The fall lasted forever. Or maybe no time at all.

When Kael opened his eyes, the sky was a mosaic of stolen moments—a patchwork of sunsets, eclipses, and starless voids. The ground beneath him shifted: cobblestones from Liran’s Hollow fused with neon signs from a cybernetic metropolis and the charred bones of a dragon. The Hollow Court. A kingdom built from the carcasses of worlds.

Jarek hauled him upright. “Eyes sharp, kid. This place lies.”

Axiom-7’s crystal hovered erratically, its light flickering. “Alert: Temporal stability at 12.4%. Advise immediate retreat.”

“Too late for that,” Jarek muttered.

The air reeked of burnt sugar and decay. Shadows slithered like liquid, coalescing into figures—echoes of the Hollow King’s victims. A child with a crown of thorns. A soldier clutching a flag of ash. They whispered in unison:

“He’ll make the pain stop. Let him. Let him. Let—”

“Shut up!” Jarek swung his blade, dispersing the shadows. But they reformed, laughing.

Kael’s Codex burned. He opened it, and the pages screamed.

They found him on a throne of mirrors.

The Hollow King wasn’t a man. He was a collage—a hundred faces flickering across his skin, mouths moving in silent pleas. His voice was a chorus: the wail of a dying star, the sigh of a closing book, the static between radio stations.

“Welcome, Kael Veyra. Author of your own demise.”

Jarek stepped forward, blade raised. “Been a while, King of Crumbs. Still eating scraps?”

“Jarek the Unbound. The man who outran his end. Tell me—do your dead still visit you? Do they ask why you fled?”

Jarek’s knuckles whitened. “Keep talking. I’ll make you a new face.”

The Hollow King turned to Kael. “You’ve seen the cost of your power. Every glyph steals a memory. But what if I could give them back?” A mirror floated toward Kael, reflecting Lyra—alive, whole, smiling. “Your sister. Your town. All of it. Undo the Codex’s curse.”

Kael’s breath hitched. “In exchange for what?”

“A single edit.” The King’s finger (a claw, a hand, a root) pointed at Jarek. “Erase him. A man who doesn’t belong in any timeline… is no loss at all.”

Battle of Fragments

Jarek attacked first. His not-sword clashed against the Hollow King’s palm, spacetime rippling. Axiom-7 unleashed a beam of starlight, pinning the King’s shadows. Kael scrambled to write a glyph, but the pages blurred—

Memory Loss: The taste of Lyra’s cinnamon rolls.

The glyph flared. Reality bent.

Mirrors shattered. Shards became daggers, birds, screams. The Hollow King laughed, his form unraveling into a storm of faces.

“Foolish poet. You think this is a fight? This is a proof. Every act of defiance writes my triumph!”

Kael’s nose bled freely now. He scrawled another glyph, this one torn from a half-remembered lullaby. The ground split, swallowing the King’s throne. But the cost—

Memory Loss: His mother’s lullaby. Gone.

Jarek grabbed him. “We’re leaving.”

“Run, little liars,” the Hollow King crooned. “But know this: To save one story, you must burn a thousand. And you, Kael… you’ll burn them all.”