The sky wept black tears.
Sunrei stood frozen as the drops fell around them, each one striking the ruined earth with a hiss, eating through stone and bone alike. Above, the storm churned like a living thing, its violet heart pulsing in time with the terrible *thing* emerging from its depths.
The Maw wasn't what he'd imagined.
It had no true form just a vast, shifting mass of teeth and eyes and grasping tendrils, its surface flickering between solid and shadow. It didn't descend so much as unfold, its presence warping the air around it, making Sunrei's brand ache with every throb of its impossible heartbeat.
Kaelis gripped his arm, her nails biting into his skin. We can't fight that.
Sunrei's mouth was dry as ash. No.
The Maw's voice wasn't a sound it was a vibration that rattled Sunrei's teeth and made his bones hum.
PRINCE.
The ground buckled beneath them.
YOU PROMISED.
Sunrei's brand burned, the pain so sudden and vicious he nearly blacked out. Images flooded his mind
A younger Sunrei standing before the Maw, his hands outstretched.
A bargain struck.
A vow whispered.
Kaelis shook him hard. Sunrei! Focus!
He gasped back to the present just as the first tendril struck.
They barely dodged, rolling behind a collapsed wall as black ichor rained down around them. The tendril lashed the spot they'd stood a moment before, carving a smoking trench in the stone.
Kaelis pressed against him, her breath coming in sharp gasps. The brands on her skin had darkened to near-black, the marks pulsing weakly. It's calling them, she whispered. The brands. They're answering.
Sunrei felt it too a pull deep in his bones, his own brand straining toward the Maw like iron to a lodestone.
A scream echoed through the ruins.
Then another.
Sunrei risked a glance over the wall.
The Eclipse survivors those not consumed by the Spire's fallwere being drawn toward the Maw, their bodies jerking like marionettes as the black rain soaked into their skin. One by one, their brands ignited, violet light spreading through their veins until their very eyes glowed with it.
The Maw's voice shook the world:
COME HOME.
Kaelis's hand tightened on Sunrei's wrist. We need to move. Now.
He didn't argue.
They ran as the city changed around them, the very stones twisting into something alive and hungry.
The ruins gave way to the shore the same black-sand beach where this nightmare had begun. The sea was gone, drained away to reveal a yawning chasm where the water had been. At its center stood a single figure.
Lithriel.
Her silver hair floated around her like a halo, her body wreathed in liquid shadow. She turned as they approached, her hollow eyes fixing on Sunrei.
You were supposed to rule with me, she whispered. Not break the world.
Sunrei's brand flared. You lied.
Lithriel smiled and for a heartbeat, Sunrei saw the girl she'd once been. The friend he'd loved. The first person he'd ever marked.
I saved you, she said softly. When the Maw first woke, when it demanded a king, I gave it you. I made you strong enough to survive it.
Kaelis stepped forward, her knives glinting. You made him a monster.
Lithriel's gaze shifted. I made him a god.
Then
She moved.
The fight was brutal.
Lithriel fought like nothing human, her body twisting in impossible ways, her shadow-wreathed hands carving through stone like parchment. Sunrei barely kept pace, his brand burning with every parry, every desperate dodge.
Kaelis fought beside him, her knives finding their mark again and again but the wounds sealed as quickly as they appeared, black fluid knitting Lithriel's flesh back together.
You can't win, Lithriel crooned, slamming Sunrei into the sand hard enough to crack ribs. The Maw is waking. The brands are calling. And you
Kaelis's knife took her through the throat.
Lithriel gurgled, black blood bubbling from her lips
Then laughed, yanking Kaelis close by her hair.
You never learn.
She pressed a hand to Kaelis's chest
And the brands ignited.
Kaelis's scream would haunt Sunrei until his dying day.
Violet light erupted from her brands, searing through her clothes, her skin, her bones. She convulsed in Lithriel's grip, her body arching as the power consumed her.
Sunrei lunged
Lithriel flicked her wrist.
The shadows surged, slamming into Sunrei with the force of a tidal wave. He hit the ground hard, his vision swimming, his brand flickering weakly.
Lithriel loomed over him, Kaelis's limp form cradled in her arms.
This was always the way, she whispered. The Maw demands a sacrifice. A king needs a crown.
She pressed her lips to Kaelis's forehead
And the brands flared.
Kaelis's body went rigid, her back arching as the light consumed her. Then
Silence.
Lithriel lowered her to the sand, her face unreadable.
It's done.
Sunrei's breath caught.
Kaelis's eyes fluttered open.
Violet.
The world shifted.
The Maw's voice shook the sky:
AT LAST.
Kaelis no, the thing wearing Kaelis rose, her body wreathed in violet flame. The brands on her skin had changed, their edges twisting into something older, crueler.
The First Brand.
The Eclipse Crown.
Lithriel knelt before her, her head bowed. My king.
Sunrei's vision swam.
This wasn't happening.
This couldn't be happening.
Then
A whisper:
Sunrei.
Kaelis's voice. Her real voice.
Her violet eyes flickered just for a heartbeat brown.
Kill me.
The Maw descended.
Sunrei's dagger was in his hand before he could think.
Lithriel screamed.
The world ended.
And Sunrei
Sunrei remembered.