Power is never silent. It remembers who shaped it—and what they sacrificed to do so.
The Sixth Shard whispers, even in silence.
Kael stands at the edge of the Labyrinth of Breathing Stars, staring into the mirrored void that brought them here. Behind him, Lia and Ihlon recover from their own trials—haunted by the alternate selves they saw, the choices they might have made.
But Kael can't rest.
The shards now speak—not in words, but in names.
"Calrien. Solareth. Nhur. Amaraek. The Sovereigns…"
Fragments of visions assault him: a city of obsidian trees, a throne carved from the bones of stars, a song that ends the world.
Each shard holds a will. A sliver of the divine.
And six now whisper in unison.
"You seek the seventh. Then you must face those who forged us."
The Whispering Sovereigns were once gods who dreamed fire into form.
According to Ihlon's recovered memories, they reigned before the first written word, before mortals crawled from clay. They forged the seven shards not as weapons—but as seals—to bind something older than gods.
But power, as it always does, hungered.
The Sovereigns turned on each other.
Each took a shard.
Each tried to rewrite the world in their own image.
And each was cursed—stripped of divine form, exiled beyond the Veil, trapped in the Ecliptic Wound, a realm between being and non-being.
Now they exist as shadows with voices—each whispering into the shards they once made.
And they've been watching Kael.
Waiting.
Elasya shows them the way.
She opens a fracture in the Labyrinth—using the Sixth Shard's power to bend probability—and reveals a passage into the Ecliptic Wound.
"If you go, you may not return. They will know your mind. And you will know theirs."
Kael nods.
"Let them see me."
The world tears.
And they fall.
Through flame, through memory, through unborn dreams.
The Ecliptic Wound is not a place.
It is a conversation frozen in the moment before time began.
Kael lands in a chamber shaped like an eye of stars, with seven empty thrones—each carved in a different style:
One of bone and shadow.
One of crystalline thought.
One of swirling blood.
One of thorned glass.
One of endless scrolls.
One of screaming stone.
And one that is his own face, carved in godsteel.
Six Sovereigns appear—not in form, but in whispers and visions.
Solareth speaks in fire: "You wear what was sealed. You are unfit."Calrien speaks in melody: "He carries grief. That makes him stronger than we were."Amaraek whispers in Kael's bones: "The seventh shard must not awaken. Or the world will remember too much."
They debate his worth, his destiny, his danger.
Then, the Seventh Throne pulses.
And the seventh voice speaks.
From the seventh throne steps a figure identical to Kael—same eyes, same scars—but older. Wiser. Wounded in ways no blade could cause.
He is called Vael'Kaen, the Sovereign Who Betrayed Time.
He smiles at Kael.
"You are me. Or I was you. Or I will be."
Vael'Kaen tells him the final truth:
"The shards were not made to seal a god.They are pieces of the Nameless One.You are collecting fragments of what your soul once was.You are not the wielder of power.You are the reincarnation of a dead god.The shards do not obey you. They are returning to you."
Kael reels, the implications crashing through him like a tidal wave.
Every power. Every vision. Every trial.
It was a return. A reclamation of a forgotten divinity.
Vael'Kaen offers him the Seventh Shard, called Orbrenth—The Shard of Unbeing.
To accept it would mean becoming whole again.
But to do so would awaken the Nameless One fully.
And the world would burn to make way for the new.
"Refuse it," says Amaraek, "and remain mortal.Accept it, and remember what you are. And what you destroyed."
Kael stands between annihilation and ascension.
He places his hand on the shard.
And says:
"I will take it.But I will choose who I become. Not you. Not fate. Not flame."
The Seventh Shard merges with the others.
The Sovereigns scream—then vanish.
The chamber collapses.
And Kael wakes—
Not as a boy.
Not as a warrior.
But as a forgotten god with a mortal heart.