Book I - The Hollow Crown

Chapter Two: The Chains Between Stars

Pain lingered like an aftertaste.

Veylan awoke in a room of rusted mirrors, each one fractured but still reflecting - barely - his pale, shaken form. Candles floated midair, their flames flickering without heat. Somewhere beyond the cracked window, bells rang in a way that sounded like grief made musical.

He stirred. The ache in his chest still pulsed, but the memory of power - that raw, terrifying burst of golden fire - was already slipping through his fingers like dream-dust.

"Welcome back to the land of breathing and brooding," said Clov.

The jester was sitting upside down in a chair, his boots tapping the ceiling, sipping something that steamed and smelled suspiciously like mushroom broth and regret. His mask now had a flower tucked into the screaming half.

"You passed out after blowing up a ghost priest," Clov continued cheerfully. "Very dramatic. The crowd loved it. Mostly ran away, but in awe. You're the talk of the market. Possibly a demon. Definitely trending."

Veylan rubbed his forehead. "What? was that?"

"A sermon beast," Clov replied, flipping down with unnatural ease. "Holy pest control. You triggered its doctrine filter, which means you officially qualify as heretical material. Congratulations."

"No." Veylan's voice was hoarse. "I meant? what I did."

Clov grew still.

For a moment, the mask didn't seem funny. It seemed quiet.

"You remembered, didn't you?" Clov said. "Just for a second. The chains. The fire."

Veylan nodded slowly.

"I saw a heart," he whispered. "Suspended in black. Beating. Calling me."

Clov knelt before him, serious now, one hand resting gently on the edge of a mirror.

"You're touching the Wound," he said softly. "The scar beneath the world. That's where your power's buried. That's where they sealed you."

"Who are they?"

"The ones who made kings out of corpses. Who turned gods into silence. And who made sure you'd never remember what they took from you."

They moved through the city that night in silence.

Clov led them into the Lower Hollows, where light never reached and the walls pulsed with fungus and forgotten faith. Below the canals, past murals of bleeding saints and starless heavens, they reached a gate carved from ribcages - massive, fused together, bleached white.

"Welcome to the Verity Bastion," Clov said. "Headquarters of the Unspoken. Heretics. Madmen. Visionaries. They think you're a god."

The gate opened, not by force - but because it remembered him.

Veylan stepped through, and every torch in the tunnel lit at once.

The Unspoken were waiting.

Inside, Veylan met the whispers.

Dozens knelt, heads bowed, robes stitched from scripture. They muttered his name like a prayer, a curse, a spell:

"Ashen Born? The Wound-Bearer? Child of Fire?"

He felt nothing but discomfort. But deep inside, something purred.

A woman stepped forward. She had no eyes - only golden sockets that glowed faintly.

"Do you remember me?" she asked.

Veylan shook his head.

She smiled.

"You will. I carried your ashes to this city. And I kept your heart beating when the gods tried to still it."

He blinked. "You're saying I died?"

"You were murdered by faith," she said simply. "And chained by silence."

That night, Veylan dreamt again.

He stood in a field of ash roses, and overhead, the sky was filled with broken stars - each one flickering like an eye closing.

Before him stood a young boy, wrapped in firelight. Familiar.

The boy spoke, voice trembling.

"You must remember why you screamed."

Behind the child, a shadow moved - a towering figure of glass and gold, face hidden behind a bone mask? the Hollow King.

And beside him, another presence - unseen, only felt.

Ancient. Watching. Smiling.

Veylan woke with a start.

Clov was already awake, sharpening a dagger with chalk and a joke.

"We've got company," he said. "The Hollow King has sent his Choirs. They sing your sins until your bones crack."

"We fight?"

Clov grinned. "No, darling. We run. Then we burn their cathedral. But not before we steal something very stupid and very sacred."

Veylan sat up, eyes glowing faintly with a new purpose.

"And what's that?"

Clov slipped the dagger into his belt, mask tilting with excitement.

"A map of the Wound."