[ Eastern Reach – The Ruined Valley of Aethir ]

Mist rolled over ancient stone, curling through hollowed temples and fractured pylons of an empire long erased from maps. This was Aethir, the cradle of the first flame-pacts. Where the gods once walked. Where no man dared enter now without leaving a part of their soul behind.

But today…

Something stirred beneath the dust.

From the depths of the Eclipsed Spire, sealed in layers of divine warding, a massive stone sarcophagus shuddered—etched with glyphs older than the Dominion itself.

Inside it, a single throne.

Unclaimed.

Unoccupied.

Still beating.

[ The Throne Awakens ]

A ripple of flame—not fire, but memory—spread across the world.

Birds flew from trees.

The oceans froze for a breath.

In temples and tower halls, seers collapsed to their knees, weeping blood.

“The God-Throne remembers,” they whispered.

“The Court of Heaven is incomplete.”

[ Varnel Estate – That Same Moment ]

Lucien froze.

The teacup in his hand shattered.

From his back, the sigil of the Crownless Flame pulsed—and changed. A secondary glyph began forming beneath it: a vertical circle split by seven intersecting runes.

The Mark of Aethir.

Elysia ran into the room. “Lucien? What’s happening—?”

He didn’t answer immediately.

His mind was elsewhere.

A voice—familiar, ancient, and wrathful—boomed within his skull.

“So… you survived.”

“The pactbreaker. The thief of the thrones.”

Lucien’s hand clenched.

“Your silence delayed me,” he whispered. “But you cannot keep your seat empty forever.”

The presence receded, like a wave pulling back before a storm.

[ Flashback Fragment – Lucien’s Past Life ]

He stood at the base of the God-Throne once before. The last time.

Armor torn. Blood dripping from one eye. The world burned behind him.

A voice echoed in the skies:

“You were never meant to sit here.”

And Lucien, smiling through ash:

“And yet I did.”

[ Back to Present – Capital High Tower ]

The Mirrorborn assembled.

Clerics wept.

Their flame mirrors showed only static.

The Dominion’s central scrying altar, which charted the thrones of every noble line, flickered erratically—and then, for the first time in recorded history, went dark.

A single word remained etched in the flames:

“INTRUSION.”

[ Lucien’s Reflection – Midnight, Varnel Garden]

Under a grey moon, Lucien stood alone in the courtyard, mist curling at his heels.

Thorne lay beside him, breathing slow, as if sensing something vast moving just beyond reach.

Elysia approached from the shadows.

“You’re different,” she said. “Again.”

Lucien turned.

“The world is reacting. Not to me—” he paused, “—but to what I’m reawakening.”

She narrowed her eyes. “The God-Throne?”

He nodded. “The seat of divine law. The first flame. The origin of all throne-pacts. It stirs.”

“Then who sat there?”

Lucien looked into the distance.

“No one.”

He glanced down at his hand—where faint light trembled.

“That’s the problem.”

[ Interlude – The Silent Chamber of the Sovereigns (Unknown Location) ]

Seven divine thrones stood in perfect symmetry. Six were occupied by cloaked silhouettes. The seventh—larger, shadow-wreathed, bleeding light—remained empty.

A voice spoke in tones like thunder over still water:

“The Hollow Monarch reclaims memory. If he touches this seat again…”

Another voice, colder:

“He’ll do what we feared most—rewrite the contract of flame.”

Silence.

Then a single judgment:

“Let the world burn again… before that happens.”