High above the reborn city—
far above the lantern-lit streets, the new constellations, the sound of people daring to breathe again—
a cathedral floated upside-down in the night sky.
The stained glass glowed like open eyes.
Gravity bent around its spires like a polite servant.
Inside, seven thrones of living starlight hummed in a perfect circle.
The Higher-Class Saints.
The last relics of the old Church.
The ones who survived the fall of every seal simply by never touching the earth they ruled.
They called themselves—
The Council of Seven Crowns.
Saint Aurelius the Golden — crown of molten sunlight, voice like cathedral bells.
Personality: Arrogant, theatrical; believes beauty = divinity.
Saint Nocturne the Blind — eyes sewn with silver thread, sees only futures.
Personality: Soft-spoken; mourns events that haven't happened yet.
Saint Belladonna the Red — armor of roses and bone, smile with too many teeth.
Personality: Sadistic collector of beautiful deaths.
Saint Caelum the Skybound — wings of storm clouds, feet never touching earth.
Personality: Aloof; speaks exclusively in weather.
Saint Vesper the Ashen — skin cracking with dying embers.
Personality: Quiet, clinical, fascinated by endings.
Saint Lyria the Veiled — face hidden, voice layered with a thousand mourning women.
Personality: Gentle. Maternal. Terrifying.
Saint Dominus — seven halos orbiting his head like planets.
Personality: Calm, absolute; the only adult in every room.
They sat in a heavy silence, each crown pulsing faintly, watching a sphere of captured starlight that projected the world below.
Three figures on a broken fountain rim.
Laughing.
Bleeding.
Kissing like tomorrow was a promise owed to them personally.
Aurelius broke the silence first.
CLANG— his voice rang like a dropped chalice.
"Look at them. A berserker who weaponized affection. A witch who weaponized mercy. And the Abyss Walker… who weaponized refusal."
He leaned forward, golden eyes blazing.
"No resonance signature. No divine blessing. No demonic pact. They operate on pure, unfiltered narrative defiance."
A smile curled.
"They aren't human. They're story-logic given flesh."
Belladonna dragged a thorned gauntlet across her lips—
SKRRRCH—and licked a bead of red.
"I want the red one," she purred.
"I want to see how long her thorns stay pretty when I peel them off one by one."
Vesper tilted his ember-cracked head.
"The witch has died 413 times across probable timelines. She keeps choosing to return. That is… inefficient. I am curious."
Caelum's storm-wings rumbled like distant thunder.
"They are noise in the wind," he murmured.
"And noise must be scattered."
Lyria's veiled gaze softened.
Her voice was a choir of grieving mothers speaking at once.
"They are children who refused bedtime.
Children grow into storms."
Finally, Nocturne spoke—
soft, certain, mournful.
"I have seen the future they are writing.
We do not exist in it."
Dominus raised one hand.
WHUM— silence fell like an executioner's blade.
The crowns dimmed.
"They are an anomaly," he said.
"But anomalies can be corrected."
His seven halos revolved faster.
"The prophecy stands:
The world will sleep again under the Final Lullaby.
Yet these three… teach mortals to stay awake."
His voice sharpened.
"That is rebellion against fate itself. We cannot allow inspiration to spread."
All seven turned toward the image of Kael—
especially Dominus.
"The Abyss Walker most of all. He entered the Hollow empty, and left carrying two calamities because he chose to. He is the fracture point."
Aurelius smirked.
"So we kill the story?"
Dominus shook his head.
"We edit it.
Carefully.
Publicly.
So the world remembers who holds the pen."
Seven crowns nodded.
Seven immaculate, predatory smiles.
The sphere of starlight winked out.
The council rose as one.
Far below, three painfully oblivious people were still trading kisses, jokes, and half-baked insults on a fountain rim, believing—wrongly—
that they had time.
The sky had already begun writing their ending.
Later — The Moonlit Alley Behind the Bakery
The city had real nights again.
Real alleys that smelled like bread, rain, and distant storms.
Kael leaned against a brick wall—
THUD—trying to breathe through cracked ribs.
A woman's voice slid out of the shadows.
"You look like a man who misses being dangerous."
A figure stepped into the moonlight.
Hood low.
Face hidden.
Only her eyes visible—milky white, ringed with shifting violet script.
A Seer.
Not the Church's.
One of the old ones.
The kind burned for telling truths that cut too deep.
She tilted her head.
"I know what you lost in the Hollow," she said softly.
"Your umbrakinesis.
Your Hunger.
The part of you that made the world flinch."
Kael's hand tightened on Wrathbinder's hilt.
Twenty feet away, Veyra and Seraphine were arguing over the last honey-cake—
dangerously loud,
dangerously close,
emotionally oblivious.
The Seer smiled.
"You want it back."
Not a question.
Kael didn't answer.
She stepped closer and held out a small glass vial.
Inside: liquid shadow, swirling with tiny violet stars.
"Saint blood," she whispered.
"Higher-Class.
One of the Seven Crowns."
She tapped the glass.
Tink.
"Drink it while your heart still remembers how to be empty, and the Abyss will recognize you again.
Not as a vessel.
As family."
Kael stared at it like it might explode into meaning.
"…Where?" he asked.
The Seer's smile widened.
"North.
Past the Ashen Sea.
Through the Garden of Upside-Down Stars.
Into the Floating Cathedral
where the Council meets to rewrite tomorrow."
She leaned in, her breath cold as prophecy.
"They're coming for you anyway.
Might as well bring the war to them."
She pressed the vial into his palm—
warm.
Alive.
A heartbeat in glass.
Then she stepped backward into shadows that hadn't existed a moment before.
Her voice lingered like smoke.
"Choose fast, Abyss Walker.
Stories wait for no one.
Especially not the ones who refuse to end quietly."
Kael closed his fist around the vial.
Across the alley, Veyra looked up first—
brows lowering.
Seraphine followed—
eyes narrowing in perfect sync.
They knew that look.
Predatory smiles.
Matching strides.
Kael sighed.
Whatever came next, he'd be doing it with two devils on his shoulders
and a war in his pocket.
He slipped the vial into his coat.
Straightened.
Walked toward them before they could start teasing him again.
Above, the city lights flickered once—
—as seven crowns in the sky turned their attention downward and began to write.
But stories, as the Seer said, wait for no one.
Especially not the ones who have already learned
how to bite the hand
that tries to turn the page.