Book I - The Hollow Crown

Chapter Six: The Grave Beneath the Capital

There is a place beneath the capital of Aramoor that no map dares mark.

Not because it is forgotten.

But because it remembers too well.

A tomb forged not for the dead - but for memory itself.

A prison of silence beneath a kingdom built on lies.

This is where they go now.

The city above mourned its smoldering heart.

Ash clung to the air like perfume. The screams had stopped, replaced by weeping walls and prayers to deaf gods.

Veylan walked through the rubble with his eyes half-open. He wasn't asleep. He wasn't awake either. He was remembering.

Clov trotted beside him, bruised but unfazed. "You sure this is where she meant?"

Veylan nodded. "She said the truth lives in chains."

"Well, charming. Nothing ever says 'good history' like shackles and crypts."

They reached the Vein-Sanctum by midnight - a ruin half-swallowed by root and rot, hidden beneath a collapsed shrine. The entrance was sealed with old gold and a symbol etched in salt: a ring of thorns encasing a single eye.

It opened at Veylan's touch.

Clov blinked. "Okay, see, I hate that."

The tunnels beneath Aramoor whispered.

Not air. Voices. Old ones. Some in pain. Some in prayer. All unfinished.

The deeper they went, the colder the world became - not physically, but in weight. Every step felt like betrayal. Every turn like a forgotten guilt.

Veylan's breathing slowed.

"This place knows me," he whispered.

Clov muttered, "Yeah? Well, it can un-know you. Real fast."

At the base of the sanctum lay The Chain Grave.

A circular chamber, lit only by braziers that flared the moment they entered. On the walls, chains coiled like veins. Some still held bones. Some held names.

And one? held a mirror.

Veylan stepped toward it.

It wasn't his face in the glass.

It was him, yes - but older. Crueler. Eyes like flame. Mouth bloodstained. In the reflection, cities burned behind him. In his hand, the world's heart pulsed like an apple.

Clov approached, slowly. "That's not your future."

"It's my past," Veylan whispered.

He touched the mirror - and it shattered.

And in that moment, memory returned.

He stood on a battlefield of black glass, blood up to his knees. The Hollow King knelt before him, dying. But it wasn't a war for freedom. It was a punishment.

"You're not a savior," the Hollow King had gasped.

"You're a lesson. A warning."

And Veylan had replied, voice laced with fire:

"Then remember me well."

He collapsed, gasping.

Clov caught him, eyes wide. "What did you see?"

"Everything," Veylan croaked. "I destroyed the world. I ended the sky. And they chained me in a boy's body to start over."

He laughed, bitter. "They made me forget, Clov."

Clov didn't laugh. His smile was gone now. He reached into his cloak and pulled out a shard of silver glass - the same kind as the mirror.

Veylan froze. "Where did you get that?"

Clov smiled? the wrong kind of smile.

"Oh Vey? I've had it since the day I met you."

Chains in the chamber shivered.

Veylan stepped back. "You're with them."

Clov's voice dropped. "I was made for you. Not to kill you, not to help you - "

He stepped forward.

" - but to remind you."

Suddenly, Clov stabbed the shard into the ground. The chains writhed - and the chamber screamed. Ghosts flooded the room. Memories. Past lives. Forgotten screams.

And in the center of them all, one name rang out from every wall:

"VEYLAN THE FLAME-BORN!

THE WOUND THAT WALKS!"

Then Clov whispered something else.

"I never lied, you know. I like you."

"But you have no idea what's really coming."

And from the shadows of the chain-wall, something moved.

Something huge. Silent. Breathing.

Eyes like suns.

The Architect? was waking.

Veylan fell to one knee, blood trickling from his mouth. The room pulsed.

And in his mind, the Hollow King's voice echoed from memory:

"You were the first.

But never the last."