The world beyond the velvet drapes is colder now.

Not because the night wind bites harder,
but because Ezra walks it differently.

He is no longer a man.
He is a vessel. A throne. A question yet to be answered.

And so Livia sends him—to the edge of reason.

“Go to the Asylum,” she whispered, lips near his ear, “where the walls remember, and the silence screams. There you’ll meet those who thought themselves kings… before their crowns rusted in madness.”

This isn't mercy.
It's not even a mission.

It's a mirror.
A test of what remains human in the Hollow King.

Ezra stood at the edge of the tent’s inner sanctum, cloaked in deep velvet shadows. Behind him, Livia observed without speaking, her presence as cold and constant as the void between stars.

“You will find no script outside this stage,” she said, voice like falling lace. “Only truth. Only them.”

“And if I lose myself?” Ezra asked, eyes flickering toward the distant lights of the mortal realm.

“Then let your ruin be beautiful,” Livia replied. “But if you return…”

She stepped forward, placing her hand lightly on his chest, right above the heart he once believed he owned.

“Return as mine.”

No fanfare followed. No applause.

Only the faint hiss of the tent parting, and Ezra—now bearing the mantle of the Hollow King—stepping into a world that no longer made promises.

The Asylum stood like a mausoleum carved into the mountain’s marrow—breathing rot, silence, and secrets.

Ezra stood at its gates, alone.

Behind him, Laughteria faded like a dream. Before him, the Asylum welcomed him like a memory he wished he’d forgotten.

He stepped in.

At first, it was just cold.

Then came the whispers.

Faint murmurs, slithering across the floor like insects under his skin. The halls stretched endlessly, geometry folding in on itself like a bad trick mirror. Lights flickered in patterns that made no sense—until they did. Then they hurt to look at.

He pressed forward, sharp-heeled boots echoing louder than they should. And then—

They came.

The lunatics.

Some crawled from ceilings. Some wept from behind bars. Others simply stood in his path, swaying, chanting an old name he didn’t recognize.

“Warden. Warden. Warden.”

They didn’t bow. They attacked.

Ezra raised his hand, tried to command.

Nothing.

The madness did not kneel to a king it did not recognize.

And for the first time since his ascension, Ezra felt it—
Doubt.

“What’s the point of wearing a crown if it commands nothing?”
“Is this what it means to be the Hollow King?”

He fought to stay sane, dodging blades made of bone, claws made of memory. His mind flickered. The Asylum clawed at the edges of his soul.

But he did not fall.

Not yet.

He moved deeper.

With every step, the Asylum rewrote itself.

Walls whispered his secrets. The air smelled like old velvet and scorched minds. A hallway stretched for miles—lined with cracked mirrors, each reflecting a version of Ezra not quite right.

In one, he was weeping.
In another, his face twisted with bloodlust.
In the worst one—he wore no face at all.

He turned away.

But the mirrors followed.

Rooms blinked in and out of existence. One moment, he stood in an abandoned cell, the next—he was in a library made entirely of tongues, each page wet and whispering his past failures.

His totem—a simple silver coin engraved with a crescent—spun endlessly in his palm. He clung to it like a drowning man to driftwood.

“This is not real,” he repeated.
“This is not real.”

But even his own voice began to distort. It echoed back in Livia’s tone. In his mother’s. In a voice he didn’t recognize—but felt lodged deep in his psyche.

Suddenly—
The air shifted. Cold. Sharp. Heavy.

The lunatics stopped.

All of them. In perfect, synchronized silence. Their heads slowly turned toward the farthest wing.

And then Ezra heard it.

A voice—not loud, but ancient. Not screaming, but commanding.

“Finally… a pretender dares to enter my throne.”

The voice echoed from nowhere and everywhere.

Ezra turned toward the darkness ahead.

And the Asylum smiled.

He moved deeper.

With every step, the Asylum rewrote itself.

Walls bled ink. Doors pulsed like veins. A hallway stretched infinitely, framed by mirrors that whispered in broken tongues.

In one reflection—he screamed.
In another—he was devoured.
In the last—he wore a crown made of teeth.

He shut his eyes, but the horrors burned behind his lids.

His silver coin—a totem etched with a crescent—spun furiously between trembling fingers.

“This isn’t real. This isn’t real.”

But even that mantra felt… borrowed. Stolen from a man who used to believe in control.

Then—

Silence.

Every lunatic in the corridor froze—eyes wide, mouths agape. One by one, they turned their gazes toward a single direction:

The farthest wing.

And from that blackened corridor came the sound.

Not a growl.

Not a shriek.

But a voice.

Low. Commanding. Rotting with age. Carved from broken pride.

“So... the Queen’s new heir dares approach my grave.”

Ezra’s knees nearly gave way. The air thickened. The mirrors cracked. His totem fell—and didn’t spin.

And somewhere deep ahead…

Something ancient smiled.

The coin hit the floor with a dead clang.

Ezra didn’t wait to see if it rolled. He ran.

Through screaming corridors. Past clawing hands that reached from cells like broken puppets. His coat tore, his boots splashed into blood that hadn’t been there before.

The farther he went, the quieter it became.

Until silence returned—not peaceful, but watchful.

The kind of silence that pressed on the chest. That whispered in the bones: “You’re not the one in control.”

He reached the sealed gate. Thick iron, engraved with sigils so old they predated Livia’s reign. It loomed like a mouth waiting to devour.

And then—

“Knock, little King.”

The voice again. Closer.

Mocking.

He pressed his palm to the metal, and it burned him.

Still, he pushed.

The gate opened not by touch, but by recognition.

A throne of rust awaited inside. Atop it, half-rotted and crowned with phantom pride—

The room was unnaturally vast—larger than the Asylum should allow, stretching like a cathedral forgotten by God. The walls wept shadows instead of water. Ceilings arched high and skeletal, lined with rusted chandeliers that creaked without wind. Hanging chains swayed as if stirred by invisible breath.

The floor was made of old patient files—ink smudged, names crossed out. Every step Ezra took crackled beneath him with the weight of erased lives.

At the heart sat the throne, not made of gold, but iron restraints and broken gurney frames welded together. It pulsed like a heart, alive with ancient madness.

And on it...

The Warden.

Once regal, now wretched. His figure was draped in a tattered uniform—black with gold trims, mold-kissed and fraying. One arm was bound in asylum straps, the other free and skeletal, its fingers curled like a conductor awaiting his cue.

His face was half-mask, half-decay. Flesh sloughed off to reveal a jawbone that clicked as he spoke. His one remaining eye glowed a putrid yellow, flickering with the pride of a king long dethroned.

And atop his head, a crown made from surgical blades twisted into thorns.

A relic of a forgotten era—still clinging to a kingdom of screams.