ASHES OF THE SUNDERED STAR

Lira: The Crown of Hollow Stars

The crown did not speak—it sang.

Its melody coiled through Lira's veins, a dirge of dead stars and forgotten oaths. The Sky Tombs trembled as she rose, the diadem's jagged points piercing her temples. Blood trickled down her cheeks, black and glistening, as the chamber's star maps rearranged themselves. Constellations became prison bars. Nebulas twisted into faces—Nyrisia's, the Council's, her mother's.

"You're dying," said the boy.

Erran stood before her, whole and unharmed, though Lira had watched him disintegrate. His eyes glowed faintly crimson, his voice layered with the parasite's rasp.

"You're not real," she hissed, clutching the pedestal for balance.

"Am I not?" He held up his hand, palm split by a scar she'd noticed earlier. "You think the Council's the only liar here? The crown chose you, Lira. Just like it chose Nyrisia."

The golems knelt in a ring around them, their stone bodies cracking under the strain of obedience. Lira's magic surged, raw and untamed, as the diadem fused to her skull. "What are you?"

"A messenger." Erran's grin widened, his teeth sharpening. "The parasite's tired of wearing corpses. It wants a proper vessel."

He lunged.

Lira raised her hand, and the tombs obeyed.

The floor split, swallowing Erran whole, but his laughter echoed as the walls bled. "You can't kill what's already dead, Sundered Star!"

The crown's song crescendoed. Visions tore through her:

Memory of Nyrisia

*The goddess stands atop the Obsidian Spire, the diadem blazing on her brow. Below, her knights—human and Voidspawn alike—kneel in devotion. The Starweaver Council approaches, bearing the meteorite shard. "A gift," they say. "To unite the realms."

Nyrisia hesitates. The shard hums with the parasite's voice.

She places it on her throne.

The spire collapses.*

Lira screamed, tearing the crown off. It clung to her, roots of light burrowing into her skull. "Get out!"

"Too late," Erran whispered in her ear, though he was gone. "You're the door now. And doors exist to be opened."

Kael: The Hammer's Lament

The desert burned behind him.

Kael staggered through the Ashen Wastes, Jarel's knights hot on his trail. Soulbrand's weight dragged at his back, its whispers a constant itch.

"Let me free," it pleaded. "Let me burn."

"Shut up," Kael growled, though he knew the knights heard. Their witchhounds bayed, closer now.

He crested a dune and froze.

The Sky Tombs hung ahead, their floating mausoleums lit by the Dusk Eclipse's crimson glare. A pillar of black smoke rose from the central chamber—Lira's prison.

"There!" shouted a knight.

Arrows hissed past. Kael ducked, rolling down the dune as a Voidspawn shrieked overhead. Rissa's shadowy familiar dive-bombed the knights, its form shifting between raven and serpent.

"Run!" its voice echoed in his mind. "She's tearing the tombs apart!"

Kael ran. Blood soaked his tunic, his breath ragged, but the hammer's warmth pushed him onward.

The tombs' entrance loomed—a spiraling staircase carved into a meteorite. Kael took the steps two at a time, Soulbrand's light scattering the bioluminescent moss.

At the top, Lira waited.

Or what was left of her.

She floated above the observatory, the crown's roots engulfing her head like a grotesque halo. Her eyes were voids, her body translucent, as if her soul were unraveling. Below, the Starweaver Council's corpses littered the floor, their masks shattered.

"Lira!" Kael shouted.

She turned. Her voice echoed with the diadem's song. "You shouldn't have come."

The crown pulsed. The staircase collapsed.

Tyrus: The Shadow's Promise

The Obsidian Spire stank of regret.

Tyrus crept through its gutted halls, Goran's rebels at his back. Rissa's shadow slithered ahead, its form flickering between the girl's silhouette and something older—a woman with starlight hair.

"This is a trap," Goran muttered, his crystalline knuckles grinding. "The parasite's waiting."

"Obviously," Tyrus said, kicking aside a cultist's charred skull. "But traps have two sides. You just need to spring them… creatively."

Rissa's shadow paused, stretching into a tall, regal figure. Nyrisia's voice whispered: "The heart is close. You must destroy it."

Tyrus froze. "You've been her this whole time?"

The shadow nodded. "A fragment, buried in the girl. The parasite couldn't purge all of me."

Goran snarled. "You led us to a goddess?"

"Quiet," Tyrus hissed. "Unless you want the heart to hear."

They reached the throne room. The parasite's heart hung suspended above the dais—a pulsing orb of shadow, its surface etched with Erran's face.

"Charming," Tyrus said.

The heart pulsed. "Varys. Come to repent?"

"Come to party." He flipped his dagger. "Brought friends."

The rebels charged.

Convergence: The Eclipse Gate

The Sky Tombs shattered.

Lira's scream tore the heavens as the crown's roots consumed her. Kael clung to a crumbling pillar, Soulbrand's light shielding him from falling debris.

"Fight it!" he roared.

"I can't!" Lira's body contorted, the diadem's song warping into the parasite's laugh. "It's in the crown—the real prison! Nyrisia never betrayed us—the Council framed her!"

The revelation struck like a hammer blow. Kael's grip slipped. "Then break it!"

"I'm trying!"

Erran materialized beside her, his form flickering between boy and monstrosity. "Poor Sundered Star. You still don't see. The parasite isn't in the crown… you are."

The truth ignited.

The crown wasn't Nyrisia's—it was hers. The Council had forged it to trap her soul, cycle after cycle, using Weavers as vessels.

Lira grabbed Erran's wrist. "Then let's share the burden."

She slammed the crown onto his head.

The Spire's Fall

Tyrus's dagger struck true.

The heart screamed, Erran's face melting as the blade pierced the orb. Goran's rebels tore into the shadowy tendrils, their defiance a roar.

Nyrisia's shadow gripped Tyrus's shoulder. "The girl—Rissa—is dying. Save her."

"What about you?"

"I've been dead for centuries." The shadow dissolved. "End this."

Tyrus ran.

The Final Gambit

Kael caught Lira as she fell, the crown's roots retreating. Erran's body crumbled, the parasite's scream fading.

"Did we win?" she whispered.

The Dusk Eclipse split.

A colossal eye stared down, its pupil a vortex of teeth and shadow.

"No," Kael said.

Tyrus burst onto the observatory, Rissa limp in his arms. "We need to go. Now."

The tombs collapsed. The Spire imploded. And the parasite's true form descended.

The eye blinked.

"Mine," it said.

And the world went dark.