The first time I heard the chain, it wasn't with my ears.
It resonated in my bones.
A distant clang, echoing across the aether. Ancient. Rhythmic. Measured, like a heartbeat taught by agony.
We were crossing the Mirror Plateau—its skies rimmed in dying constellations—when Kael collapsed. Not from battle. Not from exhaustion. But from something older than both.
He screamed like something sacred was being peeled away.
And then… the chain appeared.
It didn't emerge from the ground.
It bled from him.
From his spine.
From his veins.
Etched in burning runes and dripping with ancestral memory, the chain erupted from Kael's back like a serpent of molten iron. It writhed, snarled, then arced toward the heavens—stretching across planes I could no longer name.
And far above us, I saw its anchor:
A monolith carved in the shape of a god's open mouth.
"It's time," Kael whispered through clenched teeth. "He's waking."
"Who?" I asked, blade half-drawn, eyes already glowing with Riftfire.
But he didn't answer.
Instead, his body arched, and his blood began to chant.
Yes—chant.
Words spilled from his wounds, forming glyphs in the air.
Beneath the oath of fire, he bears the yoke of the Cradle Chain...
I had heard the name in forbidden texts.
Cradle Chain.
A curse passed through bloodlines older than the Rift itself.
Not merely punishment—but purpose.
A prison born within flesh, shackling its bearer to a forgotten god-machine buried in the Deep Ethereal. Kael had never spoken of it. Never had to. I always suspected something cursed pulsed beneath his skin—but this?
This was divine slavery.
He collapsed again. The chain yanked tight, dragging him toward a fracture in the world—a Rift scar humming with dissonant light.
And without hesitation, I followed.
The air beyond the scar stank of oil and memory.
It was a realm made of metallic prayers—clanging echoes, rusted thrones, and glyph-engines turning endlessly in forgotten patterns.
We stood before an altar of living bronze, its surface shifting with faces—Kael's ancestors. Bound, screaming, praying. Still alive, in a way only curses can preserve.
I stepped forward.
"Let him go," I said.
The altar responded with a voice not made for mortals.
He is ours. He carries the will of the Shatter-God. He is Chainborn. One link among ten-thousand. The Pattern will not be broken.
"No," I said.
And I placed my hand on the chain.
Instantly, pain unlike any death I had ever known lanced through my soul.
It wasn't just fire.
It was history.
I saw every life Kael's line had lived. Every betrayal. Every bond. Every time they begged to be free, and every time the Chain laughed.
And in that moment, I understood why Kael never smiled with both eyes.
"Let. Him. Go." I growled.
The Riftfire around me surged. But something deeper stirred.
A sovereign power. Not stolen. Not borrowed.
Mine.
I broke the chain.
Not with brute force.
But with authority.
My voice cracked the air:
"I am the Riftborne Sovereign. This chain ends now."
And the universe listened.
The altar screamed.
The realm shuddered.
Kael's body convulsed as the links shattered, one by one, each breaking with the sound of a god weeping.
And when the final link burst—
The monolith above cracked.
Then bled stars.
Kael lay still.
Free.
But the altar did not vanish.
Instead, it shifted.
Changed.
A chain broken... demands a new one forged.
Something slithered from the remains of the glyph-engine.
It looked at me.
And bowed.
"Then you, Aetherion Vale, are now the bound."
Chains of light wrapped around my soul—not to imprison, but to crown.
Kael opened his eyes.
"Why… why would you take it?" he whispered.
I smiled, though it felt foreign on my face.
"Because chains," I said, "belong to rulers too."
The air shimmered.
And far above, the Star Tribunal turned its gaze upon me.
I had inherited more than a curse.
I had accepted a cosmic role.
And whatever came next…
I would wear it with fury.
As we left the scarred plane behind, Kael touched my arm.
His hand burned.
I looked down—
And saw a new mark forming on my skin.
Not a sigil.
A crown made of thorns and orbiting suns.
Kael whispered:
"You've just been claimed... but not by me."