Crystalverse: Book 2 - Crystal’s Journey

The winds howled low in the Weeping Wastes, where no songs were sung and no footprints stayed.

Here stood the Mourning Vaults, catacombs carved into grief-soaked stone. A resting place not for bodies... but for broken crowns.

The Hollow King had no grave.

He had a throne made of rusted memory and regret.

And tonight, it called.

🎼🎼🎼

Crystal's companions said little as they descended the cliffside path.

Even Echo's usual mischief had dulled. Her mirror clung to her back, rippling with static shadows.

Liora walked ahead, golden threads coiled tight like drawn bows.

Only Lyric hummed... barely audible... trying to soothe the silence.

But it was not a silence of peace.

It was one of warning.

🎼🎼🎼

The Vaults opened to them with a sigh, dust rising like breath.

Inside, torches did not light. Instead, their own echoes shimmered along the walls, illuminating engravings of forgotten rulers... faces chiseled from memory.

Each step deeper, the air grew heavier.

Until they reached the Throne of Recollection.

It was empty.

Except… it wasn't.

🎼🎼🎼

A figure sat slumped, skeletal, crowned in black iron laced with cracked songglass.

His fingers clutched a scepter that hummed with sorrow.

When Crystal stepped forward...

... the Hollow King lifted his head.

Eyes burning blue.

Voice like thunder muffled by time.

"𝄆 Why do you wake the king who forgot how to reign? 𝄇"

🎼🎼🎼

Crystal did not flinch.

"I didn't come to wake you. I came to listen."

A pause.

And then...

...music.

A dirge.

A hymn sung in the key of loss.

The Hollow King rose.

Every step a percussion of regret.

And as he began to chant... the crown fragments around the chamber began to sing with him.

🎼🎼🎼

This was the Hymn of the Hollow King:

"I ruled with silence for my song was pain...

A crown of echoes, a throne of rain.

But in your voice, a chord remains...

A future where my name's not shame."

🎼🎼🎼

Liora knelt. Her voice layered beneath his in harmony.

Echo's mirror shimmered with faint memories of past monarchs.

Lyric sang a single rising note, hope stitched into melody.

And Crystal?

She completed the song.

A final verse that was not forgiveness...

...but remembrance.

🎼🎼🎼

When it ended, the Hollow King wept.

His crown cracked once more, this time not from weight, but from release.

"Go… to the Obsidian Bell.

The next silence waits beneath it."

🎼🎼🎼

And with that.. he dissolved.

Not into dust.

But into sound.

A whisper of peace that joined the eternal melody.

🎼🎼🎼

As they emerged from the Vaults, a wind rose behind them, carrying his hymn across the wastes.

The silence did not vanish.

But it softened.

Another silence, undone.

Another step toward the war's final crescendo.

🎼🎼🎼

Next Chapter: "The Bell That Doesn't Ring"