The dying cult leader’s rattling laughter cut short as Aurelia drove the heel of her boot into his chest, launching herself backward in a clean, evasive arc. She landed in a defensive crouch beside Malakor, her silver-etched rapier angled high, sapphire flames licking the length of the blade.
At the summit of the basalt dais, the First Throne was no longer empty.
The deep indigo radiance pulsing from the fallen-star alloy had turned a suffocating, bruised purple. Tendrils of solidified darkness peeled away from the high backrest, dissolving the illusion of vacancy to reveal the titanic silhouette seated within.
He wore segmented plate the color of dried arterial blood, bordered with chased platinum runes that twisted and squirmed like living serpents. Across his broad shoulders rested a mantle of frost-woven starlight, torn and scorched by ancient warfare. In his gauntleted right hand rested a two-handed executioner’s sword, its pommel shaped like a weeping eye.
The sovereign did not rise. He merely tilted his head, his crimson-ringed gaze burning through the shadows of his horned sallet.
The pressure descending upon the rotunda was cataclysmic. It was not merely physical weight, but the crushing, gravitational sovereignty of a being who had once bent entire star systems to his decree. The quartz floor groaned beneath their boots, micro-fractures spiderwebbing outward across the tiles.
"That is no phantom," Malakor rasped, his voice tight as his nether-aura flared violently, expanding into an obsidian mantle that pushed back against the descending pressure. He stepped half an inch ahead of Aurelia, his broad shoulder subtly shielding her flank. "The flesh is preserved. The soul is intact."
"King Vaelen the First," Aurelia whispered, her heart hammering against her ribs as the Bound Shards inside her chest thrummed in wild, erratic panic. "The Betrayer King. The chronicles said he sacrificed his mortal form to seal the Outer Veil."
"The chronicles lied," a voice boomed from the throne.
The sound was like tectonic plates grinding in the dark—deep, resonant, and hollow with centuries of solitary madness.
The armored sovereign leaned forward, resting his forearms on his knees. The floating orb of the Sixth Catalyst hovered just above his brow, its astral mercury core swirling in chaotic, agitated eddies that responded to his breath.
"History is the embroidery of cowards who fled the dark," Vaelen spoke, his burning gaze drifting past Malakor to lock unerringly onto Aurelia. "You carry the Five Shards of my shattered mantle, little daughter of dawn. Five fragments of my soul, harvested by traitors and brought back to my resting place."
"Your mantle was shattered because you bartered your people to the Void Entities," Aurelia countered, her voice ringing clear and steady through the vast rotunda despite the chill clawing at her spine. She stood tall, refusing to yield an inch of ground. "You did not seal the Veil—you became its herald."
A humorless, rattling laugh shook the throne.
"I bought this world ten thousand years of survival with my damned soul," Vaelen hissed, his fingers tightening around the hilt of his executioner’s sword. "And now, the cycle demands renewal. Hand over the Shards, girl. Surrender your flesh to the vessel, or I will peel them from your ribcage and leave your broken remains for the ash-worms."
Beside her, Malakor’s crimson eyes flared with a lethal, incandescent fury. The shadows clinging to the vaulted ceiling answered his rage, plunging the grand avenue into total darkness save for the burning runes and their glowing eyes.
"You speak to an empress, corpse," Malakor growled, stepping fully onto the bottom step of the dais, Void-Reaver trailing dark-matter fire. "You want her marrow? You will have to drag it through my shattered skull first."
Vaelen’s gaze shifted to Malakor, a sneer twisting his hidden mouth. "A half-blood warlord of the Nether-Tribes. You play at being a shadow king, boy, but you know nothing of the true dark. I was ruling the abyss while your ancestors were crawling through the primordial mud."
The ancient king rose from the First Throne.
The motion was impossibly fluid for an eight-foot behemoth clad in plate armor. The executioner’s blade dragged across the basalt steps with a shriek of sparking iron.
Around them, in the grand avenue, the eyes of the thousand petrified Praetorian knights suddenly ignited with sickly violet fire.
"Malakor," Aurelia warned, gathering the raw astral flame in her left hand until it condensed into a blinding, lance-like needle.
"Take the Catalyst, Aurelia," Malakor ordered, his voice flat, calm, and utterly devoid of fear. "I'll take the king."