The silence after the Veil's shattering clung to Sorin like a second skin suffocating, alive, pressing against every breath. His body trembled beneath the weight of it, veins heavy with echoes not his own. Above him, cracks spiderwebbed across the night sky, pulsing faintly with a lightless glow a wound left on reality itself. He longed to be steel, unyielding, but his legs betrayed him, buckling beneath the burden of what he carried.
Lys reached him first. She ran through the fractured streets without hesitation, her face pale with fear yet her eyes alight with fierce resolve.
Dropping to her knees, she cupped his face with trembling hands not of doubt, but of love that refused to let him fall.
"Sorin," she whispered, her voice shaking but strong. Saying his name was an act of defiance against the silence curling around them. "Stay with me. Do you hear me? Stay."
He could not answer at first. The Silence Path throbbed too loudly in his chest, threatening to strip away the last thread of his voice.
Yet her touch anchored him her presence burning brighter than the fractured sky. In his weakest moment, she stood between him and the abyss.
His hand found her wrist not to cling, but to recognize. Her pulse beat steady beneath his fingers, a rhythm that cut through the hollow pull threatening to unmake him. That heartbeat became his tether.
"I'm here," he rasped, his voice rough against the void. "Because of you."
Her eyes softened, a tear slipping down her cheek even as her smile held firm. "Then let me fight for you even against the void itself."
The ground trembled, a low groan rising from deep beneath Ashenreach. From the fractures of the Veil, consequence took shape.
The Hall of Hollow Thrones sealed for centuries stirred awake. An ancient gate carved into the mountain's bones split open with a soundless cry, silence spilling forth beckoning and binding.
Zira emerged from the shadows, blade drawn, her eyes sharp and knowing. Toven's hand hovered near his hilt, suspicion and dread etched across his face. Yet neither moved. Both waited for Sorin, for command, for choice.
But Sorin's gaze remained on Lys. She had steadied him when the Veil shattered, and now her presence was a truth sharper than prophecy.
The Silence Path whispered of crowns and prisons, of forgotten rulers and bound power but beneath it all, he heard the steady beat of her heart and the vow her eyes spoke without words.
"If I must face this hall," Sorin said, pushing himself upright though his legs still trembled, "then I will not face it alone."
Lys slipped her arm beneath his, steadying him, her strength quiet and unshakable. "Then we face it together."
And with her at his side, Sorin stepped across the threshold of the Hall of Hollow Thrones where shadows twisted into broken crowns and ancient eyes began to open. The world trembled not only for his fall, but for the bond that might yet lift him to rise again.