The Garden of Upside-Down Stars shuddered like a beast waking from a nightmare.
(SFX: BWOOM—BWOOOM—BWAAAAAAM as constellations invert and collapse)
Lyria's shadow cathedral unfurled behind her—
a thousand silhouettes of mourning women, each with hands that fluttered like broken wings.
She raised one palm.
Every hand behind her raised in perfect echo.
"Children," she whispered, "stop struggling. You'll only make the grief worse."
(SFX: HUMMMMM — a lullaby in frequencies not meant for throats)
Lyria began to sing.
Not a melody—
a command.
Every note folded gravity.
Every syllable rewrote temperature.
Every breath made the stars forget which way was up.
Kael felt it immediately—
the pull behind his ribs,
the ache beneath the bandages,
the hollow inside him yawning open like a door left ajar.
Lyria's voice stroked that emptiness.
"There it is," she murmured. "Your hunger. Your missing half. You poor boy… you've been empty since before you had a name."
Kael staggered.
Veyra saw.
Seraphine saw.
Both moved as one.
2. Thornstorm + Moonblade Combo
(SFX: RATTLERATTLERATTLE—FWOOSH—SHIIIING)
Veyra launched a barrage of razor-thorns in spirals too fast to follow.
Seraphine wove between them—every thorn caught in her moonlight and accelerated until they shone like silver meteors.
They hit Lyria like a rain of angry stars.
(SFX: KRRRRSH—BOOOOOOM)
The veil cracked.
The Cathedral of Hands buckled.
Lyria's song faltered.
But only for one heartbeat.
Just enough for Kael to breathe—
and for the emptiness in him to roar awake.
He clutched the vial inside his coat.
Still warm.
Still beating.
Saint blood—
higher-class, star-forged, divine enough to restart the Abyss's memory of him.
A half-step from power.
A half-step from damnation.
Lyria turned toward him, veil trembling like a mother on the verge of kneeling.
"My child," she said softly, "give it to me. Give me your emptiness before it swallows you whole."
Kael's grip tightened.
"No."
The word landed like an earthquake.
(SFX: THOOM)
Lyria's shadow-mothers recoiled.
"Sweet one," she whispered, "you misunderstand. I am not taking from you. I am restoring you."
Kael straightened.
"I don't want to be restored."
Behind him, Veyra growled low.
Seraphine's eyes narrowed to crescent blades.
Kael continued.
"I want to choose."
Lyria blinked.
A tiny gesture.
But the entire Garden froze—
stars halting mid-fall,
thorns stopping mid-spin,
the moonblade locked in Seraphine's hand.
"Choice," Lyria echoed.
"As if mortals can hold such things without breaking."
She lowered her veil.
Slowly.
Delicately.
The world whimpered.
Beneath the fabric was a face made of grief itself—
eyes of liquid mourning,
cheeks carved from funerals,
a mouth shaped by the last breath of every mother who ever lost a child.
Her voice was a cradlequake.
"No child of mine gets to choose the shape of their suffering."
She reached for Kael again.
Not to strike.
To claim.
Veyra snarled, vines erupting from her spine like wings made of barbed lightning.
(SFX: WRRRRRAAAAAA—CRACKCRACKCRACK as star-roots split apart)
She slammed between Kael and Lyria, claws out, teeth bared.
"You touch him again," Veyra hissed,
"I'll bury you under your own choir."
Her hair whipped in a storm of petals and blood.
Lyria tilted her grieving gaze.
"Thorn-child. You grew yourself wrong."
"Good," Veyra spat. "So did he."
Seraphine dropped from above, landing beside Kael with a ripple of moonlight that cut Lyria's shadow to bleeding silhouettes.
She placed one hand on Kael's heart.
"You don't have to drink that," she whispered.
Her voice was steady.
But her hand shook.
Veyra's didn't.
"Drink it," she growled.
"Do it. Get your teeth back."
Seraphine snapped, "He loses himself if he rushes!"
Veyra snapped back, "He loses EVERYTHING if he waits!"
Kael stood between two worlds—
the one he chose,
and the one choosing him.
Behind them, Lyria spread her arms and the mourning choir shrieked in a thousand folded harmonies.
(SFX: SHRIEEEE—AAAAAHHH — a chorus of grief breaking sound)
"This ends now," she declared.
Kael opened the vial.
The world inhaled.
The liquid shadow spiraled upward like smoke made of collapsed stars.
Veyra's breath hitched.
Seraphine whispered, "Kael… don't—"
Lyria reached out, desperate.
"Please," she breathed, "give it to me. I can fix what the Hollow stole. I can make you whole."
Kael looked from the Mother of Mourning
to the berserker who bled when she loved
to the witch who had died hundreds of times for him.
His voice was low.
Steady.
Unshakable.
"I don't need to be whole."
He lifted the vial to his lips.
"I need to be mine."
And he drank it.
(SFX: SKRNNNNNK—WHOOOOM—HEARTBEAT LIKE A FALLING STAR)