The void between worlds breathed. The heir floated in the abyss, their body suspended in the liquid darkness like a specimen preserved in ink. Around them, the droplets of Kaelion's tears hung motionless, some no larger than dewdrops on a spider's web, others massive as the stained-glass windows of the Celestial Scriptorium. Each one pulsed with its own inner light, casting strange shadows across the heir's face as they drifted through the emptiness.
Their silver-threaded hand reached out almost of its own accord, fingers trembling as they brushed against the nearest droplet. The moment of contact sent a shock through their nervous system. Memory flooded in. Suddenly they stood in the Scriptorium's great library, the air thick with the scent of vellum and iron-gall ink. The heir blinked, disoriented, before realizing they were seeing through Kaelion's eyes or rather, floating behind him like a ghost at the feast of memory.
The Kaelion in this recollection couldn't have been more than seven years old. He stood on tiptoe at a writing desk, his small hands trembling as he mixed pigments under his father's watchful gaze. The heir noticed details with unnatural clarity, the way afternoon light caught dust motes above the inkwell, the faint tremor in Kaelion's lower lip as he ground lapis lazuli into powder, the single lock of silver-white hair that kept escaping from behind his ear no matter how often he tucked it back.
"Words have weight, Kaelion," his father said, guiding the boy's fingers with his own ink-stained hands. The heir felt the warmth of that touch through the memory's filter, the calluses on the man's fingers from decades of scribing. "Each law we write bends reality. A careless stroke could unravel the world."
Little Kaelion nodded, his violet eyes wide with solemn understanding. The heir realized with a start that this wasn't just any memory - this was foundational. The moment when Kaelion first learned the terrible responsibility of his bloodline. The heir could feel the memory's importance humming in their bones, resonating with the silver threads woven through their own flesh.
The memory dissolved like sugar in water, leaving the heir gasping in the void. Their fingers tingled where they'd touched the droplet, the silver threads beneath their skin glowing faintly, as if awakened by the contact.
The next droplet called to them with golden light, pulsing like a heartbeat in the darkness. This memory smelled of sun-warmed stone and lemon trees. Kaelion's sister - the heir recognized her immediately from the silver-white hair that marked their bloodline - stood in a courtyard, demonstrating a complex sigil. Her fingers moved through the air like a weaver's, leaving trails of shimmering light that formed an intricate three-dimensional pattern. The heir marveled at the elegance of her technique, each movement precise yet fluid, like water flowing over rocks.
"Pay attention, little brother," she teased, her voice bright with laughter. Kaelion, perhaps sixteen here, rolled his eyes but leaned forward eagerly, his own fingers twitching as if trying to mimic her movements. The heir felt the warmth between them like physical pressure against their chest - not just sibling affection, but the deep bond of two minds that understood each other completely, two souls who spoke the same silent language of ink and insight.
Then the memory darkened. The sigil twisted violently, its elegant lines fracturing into jagged shards of light. The sister's smile faltered as the construct collapsed inward, the glowing lines recoiling like wounded serpents.
The droplet shattered before the heir could see more, its fragments dissolving into the void with a sound like breaking glass. The heir floated there, breathing hard, their silver hand clutching at the empty space where the memory had been. A deep ache settled in their chest, though whether it was their own emotion or an echo of Kaelion's, they couldn't say.
Another droplet caught their attention - this one darker, pulsing like a sick heart in the void. The heir hesitated, their fingers hovering just above its surface. The memory within felt heavy with grief, thick with the kind of pain that leaves permanent scars on the soul. They touched it anyway.
The memory unfolded like a poisonous flower. Kaelion stood before his father's funeral pyre, the flames casting long shadows across his nineteen-year-old face. His sister stood beside him, her fingers laced tightly with his. The heir noticed the way Kaelion's free hand kept flexing, as if grasping for a stylus that wasn't there, the scribe's instinct to record warring with the son's need to mourn. The air smelled of burning sandalwood and something darker beneath - the acrid tang of divine fire that never quite consumed what it burned.
Then came the whispers. At first the heir thought it was part of the memory, but no - Kaelion and his sister showed no reaction. The voice came from somewhere beyond the memory's frame, slithering through the cracks in reality like smoke under a door:
"They always leave you, don't they?"
The heir spun in the void, searching for the source, but the memory dissolved before they could locate it, leaving them with only the aftertaste of that voice - honey-sweet and rotting at the core.
On they traveled, through droplets large and small. Some memories lasted what felt like hours. Kaelion receiving his first stylus, the bone handle carved with the Arcanthus crest, his small hands barely able to grip it properly. His sister defending him from older scribes who mocked his theories about rewriting divine laws, her voice sharp as a knife's edge. The two of them sneaking into the restricted archives by candlelight, giggling like children as they pored over forbidden texts.
Others were mere flashes, A hand (his father's?) resting on his shoulder after his first successful solo inscription. The taste of bitter medicine after a training accident left him bedridden for a week. The smell of his sister's hair as she hugged him after a particularly brutal lesson - lavender and ink and something uniquely her.
Each memory was a piece of the puzzle, but the heir sensed the most important ones were missing, deliberately excised or too painful to preserve. The gaps between droplets ached like missing teeth, the absence more telling than any presence could be.
Then they saw it.
A droplet larger than the others, its surface rippling with barely-contained energy. Dark veins pulsed within it, as though the memory inside was fighting to escape its silver prison. The heir's silver hand ached in anticipation, the threads beneath their skin vibrating in recognition. Contact was like being struck by lightning.
The void shattered around them, reforming into the ruins of Mount Scripture. Not the sanitized version from the archives, but the raw, unfiltered destruction. The heir gagged at the stench - burning flesh, melted stone, and beneath it all, the ozone tang of unleashed divinity. The air itself seemed to scream, the very fabric of reality still torn and bleeding from whatever cataclysm had occurred here.
Through the smoke, they saw Kaelion.
He knelt amidst the wreckage, his robes torn and bloodied. In his arms lay his sister, her body broken, her fingers still clutching the snapped remains of her favorite quill - the one the heir had seen her use in earlier memories, its silver filigree now twisted and blackened. The heir watched as Kaelion pressed his forehead to hers, his entire body shaking with silent sobs that seemed to tear him apart from the inside.
Then, a whisper, slithering up from the cracks in the earth. The heir turned to see the Hollow Crown hovering in the air, its jagged points gleaming with reflected firelight. It spoke without words, its voice the sound of a door closing forever,
"I can give her back."
Kaelion's head snapped up. His eyes, red-rimmed and desperate, locked onto the crown. The heir saw the exact moment his resolve broke - the tightening of his jaw, the way his fingers dug into his sister's robes, the shuddering breath before.
The vision dissolved in a burst of silver light, leaving the heir floating alone in the void, their breath coming in ragged gasps. Around them, the remaining droplets pulsed in sympathetic rhythm, as if sharing their distress. The heir's silver hand burned where it had touched the memory, the threads beneath their skin glowing white-hot with transferred anguish.
A new understanding settled over them like a shroud. The Hollow Crown had never offered Kaelion power. It had offered him her. And he had paid the price in blood and memory and the very fabric of his soul.