The stars fell silent the moment I stepped into the vision again.
No war.
No tribunal.
No names.
Only a vast hall of black and gold where time trembled and space knelt.
It was not sleep that brought me here. Not prophecy, either.
It was the Throne.
Calling me back.
I don't know how I got here. Not precisely.
One moment I was beneath the shattered sky, the Tribunal bearing down on me, each of their twelve faceless helms glowing with the weight of verdicts not yet spoken.
The next—I was falling upward through a crack in existence, like a soul skipping backward across the skin of creation.
Then…
There.
The Throne.
It waited for me, just as it had the first time.
Carved of forgotten matter and crowned by twin serpents of astral thought, the throne sat at the center of a spiral of dead constellations. A sea of echoes surrounded it—my echoes—past lives, past choices, unfinished endings ringing in a silence so loud it felt sacred.
But this time… the Throne wasn't empty.
It waited.
For me.
My feet touched the mosaic floor, the sigils beneath my boots lighting one by one as if remembering my steps. Or perhaps welcoming them.
The Throne pulsed, faintly. Once. Twice. Like a heartbeat too old to die.
I stepped closer.
And it whispered.
Not in words.
But in understanding.
I knew then—I wasn't being summoned.
I was being recognized.
My hand brushed the cold arm of the throne.
I felt stars form under my skin.
My soul pulled taut, every memory I'd tried to forget blooming like a wound inside my ribcage.
Eirin's silver blood.
Lucien's Sunblade burning into my shoulder.
Kael's scream as the curse shattered.
Lyra's hand shaking in mine as she whispered, I watched you die.
And Draven.
Kneeling.
Bleeding.
Calling me King again.
The Throne pulsed louder now.
I sat.
And it began to speak.
"Welcome, Heir of the Rift Architect."
The voice wasn't a voice.
It was a law.
It pressed down upon me from every direction. I tried to rise—but I couldn't move.
Not out of fear.
Out of truth.
The Throne wasn't holding me.
It was fitting me.
Like a name sliding back into a forgotten mouth.
"Your blood remembers. Your bones carry the pattern. The Sovereignty that broke the stars now sits upon the fulcrum once more."
A crown of light rose behind me.
Not to rest on my head.
But to orbit.
An unfinished loop of power, jagged where the last piece was missing.
I breathed—but it echoed like thunder.
The air shimmered in front of me.
And a vision unfolded.
I saw him again.
The Architect.
The one whose hands carved the original Rift. The first sovereign. The builder of the Map Beyond Time. Cloaked in stars, faceless, mighty—he stood atop the edge of reality and invited entropy.
Not to destroy the cosmos—
But to challenge it.
And then…
He fractured himself.
Split his being into threads of potential.
Threads like me.
I saw myself.
All of my past selves.
All of my deaths.
My ascents. My betrayals. My alliances. My enemies turned lovers. My lovers turned gods. Every time I had touched power and tried to hold it without breaking.
I saw the same choice repeating through all of them.
Do you create, or do you command?
And every time—
I chose both.
"You are not merely Sovereign," the Throne spoke. "You are inheritor."
Lightning split the sky above me. I hadn't noticed there was a sky until it screamed.
My veins lit gold.
I stood—because I had to.
And the vision shifted.
I was on the battlefield of the future.
I saw empires made of living planets collapsing into one another. I saw the Rift burning—no longer a gate, but a wound being torn open from both sides.
I saw myself standing against Ashvorn, who no longer wore his old name, but a title made of screams and flame:
The Eternal Regression.
I stood alone.
Until they came.
Eirin, in her full Voidform, wings of crescent moons behind her.
Lucien, blade broken and reforged by mercy.
Kael, with a crown of chains wrapped around his fist instead of his throat.
Lyra, shadows turned to stars.
Draven, wearing my banner as his own, blade in hand, face fierce.
They stood behind me.
And I stood atop the throne that now moved like a living warship.
I understood then.
The Throne wasn't just power.
It was direction.
It didn't grant strength.
It demanded alignment.
And it had chosen me.
Back in the Throne Vision, my pulse beat once.
Louder than thunder.
It echoed outward.
And the stars bent toward it.
"Aetherion Vale," the Throne whispered now. "You are no longer one who passes through the Rift."
"You are its design. Its reminder."
"You are the Heir of the Architect."
My heart detonated.
I fell forward.
Reality surged.
Time broke.
And from the deepest crack of the cosmos,
Something else woke up.
Not a god.
Not a rival.
Not even a being.
But a question.
Carved in light.
Burning in the bones of every reality.
It looked at me—
And asked,
"Then what will you build?"