"Not every kingdom falls in battle. Some collapse under the weight of forgotten truths."— Inscription on the Lost Pillar of the Second Realm
The Burned Crown Conspiracy
Ash still danced through the air like dying stars, whispering stories no one was left to tell.
Kael and Lysara stood in the hollowed throne room of the Ash Mirror, where time had melted and memory ruled. The silence was not awkward. It was ancient. Like even speaking might fracture something sacred.
Lysara's eyes lingered on the cracked throne in the center of the chamber, her voice soft but steady.
"They think I'm dead.""They want it to stay that way."
Kael tilted his head, his gaze sharpening.
"Who's they?"
Lysara didn't answer at first. Instead, she stepped closer to the ash-covered throne and slowly rolled back the sleeve of her left arm.
Veins of glowing script twisted along her skin like living roots. At the center of the web — a sigil. A crown engulfed in blue fire, wrapped in a band of broken gold.
Kael recognized it instantly. He'd seen it before — etched into the throne during the Aeonic memory, pulsing like a heartbeat.
"The Burned Crown," Lysara said."The High Keepers of the Second Realm. They served Aeon... until he betrayed them."
Kael felt the weight of her words crash over him like flame-laced gravity. His breath slowed. Thoughts unfurled.
"No... Aeon didn't just vanish.""He rebelled. Against something bigger."
His flame twitched inside him, reacting to the notion — as if remembering before he could.
Suddenly, a flicker of memory flared in Kael's mind: Aeon kneeling in the Council of Thrones, casting aside the sigil of the Burned Crown. Declaring sovereignty. Declaring war.
He snapped back to the present, voice low.
"They tried to chain him.""And now they want to bury every trace of his defiance."
Realm II - The Cradle Vault
Far across the woven cosmos, deep within the vaults of the Second Realm, firelight flickered against obsidian walls.
A figure cloaked in feathered shadows moved silently across a spiral chamber, wax dripping from their porcelain mask. The Cradle Vault — heart of the Keeper Conspiracy.
Before them, a pillar of melted sigils twisted like an hourglass caught in a scream.
"She lives," the masked voice rasped."The Ash Mirror echoes again."
Around them, seven silhouettes stirred — shadows cast by those long erased from the annals of time. One lifted a relic blade from molten chains, the steel hissing as if refusing to be touched.
Another — voice old as the roots of flame — replied:
"Then it begins.""Summon the Devourer of Pages. Let her memory burn again."
A distant howl echoed through the vault. One of them smiled.
Back to Kael & Lysara
They descended from the throne room, the deeper halls of the Ash Mirror bending with memories too dense to forget. The walls were lined with fractured glyphs — scripture burned into obsidian.
With every step Kael took, the glyphs glowed. Reacted. As if recognizing him.
"Aeon knew he'd fall," Lysara murmured."He left behind more than power — he left truth."
Kael slowed. The question on his tongue was already alive in his mind.
"What are you saying?"
She turned, eyes solemn.
"This isn't a fight to get stronger.""It's a war to remember."
That truth struck harder than any blade.
Because deep down, Kael knew it. The fragments weren't just remnants of divine power — they were stories. Regrets. Echoes of a god who'd seen the cost of obedience, and chose rebellion instead.
And the price was everything.
The Enemy Arrives
A tremor cracked the chamber floor. The walls began to hum — low, dissonant, as if mourning.
Kael's flame surged without warning, wild and alarmed.
Then — the rift opened.
It tore through the wall like time ripping paper. Out poured a creature stitched together from half-formed words and twisted recollections. Scripture and shadow fused its form, and from its eyes dripped molten clocks.
Its mouths whispered names Kael didn't recognize — but his soul did. Names that might've once belonged to him… or Aeon.
Lysara's breath hitched.
"A Memory Devourer.""They sent it from the Vault. They found us."
The beast didn't wait.
It lunged.
Kael flared, flame igniting around him, unstable but alive.
"Good," he growled."I need the practice."
He charged.
Memory Surge
Their clash wasn't clean — it was chaos. Flame met fragment, memory collided with malice.
The Devourer didn't bleed. It erased.
Every time its claws scraped Kael's body, pieces of his memory blinked — names, instincts, flashes of faces.
Lysara tried to help — launching spectral knives of mirrored ash — but they phased through the Devourer's scripture-hide.
Kael stumbled, knees buckling.
"No… not now—"
A voice echoed in him.
"Remember the cost."
It was Aeon's voice.
Kael's eyes flared open. He wasn't fighting with power — he was resisting deletion. And there was only one way to do that:
Anchor.
To truth. To self.
"Lysara," he shouted."Say my name!"
She blinked. "Kael—?"
The moment she said it — something anchored. His flame surged inward and outward, forging a tether between who he was and who he might become.
Kael slammed both palms into the beast's chest.
"Resonare."
The word echoed. Reality rippled.
Flames of truth burst from him — not to destroy, but to unmask.
The Devourer reeled back, shrieking as scripture peeled from its body — exposing the face of a dying scribe within, screaming in silence.
Kael didn't strike again.
He just watched as the creature dissolved — returning to dust, memory, and regret.
The danger had passed.
For now.
Kael dropped to his knees, gasping, trembling.
Lysara knelt beside him, steady.
"They won't stop," she said."You've lit the path. They'll send more. Stronger."
Kael nodded.
"Then we burn brighter."
The glyphs on the walls flickered in agreement.
[End Of Chapter 25]
Far above, in the Cradle Vault…
A Keeper lowered a page into flame.
The image of Kael and Lysara shimmered — locked in combat.
"So he resists memory corruption," they whispered."Very well. Send the Scriptkiller."
A thousand books screamed at once.
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🜃 Chapter 26: Devourer of Pages
A twisted agent of the Keeper Conspiracy hunts Kael and Lysara across the Ash Mirror. If it succeeds, Kael's story — and every fragment of Aeon — will be erased from existence.