Time didn't flow in the Hollow Deep.
It dripped.
Like wax from a dying candle. Like blood from an open wound.
Kael's boots sank into dust that wasn't dust—it was ash, centuries thick, coating the stone floors like forgotten snow. This place was beneath the Sanctum. It hadn't been built. It had been grown—from old magic and older memory.
Ash lit a torch. The flame flickered green.
Raen's voice trembled. "I feel it again. Something... watching."
Kael didn't need to be told.He knew they were being watched.
The Door Beneath the World
The stairwell spiraled downward like a throat.
For hours they descended—until the light above vanished entirely. The walls bled symbols, glowing faintly in the dark. Some matched Kael's sword. Others... matched the brand on his back.
Finally, they reached it.
A door. Black, circular, rimmed with chains of bone.And at its center—a sigil Kael had seen only once before.
The eye of ruin.
Ash stepped forward. "What is this place?"
Nira whispered: "The first throne."
The Echo King
The door opened on its own.
Inside, the air shimmered like heat off stone. Pillars twisted toward a ceiling lost in shadows. A throne of obsidian sat at the chamber's heart, surrounded by floating shards of broken glass.
In the throne sat a man made of memory.
He was cloaked in smoke. His skin shimmered like cracked porcelain. And his face—Kael's own, only older, crueler, eyes sunken with ancient weight.
"I knew you would come," he said.
Kael drew Ruinfang. "Who are you?"
The man smiled. "I am what you left behind."
A Legacy of Fire
The figure rose from the throne, and with each step, the chamber trembled.
"I am the echo of your blood. The memory of what you were before this world forgot your name."
Kael's grip tightened. "I'm not one of you."
The Echo King laughed—low, hollow.
"Not one of us? You are the last of us. The final Ashborn. The key. The lock. The blade. You weren't made to fight fate, Kael. You were made to unleash it."
The floating shards swirled, forming images in the air:
— Kael as a child, screaming beside the Ashen Gate.— His mother dying in chains, sealing him with blood.— A cult kneeling in a forgotten city, chanting his name.— And far beyond the Divide, the Gate cracking open again.
Iris stepped beside Kael, trembling. "What does he mean, unleash?"
The Echo King turned to her. "The Gate doesn't open with Kael. It opens into him."
The Choice
The chamber grew colder.
Kael stared into the eyes of his older self and saw… not evil, but exhaustion.
The Echo King was not a villain.
He was a warning.
"You can walk away," the King said. "Return to your rebellion. Pretend you're just a man. But if you go forward—if you reach the Ashen Gate—there's no turning back. The world will end or begin again… because of you."
Silence stretched long.
Kael looked at his companions. Each bore the weight of their own choice. Each had followed him not because they believed in prophecy—but because they believed in him.
So Kael stepped forward.
And placed his hand on the crown of flame that hovered before the throne.
"I won't be your echo," he whispered. "I'll be the storm that rewrites it all."