To reclaim the future, one must first confront the buried kings of the past.
At dawn, black-robed officials arrive at Kael's quarters. They wear no sigils, no colors — only the silver helix emblem of the Crownwatch, the secret judicial order sworn to uphold the Vows of Empire and silence divine heresy.
"Kael Vaelorian. You are summoned by the Inner Tribunal."
Rhagor tries to intervene but is blocked.
"Instructor Kynth, your presence is not sanctioned. This is a matter of lineage violation and divine inheritance."
Kael is taken beneath Aurorium — deeper than the Vault, deeper even than the Echo Gates — into the Sepulcher of Sworn Names, where the true records of the god-kings are kept.
In a hollow chamber lined with statues whose faces have been scraped off, Kael is chained to a throne of memory-stone. Twelve masked arbiters face him from above.
One speaks — voice layered with a thousand echoes:
"You bear the mark of the Thirteenth Crown — the Bone Crown. A throne lost in the Sundering. You have activated its sigil. This is not possible."
Kael replies through grit teeth:
"I never asked for this power. I didn't choose it."
But the Tribunal reveals a chilling truth:
"The Bone Crown was not stolen from the gods. It was given away… by a king who defied them."
A vision is projected before Kael — the Fall of Velcarion, not as the histories record it, but as it truly happened:
King Vaelorian the Ashborn, wielding the forbidden memory-flame of Seralyth.
The gods attempting to seal him.
His last act: casting his crown into the Deep Flame… and dividing his soul into seven vessels.
Kael sees himself — a spark of that divided soul.
He is not a reincarnation.He is a fragment.
"You are not one person, Kael. You are seven shadows wearing the same name."
Meanwhile, Lia delves into a forbidden section of the Academy's ruined library: the Thirteenth Archive, a wing erased from maps and memory.
She and Mistress Elien break the warding glyphs, only to find a throne room preserved in temporal stasis — the Last Court of Velcarion. On its wall is a mural that shows the Bone Crown placed atop Kael's head, surrounded by seven broken stars.
But worse — she finds an unfinished prophecy etched into a silver obelisk:
"When the Flameborne awakens… so too shall the Crownless rise. And the Firstborn Memory shall betray its bearer."
Lia doesn't understand it fully, but one word chills her:
"Crownless."
The name of a mythical army said to be forged from the remnants of forgotten kings.
That night, Kael dreams again.
He is no longer in Aurorium — he stands at the Ashfields, the last battlefield of the Sundering. The ghost of Vaelorian the Ashborn confronts him.
They clash — not with weapons, but with flames of memory. Each blow reveals another truth:
Kael's soul was seeded to contain the memory of Seralyth — not to wield it.
The gods feared memory because it undid their myths.
Kael's destiny is not to ascend. It is to choose which truth survives.
The ghost offers a final riddle:
"You carry my name, but not my will. Will you remake the world… or remember it as it was meant to be?"
Far beyond Aurorium, in the ravaged borderlands of the Empire, a knight in shattered armor kneels before an altar of bone.
He wears no sigil. No crest.
Only a crown made of ash and tears.
Around him, dozens of warriors stir — ancient, forgotten souls bound to no god, no oath.
The Crownless have awoken.
Their chant:
"The gods betrayed the flame. The kings betrayed the world. Now… let the betrayed rule."
Their march begins.