Beneath the skin of the world — in a place no map dared mark — the air stank of incense and rot.
Candles hissed with blue flame. The stone bled steam.
A circle of robed figures chanted in perfect unison, their voices weaving a spiral of sound that warped the walls.
Runes glowed beneath them — etched into obsidian older than kingdoms, stolen from the bones of forgotten Titans.
At the center, upon a slab of blacksteel, lay the Vessel.
Man-shaped. But hollow. Soulless. Waiting.
The High Cantor stood at the head of the ritual — cloaked in crimson, voice raised in solemn cadence.
But another stood apart.
A figure robed in white, unmoving, silent, faceless.
He did not chant.
He only watched.
Above the altar, the veil of reality tore.
And the Rift bled open.
But the light that spilled through was wrong.
Not gold. Not divine.
Violet. Trembling. Splintered like a mirror dropped from heaven.
The Vessel jerked.
Eyes wide. Mouth stretched in a silent scream.
The chanters froze. The rhythm faltered.
Something was coming through.
But not what they summoned.
Not the Sovereign reborn.
Not the divine flame whispered of in old scripture.
"A mistake," someone whispered.
Too late.
A scream rang out — not from the Rift, but from within the Vessel.
It was no longer empty.
A soul — fractured, alien, uninvited — had slipped through the veil.
Not of noble blood.
Not of prophecy.
No divine echo in his bones.
Just… a man.
And the Rift marked him anyway.
A living sigil, jagged and violet, burned itself into his chest — a brand of cosmic defiance.
The circle ruptured.
Ether exploded outward, slamming the walls.
One chanter collapsed, blood leaking from eyes and ears.
Wards cracked. Stones shrieked.
"Seal it!" the High Cantor cried, voice fraying with panic. "Seal the Rift — now!"
But the white-robed figure still did not move.
He stared — calm, expressionless — as the mark burned into the vessel's chest.
When the others rushed to bind the soul and silence the chamber,
he turned and left. Wordless.
No one stopped him.
No one ever did.
Far above, the stars blinked.
And one of them had fallen.
Not as salvation.
Not as prophecy.
But as a riddle.