The morning sun rose over Eldrinthia's scarred plains, bleeding red through the ash-laced clouds. The capital city stood in the distance, a fortress of towers, spires, and battlements, where the fate of kingdoms would soon be decided. Kael walked through the haze with the Threnody Shard bound to his back, each step humming with tension, each breath a countdown.
His army—if it could be called that—followed. Selan at his side, her spell-scarred hands wrapped in ritual bindings. Behind them came the last remnants of his resistance: hardened, half-mad, broken men and women who believed in his madness or had nothing else left to believe in. Illusions moved among them, doubles of fallen comrades Kael had resurrected through sheer will and magic.
The Eye of Varethos flickered weakly at his hip, still cracked, its visions dim and feverish. The Labyrinth had changed him. His voice was colder now, his thoughts less his own.
As they approached the city gates, the Purifiers rallied on the battlements, banners raised, cannons primed. The Crown's army had gathered in full: a sea of steel and gold, devout and deadly.
Kael turned to his followers. "They call this heresy. I call it reclamation."
Selan spoke quietly beside him. "Are you sure you're still doing this for her?"
He looked forward. "I don't know anymore. But I'll finish it."
The gates opened—not in surrender, but challenge. Waiting inside, seated on a throne of woven flame and crystal, was the Grand Theurge: sovereign of the Crown, ruler of Eldrinthia, and the last wielder of divine magic.
Kael marched through the gates alone. Selan reached for him, but he held up a hand. "This is mine."
The city was eerily quiet as he entered the throne plaza. The Grand Theurge stood as Kael approached—an ancient figure draped in veils of light and incantation, his body half-consumed by divine essence.
"You would destroy everything," the Theurge said, "for the sake of one broken boy's grief?"
"I already have," Kael replied.
The sky darkened. The Threnody Shard began to glow.
The Grand Theurge raised both arms. Pillars of holy fire erupted from the plaza, forming a circle of radiant judgment. His voice echoed like thunder, calling down divine law.
Kael answered with silence.
He drew his scythe and unlatched the Shard from his back. As the Theurge conjured radiant blades and holy chains, Kael's own blood tore itself free, spiraling around the Shard until it formed a blade of sheer resonance—a weapon that sang with the agony of every life he had ever ended.
Their first clash shattered the air. Buildings crumbled from the force. Kael moved like a wraith, propelled by blood and memory. The Theurge countered with celestial shields, his magic older than Kael's ancestors.
"Every law you break fractures the world," the Theurge roared.
Kael dodged a lance of light. "Then maybe it deserves to be broken."
He carved through the illusions of saints and martyrs, reached the Theurge, and struck. Their weapons collided—a symphony of wrath and sorrow.
They fought across the plaza. Through gardens, halls, and sacred tombs. Every step forward was a chapter in Kael's life rewritten in violence. For every holy spell cast, Kael answered with a vision of despair—his mother's death, his father's broken body, the screams of Asael's Vigil.
As the duel raged, Selan fought her way into the cathedral that powered the Crown's magic. She climbed burning stairwells and slaughtered wardens corrupted by zealotry. Her goal: sever the divine conduit that kept the Theurge immortal.
Reaching the sanctum, she found the heart of the machine: a crystalized sun, fed by chained souls of former rulers. She whispered a spell of undoing, even as it burned her from the inside.
"I'm sorry, Kael," she said through tears. "This was the only way."
With her final breath, she shattered the sun.
Back in the plaza, the Grand Theurge stumbled. The divine glow around him flickered.
Kael knew what that meant.
He roared and charged.
Their final exchange was not of words but of will. The Threnody Shard struck true, piercing the Theurge's heart. The sky screamed. Light exploded.
The Grand Theurge fell, not with fury, but with peace.
"Thank you," the dying sovereign whispered, as if finally freed.
Kael knelt, exhausted, broken, the Shard humming in his hand.
The Eye of Varethos shattered.
Visions flooded Kael one last time—not of future or past, but of endless possibility. He saw a world rebuilt, or ruined. He saw himself die, or disappear. He saw Selan's smile.
Then, silence.
The city wept. The resistance flooded in. The temples were emptied, the throne left unclaimed. Kael stood alone in the ruins of power, the last wielder of the forbidden, the bearer of a song that had ended divinity.
He buried Selan with his own hands beneath the flowering tree in Asael's Vigil. No words. Only silence.
Then, he vanished.
Some say he became a god. Others say he still walks the shadowed roads, searching for redemption he knows he doesn't deserve.
But all know this:
He ended the Crown with nothing but a broken heart, a scythe of blood, and the ashes of her name.