The silence stretched across the ruined chamber like a blade poised to strike. The battle had stopped, but not because it was over.
It had stopped because of him.
Kael could feel their eyes—Selene, Vaelcor, the Harbingers, the Hollow Order's remnants—all of them watching, waiting, trying to decide if they should kneel before him or kill him where he stood.
The second shard throbbed inside his chest, pulsing in time with the first. He could still feel its energy flowing through him, reshaping him in ways he didn't understand. His movements had already changed—faster, sharper, untethered from normal perception—but that was just the beginning.
And they knew it.
They could see it happening.
He was no longer just a Forsaken scavenger who had stolen a fragment of power.
He was becoming something else.
Something that had been lost to history.
And now he had to choose.
---
The Harbingers' Offer
The Harbinger leader stepped forward. His presence distorted the air, the very fabric of the world struggling to contain him. His voice, still layered with the echoes of countless others, spoke with absolute certainty.
"You are one of us."
Kael swallowed hard. His fingers twitched at his sides, instinctively reaching for his weapon—but what good was a rifle against a force that moved between realities?
The Harbinger continued.
"You have seen what was taken. You carry the echoes of our lost empire. You are not bound to their lies." He gestured toward Vaelcor and the Hollow Order. "Nor are you like them, who cling to a stolen past."
The warriors of the Hollow Order bristled, their forms flickering with restrained fury. Vaelcor stepped forward, his masked face unreadable.
"The boy does not belong to you."
Kael clenched his jaw. Boy. He was getting real tired of people calling him that.
The Harbinger ignored the Hollow Ascendant and fixed his void-like gaze on Kael.
"The Crown's power runs through you. It has chosen you. And we would see you take your rightful place among us. Return what was stolen. End the cycle of weakness and decay. Restore what once was."
A choice.
Kael could feel the weight of it pressing down on him.
If he sided with the Harbingers, he would be helping the original heirs of the Crown reclaim what was taken from them. He had seen their truth, their history. The Architects had not created the Crown—they had stolen it.
But something felt wrong.
Something in the way the Harbinger spoke.
There was no room for doubt in his words. No room for the idea that maybe… just maybe… the world had changed. That what had been lost was meant to stay lost.
Kael exhaled slowly.
"And what happens to the rest of the world if I help you?"
The Harbinger tilted his head slightly. "The world will be made whole again."
Kael's fingers curled into fists. That wasn't an answer. That was a warning.
He looked to Selene. Her grip was tight on her blades, her stance tense. But she wasn't looking at the Harbingers anymore.
She was looking at him.
Waiting.
Trusting him to make the right choice.
Kael turned back to the Harbinger leader and gave him his answer.
---
The Hollow Order's Truth
"No."
The word rippled through the chamber, heavier than he expected.
The Harbinger's form tensed. The air around him darkened, shadows curling at his feet.
"You refuse your own birthright?"
Kael exhaled slowly. "No. I refuse yours."
Silence.
Then, Vaelcor laughed. A deep, knowing sound, filled with something that might have been amusement… or pity.
"Then you are more like us than I thought," the Hollow Ascendant murmured. "A thief who does not know what he has stolen."
Kael turned to him. "Then why don't you enlighten me?"
Vaelcor's mask caught the dim light as he gestured to the ruins around them.
"You already know that the Crown was not forged by the Architects. But what the Harbingers refuse to acknowledge is why it was taken from them."
Kael narrowed his eyes.
"Go on."
Vaelcor's voice dropped lower, carrying a weight Kael hadn't heard before.
"The Crown is not just a throne. It is not just a source of power."
He stepped forward, slow and deliberate.
"It is a cage."
A cage.
Kael's pulse quickened. The shards inside him throbbed violently, as if resisting something—or remembering something.
"The Harbingers were not merely the Crown's first wielders," Vaelcor continued. "They were its first prisoners."
Kael felt the ground beneath him shift. The world itself felt heavier with those words.
The Harbingers weren't just exiles.
They were exiled for a reason.
And now they wanted him to undo the only thing keeping them from reclaiming everything.
Kael's breath came fast. His hands shook. The shards inside him burned.
The war for the Crown wasn't about who owned it.
It was about what happened when it was put back together.
And suddenly, Kael wasn't sure if he wanted to know the answer.
---
The Ripples of a Decision
Kael turned back to the Harbinger leader, standing still as a statue, watching, waiting.
"I won't be your pawn," Kael said.
The Harbinger's form shifted, shadows warping around him.
"Then you are our enemy."
He raised his hand. The air around them cracked. The Harbingers moved as one, their weapons humming with power as they prepared to strike.
The Hollow Order moved in response, preparing to defend Kael—not as an ally, but as something they could not allow to fall into enemy hands.
And Kael?
He took a step forward.
For the first time, he didn't feel afraid.
Because something inside him was waking up.
And it wasn't the shards.
It was him.
He raised his hand. The space between him and the Harbinger leader shattered, warping as though the world itself had just taken a breath. The moment stretched, frozen in time, as Kael felt something deep within himself break free.
And then—
A shockwave erupted from his body, sending both factions staggering backward. The ground cracked beneath his feet. The air burned.
He was no longer just holding the shards.
He was becoming part of them.
Selene's voice broke through the ringing in his ears.
"Kael, we need to move—now!"
He turned, forcing himself to push back the power threatening to consume him.
He wasn't ready yet.
Not for what was coming.
Because now, the world knew.
And every faction across the Wastes—the Hollow Order, the Harbingers, the Ashen Blight, and forces he hadn't even met yet—had felt what he had just done.
The war had begun.
And they were all coming for him.