Kairo adjusted the mask now strapped to his belt.
He didn't wear it. Not yet.
But the Crownless had given it to him—and that meant something.
The cracked porcelain face, jagged across the eye… it felt too familiar.
Like he'd worn it before. In another life. Maybe even in another death.
Beside him, Ayleth Wren walked in silence, every step radiating command.
She wasn't a woman who talked unless it mattered.
> "Where are we going?" Kairo finally asked.
> "To meet the King," she said.
> "Didn't you say the Crownless have no king?"
> "We don't."
"That's why he's dead."
---
The camp was hidden beneath the ruins of an old cathedral.
Ash blew through the broken stained glass. Weapons hung like prayers from the walls.
And in the center… was a throne made of masks.
Hundreds of them. Each cracked. Each once worn by someone who bore the Crown.
> "This is where every 'Cursed Crown' ends up," Ayleth said.
> "And where you decide if you'll be the first one not to."
---
A figure sat before the throne.
Not alive.
But not quite dead.
Wrapped in a burial cloak, face hidden, one skeletal hand gripping a journal.
> "He was the first Crown," Ayleth said. "The one who broke the pacts. Who dared fight all six factions at once."
Kairo approached slowly.
The journal in the corpse's hand twitched.
Flipped open.
A single phrase written in red ink bled across the page:
> "She lives."
Kairo froze.
Gix, who had been eerily silent the entire time, shivered.
> "Oh hell no… not her."
> "Who?" Kairo asked.
> "You're not ready."
---
> "Mission Updated: Find the Girl Who Shouldn't Exist."
"Echo Surge Incoming."
The ground shook.
Kairo stumbled back.
The corpse's jaw unhinged with a snap, and a voice not his own spilled into the room.
---
> "You let me burn, Kairo."
"You promised I'd live."
"So now I promise... you'll remember me in every timeline."
---
The journal burst into flame.
Kairo collapsed, clutching his head.
Memories—not his—flooded in.
> A tower of light.
A girl screaming his name.
Her hands pulling him from the fire.
And her dying to save him.
> Rena.
---
Back in the present—
Kairo gasped, sweat dripping down his face.
> "Rena's alive," he whispered.
Ayleth turned sharply. "Impossible. She burned in the first revolt. She died in the Crownless Fall."
Kairo's voice was firm now.
> "She didn't. Not in this timeline."
---
SCENE SHIFT — LOCATION: THE HOLLOW CHOIR
A pale girl sat in a glass garden, playing a violin with no strings.
Her eyes were stitched shut. Yet tears leaked from beneath them.
> "He remembers me…"
The others began to scream. Not out of fear.
But worship.
> "The Crimson Bride lives."
"The Echo Queen returns."
"The final sin begins."
---
Back at the camp, Kairo stood.
His brand burned on his chest.
He didn't know what she was.
He didn't know who he used to be.
But he knew one thing:
> "I have to find her… before they do."