CHAPTER 28: THE CROWN THAT CHOSE ITSELF
The ruined Cathedral of Truth stood not in one realm, but all of them.
Its architecture defied language—built of memory and myth, stone and sorrow. Columns shimmered in and out of time, some carved with names of angels who never existed, others with scripts too old to translate. The wind whispered inside it like a voice losing itself in prayer.
Lucien Draeven stood beneath the broken arch where once the Crown of Dichotomy was forged. No priest. No god. No applause. Only the silence of a world waiting.
His companions remained outside the cathedral walls, by his request. This was not their path to walk—not yet. This trial was his.
The crown hovered in the air above the altar, thorns pulsing with a dull, hungry light. A halo of red and blue flame circled it—the spectrum of choice, of will, of consequence.
Lucien had once thought he'd been marked by prophecy. A healer turned exile, he had lost his home, his faith, his people. Now, he realized the truth:
He had marked himself.
The Crown did not choose kings. It revealed them.
As he approached, the echoes of the dead began to sing. Not a song of mourning—but of potential. Every step forward made him relive the wars he failed to stop, the mercy he had shown, the guilt he had buried.
"I do not seek power," he said aloud.
"No," answered the Crown.
"I do not desire revenge."
"No."
"I do not believe in fate."
"Good," the Crown whispered.
Then it descended—slow, deliberate—as though it had waited eons for this moment.
As it touched his brow, pain bloomed. Not physical. Existential.
The thorns dug into his mind, not his flesh, pulling apart every version of him he had ever been. The healer. The heretic. The brother. The betrayer.
The Crown showed him the scales of judgment—and on one side, it placed his sins. On the other, his compassion.
Neither outweighed the other.
And in that balance, the Crown found its king.
Flames roared outward.
Outside the Cathedral, Kael, Elaris, Ashriel, and Jiwoon shielded their eyes. The light was not blinding—it was revealing. For a moment, they saw the truth of Lucien:
A man stitched together from contradictions. A king who would kill with mercy and heal with wrath. A ruler born not from right, but refusal—refusal to accept a world that punished kindness.
When the light faded, Lucien stepped out.
The Crown no longer hovered. It had become part of him. Not a weight, but a spine.
His voice carried across realms.
"Let all who serve the old gods hear me. Your time is over."
In the Heavens, feathers turned to ash.
In the Mortal Plane, false kings felt their hearts skip.
In the Wastes, where nothing dared grow, flowers bloomed through bone.
And in the Abyss, something ancient whispered:
"Yes. This is the one."
Kael stepped forward.
"Does this mean the war has begun?"
Lucien looked at him—not as a general to a soldier, but as one broken soul to another.
"No. It means the war has ended. What comes next... is the reckoning."
They stood together then, at the edge of the Rift. Elaris' dark wings unfurled. Ashriel's sword glowed with the names of the dead. Jiwoon held no weapon, only a book with blank pages.
"Where do we go now?" Elaris asked.
Lucien pointed to the Thread of Judgment, now fully visible as a bridge of starlight connecting all four realms.
"To the Summit of Wills. To the place where the gods first lied."
"And what do we do when we get there?" asked Jiwoon.
Lucien smiled—but it was not cruel. It was honest.
"We rewrite the truth."
Behind them, the Cathedral of Truth trembled.
Ahead, destiny waited to be broken.