
Time itself felt slower here, viscous as honey.
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"You broke the Tower," the King said, voice echoing across the Cradle.
"You shattered the pact that bound memory to silence."
He stepped forward, a hand outstretched, open-palmed.
"And now, you see what grows in the ruin you left behind."
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Anterz finally spoke, his voice steady.
"I see a graveyard."
The King laughed again.
"All gardens are graveyards first."
He circled them slowly.
Elaria tensed beside Anterz, every instinct on edge.
"Your defiance was noble," the King said. "But misguided. You tore down the walls the old gods built, thinking you freed the world."
He leaned closer.
"You merely unleashed it."
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Anterz didn't flinch.
"You're twisting it."
"No," the King said, voice silk over broken glass.
"I am amplifying it. I am giving the world what it begged for: memory made real. Regret given form. Dreams given body."
He gestured to the city around them—the mirrored streets, the shuddering towers, the sky bleeding forgotten stars.
"This is the future," he whispered.
"Not imposed by tyranny. Offered by longing."
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Elaria shook her head fiercely.
"You're enslaving them."
The King turned to her, tilting his head as if studying a fascinating specimen.
"I offer them what they already yearn for. A second chance. A better life. One they were denied."
His mirrored face rippled.
For a moment, Anterz saw himself there—not as he was now, but as a crowned god-king, a sword of fire raised high, worshippers kneeling at his feet.
He tore his gaze away.
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The King's voice dropped lower, more intimate.
"You, Anterz, could guide it."
He extended his hand again.
"You could lead them. Shape the fractures into a world unmarred by chaos. No gods above. No Tower chains. Just you."
The mirrored mask shifted again—this time showing a vision of Anterz walking through a city of light and laughter, a world rebuilt from hope instead of ruin.
"You could give them peace," the King said.
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Anterz stared at the offered hand.
At the dreams swirling behind it.
And for one heartbeat, one terrible heartbeat—
He wanted it.
Not for power.
Not for worship.
For safety.
For a world without endless struggle, endless brokenness.
A world where Elaria could sleep without fear.
Where villages didn't kneel in terror of their own memories.
Where the past could be rewritten clean.
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Elaria's hand touched his.
Not pulling.
Just… anchoring.
He looked at her.
Saw the real world in her eyes.
Not the perfect, sterile dream the King offered.
But the raw, bleeding, real world.
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He stepped back.
"No," Anterz said.
Quiet.
Unshakeable.
The Choir King's hand hung in the air a moment longer, then lowered.
The city around them sighed, as if disappointed.
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The King didn't rage.
He didn't scream.
He merely nodded once.
"As expected," he murmured.
He turned, walking back toward his throne.
"But know this, Ruin-Bearer—"
He sat, the shards of broken dreams shifting and sighing beneath him.
"You refuse a crown again. But others will not."
He raised a hand.
And the city walls around them cracked open.
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Figures emerged.
Hundreds.
Thousands.
Men and women, children and elders, all stitched from memory and flesh, real and not-real, each bearing a fragment of the King's dream.
Eyes shining with longing.
Hands reaching out.
Mouths whispering songs that shouldn't exist.
They were not soldiers.
They were believers.
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"You broke the gods," the King said.
"Now the world will build new ones."
He leaned back in his throne, lazy and regal.
"And they will be made in your image."
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Anterz tightened his grip on Valteris.
Beside him, Elaria raised her dagger.
They were outnumbered.
Outdreamed.
But not outwilled.
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Anterz raised his voice, cutting through the rising song of the Choir-blooded:
"You want a world without choice," he said.
"I'll fight for one that hurts, that bleeds, that remembers—because it's alive."
His voice cracked across the Cradle like a whip.
The believers hesitated.
Some faltered.
A few wept.
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The King's laughter rolled out again, sad and beautiful.
"You will lose, Anterz."
"Maybe," Anterz said.
"But it'll be my loss. Not yours."
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The Cradle began to collapse around them.
The false city, built on false promises, shuddered as fractures widened, pulling at the foundations of memory itself.
Anterz turned to Elaria.
"Run."
She didn't argue.
They fled—through falling towers, through screaming streets, as the Choir King watched from his throne, a patient god awaiting a future he was certain would come.
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They ran until the Cradle was a distant blur behind them.
Ran until the memory-storms receded.
Ran until the stars above were their own again.
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At the edge of a ruined forest, they collapsed.
Breathing hard.
Alive.
Together.
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Elaria lay beside him, staring at the sky.
"You almost said yes," she said softly.
Anterz closed his eyes.
"I know."
"But you didn't."
He smiled faintly.
"No."
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Far behind them, the Choir King watched through the eyes of the faithful.
And smiled.
Because battles weren't won in a day.
They were sung into history.
And he had all the time he needed.
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