The crown was light.
Lighter than it had any right to be.
Lucien held it in his hand, fingers wrapped around its base of fractured halos and fused horns. It didn't hum with power. It didn't scream with magic. It simply… was. Ancient. Unspoken. Real.
Naeriel stood frozen across the chamber, her runes glowing faintly.
> "Put it down."
Her voice was low. Controlled.
Lucien didn't.
"I saw it," he whispered. "All of it. The seed. The god. The choice."
Naeriel's eyes narrowed. "You weren't meant to see that. None of us were."
"Then why was it waiting for me?"
The answer came from above.
A sound deep and low, like a dying world breathing for the last time rumbled across the bones of the cavern.
The ceiling cracked.
Dust rained down.
And far, far above… the angels began to fall.
Aboveground , the forest clearing.
Saradin stood unmoving, wings coiled around him like a cocoon of gold. His sword was buried in the earth, burning a silent line of judgment into the soil. Around him, the sky churned like boiling oil.
> Something has shifted.
He felt it in his bones.
In his halo.
In the pulse of every sacred word he'd ever memorized.
The Riftborn was no longer awakening.
He was crowned.
And with that, came imbalance.
Saradin opened his eyes.
"Call them," he said.
A nearby angel flinched. "You mean the?"
"Yes." Saradin's voice left no room for doubt. "Summon the Ash Host."
Back below in the crown chamber.
Lucien placed the crown on his head.
Not in defiance.
Not in pride.
In acceptance.
The moment it touched him, the silence deepened.
Everything slowed.
Naeriel stepped back, arm raised but it was too late.
His aura changed.
No longer chaotic. No longer wild.
Composed. Clear. Cold.
Lucien's eyes dimmed not because his light had faded, but because it had refined.
> "I can hear them," he said softly.
Naeriel clenched her fists. "Who?"
He looked up, voice distant.
> "The others. The eight. The ones who were broken and scattered. They're stirring. Dreaming. Waiting."
His voice took on a strange resonance.
> "They're not asleep anymore."
Suddenly, the ground beneath them tore open, not in collapse but as if pulled apart by an unseen force.
Lucien turned his head slowly.
"Someone's coming."
Naeriel readied her blades. "An angel?"
Lucien shook his head.
> "No."
> "Worse".
A shape dropped into the chamber, landing without sound.
No wings.
No armor.
Just a cloak of smoke and a mask shaped like a shattered face.
The presence was… wrong.
Neither living nor dead.
Lucien could feel its hunger before it even moved.
Naeriel whispered, "It's a Hollow."
Lucien didn't recognize the word.
"What's a Hollow?"
Her answer was quick.
> "A Riftborn that failed."
The Hollow stepped forward, head tilting unnaturally.
Its mask cracked slightly as it opened its mouth ,a whisper that sounded like steel dragging over bone.
> "Give me the crown, Brother."
Lucien's grip tightened.
"I'm not your brother."
> "We all were… once."
The Hollow lunged.
Faster than thought.
Lucien countered with a wave of force, but it bent around the Hollow's form like wind around a blade. Naeriel intercepted it midair, her runes flaring bright, but even she was knocked back by the impact.
Lucien raised his hand and this time, didn't call on power.
He released it.
Not as a weapon.
As a command.
Stop.
Reality buckled.
The Hollow froze mid-lunge, suspended like a puppet in a frozen frame.
Lucien walked toward it, crown pulsing on his head.
> "You weren't made to serve. None of us were."
The Hollow twitched violently, resisting the command but Lucien pressed two fingers to its forehead.
> "Sleep."
A shimmer passed through the chamber.
The Hollow's body shattered into silver dust, fading into the stone.
Silence returned.
Naeriel rose slowly.
Her eyes searched Lucien's face. "You're not just a Riftborn anymore."
Lucien didn't look at her.
"No," he said quietly. "I'm something older."
Far above Heaven's hidden throne.
A voice echoed in a chamber never meant for mortal hearing.
> "The Rift wears the Crown."
> "Then we are out of time."
> "Summon the Architect."
End of Chapter 9