SFX: *THRUMMMM—CRACK—VOOOOM*
The Floating Cathedral had become a dying star.
Its walls bled light like veins bursting in slow motion.
Its floors screamed scripture, every rune peeling off the stone with the sound of tearing wings.
Each of the Seven Crowns' halos hung cracked and leaking radiance like broken planetary rings.
And in the center—
on a throne carved from the empire's very first seal-stone—
sat the man Kael had buried long ago.
Duke Arlen Voss.
His father.
Alive.
Unaged.
Seven halos orbiting his head like obedient moons.
The broken quill of divine authority still clutched in his hand.
He looked exactly as he had the morning he taught Kael how to hold a sword.
Arlen smiled—
that same tired, proud smile Kael had carried through every executioner's blade, every betrayal, every night bleeding in the Hollow.
"Hello, son," he announced.
The word hit harder than any divine rewrite.
Kael's knees buckled—
SFX: *WHUMP*
Veyra caught him.
Seraphine's hand steadied his shoulder, her flames dimming to warm embers.
Arlen rose.
The cathedral quieted around him—
as if even dying stone feared interrupting a father addressing his child.
"I owe you the truth," Arlen explained softly.
"All of it."
Flashback — Seventeen Years Ago
SFX: *CHIME—FLASH*
The Voss estate at dawn.
Twelve-year-old Kael practicing sword forms in the courtyard.
Alcris beside him, laughing, golden hair catching sunlight like spilled honey.
Duke Arlen watched from the balcony, face unreadable.
That night—
Alcris ran to the Church guards, voice shaking, tears streaking dust down his cheeks:
"The Duke is opening Rifts," he cried.
"He's going to destroy everything. Please… stop him before Kael gets hurt."
The guards stormed the estate.
Arlen didn't resist.
He only looked at Alcris with something like gratitude.
And whispered—
"Thank you for keeping your promise."
Kael, hidden in the rafters as the world burned beneath him, believed Alcris had betrayed them.
He never saw the small, proud nod Arlen gave the boy who had just damned himself to save Kael's soul.
Present
Arlen's voice was gentle—
the same voice that once read him bedtime stories about heroes who died smiling.
"I needed you to hate the Church," he explained.
"I needed you to hate me. Only hatred that pure could break the seals from the inside."
He gestured—
SFX: *SHRRRRAAAACK—MEMORIES UNFOLD*
Arlen in a hidden chamber, cutting his own heart to feed the Wound.
Arlen forging the false prophecy of the Three Harbingers.
Arlen watching Kael's execution from afar, tears freezing on his cheeks as the Rift opened exactly as planned.
Every betrayal.
Every lash.
Every night alone.
All orchestrated by the man who taught him how to tie his shoes.
Kael's voice cracked.
"You… let me think Alcris sold me. You let me carry that knife in my heart for years."
Arlen nodded.
"I let you carry every knife you needed to become sharp enough to cut God," he answered.
He drew his sword—
black steel, the corrupted twin of Kael's childhood blade.
It hummed like something hungry.
"I became the villain," Arlen announced,
"so you could become the hero who kills villains."
He offered it—hilt-first.
"Come, Kael. Finish the story I started."
Kael's hand trembled—
then closed around a different hilt.
From memory, from grief, from every dawn lesson with his father—
green steel bloomed into existence.
Theaving Haven.
A katana the color of new leaves after rain.
Shadow-silk hilt.
Blade whispering life.
Father and son faced each other on a floor of breaking stars.
The Final Duel
SFX: *CLANG—SKREEEEE—BOOM*
Every clash was a memory.
A childhood lesson in footwork — *CLANG* laughter echoing.
The first time Kael disarmed his father at fourteen — *SHIIING* pride flashing in Arlen's eyes.
Their last spar the night before the estate burned — soft grief hidden behind matching smiles.
Now—
every strike carried weight.
Arlen fought with divine frost, rewriting reality mid-swing.
Kael fought with grief sharpened to a blade.
Green steel carved black frost.
Black steel drank green light.
They moved like dancers who once knew every step—
and now only wanted to kill the music.
A thrust to the heart—blocked.
A decapitating slash—parried, both blinking tears.
Then—
Kael's blade found the opening Arlen left for him.
Theaving Haven slid between ribs
exactly where a father's heart should be.
Arlen smiled.
Blood on his teeth.
Pride in his eyes.
"I love you," he confessed.
"Always did."
He fell.
SFX: *CATHEDRAL SCREAMS—DIMENSION COLLAPSES*
Collapse
The Floating Cathedral imploded.
Reality folded like wet paper.
The sky forgot its shape.
Veyra and Seraphine dragged Kael through collapsing scripture halls—
bridges of frozen prayers—
toward the last open Rift.
A wall of collapsing starlight blocked the path.
Seraphine stopped.
Turned.
Smiled—small, ancient, certain.
"Go," she ordered.
Kael's heart stopped. "No."
Seraphine cupped his face, her body flickering like a dying constellation.
"The story needs an ending," she whispered.
"Let me write it."
Veyra grabbed her arm.
"Like hell—" she complained.
Seraphine kissed her—
quick, fierce, final.
Then pushed.
SFX: *FLARE—WHITE-BLACK SUPERNOVA*
The collapse reversed for a heartbeat.
Veyra dragged Kael through the Rift as he screamed Seraphine's name until his voice broke.
Behind them—
the cathedral died.
The Sea That Remembers
A small boat drifted on a quiet, unfinished sea.
Kael sat in the bow, staring at a horizon that no longer held a cathedral.
Veyra leaned against him, silent.
Her hand found his.
Their fingers interlaced.
No words.
None needed.
Behind them, Elyndor burned softly—
a funeral pyre built from every cage the world ever forged.
Ahead, the world was unwritten.
For the first time, that felt like mercy.
Kael closed his eyes.
In the darkness he saw Seraphine's last smile.
He whispered her name into the wind.
The wind carried it forward and planted it like a seed.
Far away—
a single white lily bloomed on water that had never existed.
Its petals formed three words in a language only the sea remembered:
We are enough.
The boat sailed on.
Two shadows where three had once stood.
But the third lived in the wind—
in the water—
in the silence between heartbeats where stories go
when they refuse to end.
And the world finally, truly—
began.