The sky was gone.
Not dark.
Not empty.
Gone.
Above the Throne Depths, reality had been peeled open like skin, revealing a void layered with moving symbols—ancient equations written by gods who no longer existed. Lightning crawled sideways through nothingness, forming crowns that dissolved as quickly as they appeared.
Kael stood at the edge of the broken platform, blood dripping from his fingers, Shadowfang trembling in his grip.
The god was dead.
But death had not brought silence.
It had brought attention.
The air bent.
Time slowed.
And the Crown Hunter finally moved.
He stepped forward, boots echoing against floating stone, his shattered crown glinting with stolen divinity. For the first time, Kael noticed something wrong about him.
The Hunter cast no shadow.
"You killed a god," the Hunter said calmly, as if commenting on the weather.
Kael laughed weakly. "It tried to kill me first."
The Hunter nodded. "They always do."
He reached up and touched the broken crown hanging around his neck. Each fragment glowed with a different color—red, gold, blue, void-black.
"Do you know what this is?" he asked.
Kael shook his head.
"This," the Hunter said, "is the crown of those who refused the throne."
The words hit Kael harder than any blow.
"There have been others?" Kael asked.
The Hunter smiled, slow and dangerous. "There have been many."
The world shifted.
The platforms dissolved into memory again, and suddenly Kael stood in a vast hall—different from the Throne Depths, older, cleaner, untouched by ruin. Rows of kings stood frozen in time, each wearing a crown, each with eyes hollowed out.
At the center stood a throne.
Whole.
Unbroken.
Alive.
"This was the world before the cycle," the Hunter said. "Before the gods panicked."
Kael felt a pressure in his skull, like something trying to open.
"The throne was never meant to rule," the Hunter continued. "It was meant to choose."
The kings began to move.
One by one, they stepped forward, touched the throne—
—and burned.
Their bodies collapsed into ash, their crowns falling, cracking, shattering.
"And when the throne rejected them," the Hunter said, "the gods decided no one should ever touch it again."
The vision changed.
Gods descended from the sky like stars falling. They wrapped the throne in chains, seals, laws.
They broke it.
"They created the cycle," the Hunter whispered. "Endless empires. Endless wars. Endless kings. All designed to distract the world from the truth."
Kael turned toward him.
"You survived," Kael said. "How?"
The Hunter's smile vanished.
"I didn't," he said.
The vision shattered.
They were back in the abyss.
The Keeper stirred behind Kael, groaning softly. She opened her eyes—and stared straight through him.
"Where am I?" she asked.
Kael froze.
The Hunter watched closely.
"You remember nothing," Kael whispered.
The Keeper frowned. "Should I?"
Kael opened his mouth—
—and stopped.
The throne's price echoed in his bones.
Love was gone.
Not dead.
Erased.
He stepped back.
The Hunter nodded, satisfied. "Good. The throne has marked you properly."
Kael turned to him, rage burning behind his eyes. "What do you want from me?"
The Hunter spread his arms.
"To end the cycle," he said. "The same thing you want."
Kael laughed bitterly. "You just said the throne wants this."
"No," the Hunter corrected. "The throne wants you."
The abyss trembled.
A sound rose from the void.
Not a roar.
Not a scream.
A command.
The symbols in the sky began to align.
The Hunter's eyes darkened.
"They've noticed," he said. "All of them."
Kael felt it then.
Multiple presences.
Dozens.
Hundreds.
Gods waking across worlds.
"You have a choice," the Hunter said quickly. "Run, and they hunt you forever. Or follow me—and learn how to kill them all."
Kael looked at the Keeper, weak and confused.
He looked at Shadowfang, now burning with a darker flame.
He looked at the broken throne, still bleeding light behind him.
"No more running," Kael said.
The Hunter smiled—wide, sharp, proud.
"Then wear the crown."
The shattered pieces rose from his neck and floated toward Kael, burning through the air.
Kael screamed as they fused into his flesh.
Power flooded him.
Pain erased him.
The mark on his chest transformed into a symbol no god could read.
When the light faded, Kael stood changed.
Not king.
Not god.
Not mortal.
The Hunter bowed.
"Welcome," he said softly, "to the war that ends heaven."
Above them, the sky began to fall.