"The whispering vein"

The remains of the mill smoldered, exhaling smoke like the final breath of a dying beast. Its skeletal timbers, blackened and broken, crumbled into the earth. Clara stumbled through the soot, her boots leaving faint imprints in the gray dust. Though the crown's thorns had vanished, her scalp still tingled—as if the void's whispers clung to her hair.

Liam slumped against the wreckage of a half-collapsed wall, his hoodie shredded, exposing arms streaked with darkened veins. When his gaze found hers, his smile flickered—briefly revealing the boy she had once known, now submerged in something far older.

"Clara," he murmured, his voice rough. His pupils, dark as ink, dilated unnaturally. "He says you won."

"Who?" she asked, though the answer already curled in her mind.

"The one inside my head." Liam's fingers trembled as they pressed to his temple. "The Thorned King. He's… singing now. Like a lullaby."

Clara knelt beside him, fingertips grazing his wrist. Beneath his skin, the corruption pulsed—a slow, insatiable rhythm. "What is he saying?"

His gaze locked onto hers, and the blackness in his eyes seeped outward like spilled ink. "That you honored your promise to the thread. But you broke the one to me."

A cold weight settled in her ribs. "What promise?"

"To never leave me again." His voice cracked. "But you chose the crown. You chose the rot."

Before she could answer, a wet thud echoed from the shadows. Clara twisted toward the sound—Aisling's severed hand lay amid the ashes, fingers still curled around a dagger. The blade glowed faintly, its hilt inscribed with a single word: MOTHER.

Aisling's voice slithered from the disembodied hand, eerie and distorted. "The thread was never lost. I saved it." The fingers twitched, dragging the hand forward like a creeping spider. "This dagger can sever the rot. But it requires a vessel—someone the curse… trusts."

Clara's reflection shimmered in the blade—a face split between hers and Evelyn's, the crown's thorns unfurling like black roses. "You want me to use it on Liam."

"No," the hand whispered. "On yourself."

The Harlow crypt was colder than Clara remembered, the air thick with the scent of damp stone and decay. Liam stood against the wall, his breath a faint mist in the gloom. Aisling's hand had vanished after the mill burned, but the dagger remained, searing against Clara's palm like an unspoken demand.

"You don't have to do this," Liam said, voice raw. "Aisling lies. She just wants—"

"To end the curse?" Clara let out a brittle laugh. "So do I." She lifted the dagger, its glow cutting shadows into the crypt's walls. "This was my mother's. She used it to bind the curse to the crown. If I drive it into myself… maybe I can unravel it."

Liam's expression darkened. "And what happens to you?"

"The same fate as every Harlow who's tried to fix this." She pressed the blade against her collarbone, feeling the metal bite. "They become the lie."

A hand shot forward, knocking the dagger from her grasp. Liam's fingers were like ice. "No. You're not turning into the rot."

"Then what's left?" Clara's voice trembled. "The Thorned King is still in your head. The rot is already in me. Hollow's End is a coffin waiting to collapse." She gestured to the crypt's ceiling, its surface cracked like fractured glass. "The curse is evolving. It'll consume us—piece by piece."

Liam's jaw clenched. "There's another way."

The church doors groaned as they swung open, their rusted hinges resisting. Inside, shattered stained glass littered the stone floor, and splintered pews sat in silent ruin. Clara knelt at the altar, the dagger's glow pooling around her like liquid light.

"It's a trap," Aisling's voice rasped from the dark. Her form took shape—a ghost of herself, rot climbing up her throat, her crimson cloak hanging in tatters. "The church is hollow. The rot's roots fester beneath it."

Clara didn't acknowledge her. "Liam said there's another way."

Aisling scoffed. "He's half the Thorned King now. Of course he'd lie."

But Liam stepped forward from the shadows, the dagger in his grasp. "The curse began with a lie," he murmured, his voice laced with something inhuman. "Silas Carter stole the mill from the Harlows. The first lie. The first anchor." He pressed the hilt into Clara's palm. "Destroy the lie, and the curse collapses."

Clara's fingers curled around the weapon. "How?"

"Carve the truth into the curse's heart." Liam's eyes darkened further. "The foundation stone of the mill. It's a Harlow heir's skull, fused with Silas's lies. Break it, and the rot dies."

Aisling lunged, her hands curled into claws. "You idiot! The curse will devour you!"

Clara rose, the dagger's glow flaring. "Then I'll become the lie."

The mill's foundation stone lay before her, a human skull with eye sockets brimming with rot. Clara knelt, the dagger trembling in her grip. Behind her, Liam stood silent, his breath warming the back of her neck.

"Do it," he urged, his whisper threading through her mind. "Carve the truth—Silas Carter was a thief. The mill belongs to the Harlows."

The dagger met bone. The skull shrieked, its wail sharp enough to shatter the air. Black veins erupted from the wound, latching onto Clara's arm.

"YES," the Thorned King's voice boomed through Liam, rippling through the world. "BECOME THE LIE."

The mill's walls disintegrated into dust. Clara's vision wavered, the dagger now fused to her palm. The rot surged inside her, a thousand voices screaming in unison.

Aisling's laughter echoed in the ruins. "You've only made it stronger."

But through the chaos, Clara heard another voice—her mother's, clear and commanding:

"Promises are cages. Break them."

Without hesitation, she plunged the dagger into her own chest.

The world fell silent.

Clara awoke in the church, the dagger lodged in the altar's stone. Beside her, Liam stirred—his breath steady, his veins clear. Outside, the mill was gone, replaced by a barren field of withered lilacs.

Aisling stood at the threshold, her rot receding, though her eyes remained hollow. "You didn't end it," she murmured. "You only… changed the lie."

Clara touched her chest. The crown's thorns had vanished, yet a silver thread remained, faintly pulsing beneath her skin.

Beyond the ruined church, a low chuckle stirred in the wind.

The Thorned King's laughter.