Book I - The Hollow Crown

Chapter Seven: The Architect's Lullaby

The Architect did not have a voice.

Not in the way men speak, not in the way gods roar.

He sang in pressure, in silence so loud it cracked bone.

His lullaby was a vibration - a hymn that disassembled identity.

And in the deep veins beneath Aramoor, he was waking.

Veylan could not move.

Chains had wrapped around his wrists and ankles, not of metal - but of remembrance. Every link was a moment from a life he'd buried.

His mother's face as she burned.

The ash on his hands.

The village screaming his name, not in praise - but in fear.

And him? smiling through the flames.

The Architect's hymn filled the chamber.

Not a song.

A warning.

Clov stood in the torchlight, his face shadowed, eyes unreadable.

"I told you I was made for you," he said softly.

"I wasn't lying."

Veylan stared at him. "You led me here."

"To the truth." Clov walked forward, holding a strange device - a silver tuning orb etched with runes. "You needed to remember what you are before it's too late."

The chains tightened as the hymn shifted.

Veylan felt his heartbeat stagger. For a moment, he saw dozens of himself - different lives. Same power. Same fall. Always used. Always erased. Each version of him had a different name, but the same fate:

Born to burn.

Loved briefly.

Then feared.

Then betrayed.

Suddenly, the air shifted.

The Architect moved.

A slither of form - a titan of ash and god-bone curled within the walls of the crypt. Not awake. Not fully. But dreaming.

One eye opened.

It did not glow. It reflected - showing Veylan not who he was, but who he would become if no one stopped him.

And that was worse.

A tyrant with a sun for a heart.

Veylan screamed, and the chains shattered.

Power rippled through him - not the golden flare of earlier, but something deeper. Red. Angry. Truthful.

He stood, shaking, voice hoarse.

"I didn't ask for any of this."

Clov nodded solemnly. "None of us did. But you're the only one strong enough to change how it ends."

The Architect shifted again.

And then? he sang.

The chamber cracked. Not physically - but in concept. Reality blinked, and they were somewhere else -

A battlefield made of glass.

Dead angels impaled on spires.

A banner fluttering: The Crown of Bone.

Clov stared in awe. "We're in the Architect's memory."

Here, Veylan saw the truth:

The Hollow King hadn't created the war.

He had inherited it - from the Architect.

An ancient being who designed the world as a cage.

Each rebellion. Each prophecy. Each flame-born hero.

All were test subjects.

Tools. Instruments of calibration.

The Architect did not seek domination.

He sought perfection.

And Veylan was his last draft.

They were yanked back into the crypt.

The Architect's eye closed again.

A whisper echoed:

"You are incomplete."

Veylan collapsed, trembling.

Clov rushed to him. "You saw it, didn't you?"

"I'm? not even real," Veylan said, voice flat. "I'm a prototype."

"No," Clov said sharply. "You're the one that broke free."

Above, distant bells rang again.

The Hollow King was moving toward the capital.

But now Veylan understood -

The Hollow King wasn't trying to kill him.

He was trying to stop him from waking the Architect fully.

And for the first time, Veylan asked himself:

Who's really the villain here?

That night, as they left the crypt, Clov said nothing.

But in his palm, he turned the tuning orb over and over - its core now glowing faintly.

He whispered:

"One more note left in the song?"

And behind them, in the dark of the crypt,

The Architect smiled in his sleep.