Chapter 29 – The Crown of Nothing

There were only two choices.

And neither of them were good.

Riven's breath was uneven as he stared at the Monarch's outstretched hand. The throne loomed behind it, pulsing like a wound in reality, a shifting vortex of power that refused to be contained.

It wasn't just a seat of authority. It was a cage.

A prison disguised as a crown.

And the worst part?

He knew it.

Somehow, deep in his bones, in the fractured echoes of a thousand unraveling timelines, he knew this throne was never meant to be empty.

It always needed someone to sit upon it.

To hold the Hollow in place.

To become the Monarch.

"No."

His voice came out hoarse, but steady.

The Monarch didn't react.

"You already understand," it said. "You see the unraveling for what it is. You feel it inside yourself, do you not?"

Riven clenched his jaw, but he couldn't deny it.

The Hollow had been inside him since the beginning.

Every fight. Every time he stepped too close to the void. Every time reality twisted around him. It had been waiting. Pressing into him like a whisper, like the cold fingers of something vast and unknowable, reaching through the cracks of a broken world.

And now, it was calling to him.

Because he was supposed to take the throne.

Because he already belonged to it.

"Screw that," Vex snarled, stepping between them. His gun was shaking in his grip, but his voice was firm. "He's not taking anything. You hear me? We're done playing your little mind games. We're done—"

"This is not a game."

The Monarch's voice rippled across the room, a weight pressing against their chests.

Vex staggered back, but didn't lower his weapon.

"Then we find another way." Riven's own voice sounded distant in his ears.

The Monarch tilted its head. "There is no other way."

The words should have felt like a threat.

But they didn't.

They sounded… hollow.

Not a demand. Not even an ultimatum.

Just a statement of fact.

And that was the worst part.

Because Riven knew it was true.

---

The Weight of the Hollow

The mirrors had shattered.

The throne room was broken open to the void itself, the storm of unraveling possibilities swirling just outside.

And inside Riven's mind, the echoes of the Monarch's words still clawed at him.

He had seen it. In the visions. In the erased futures.

This was the only way to stop it.

If no one took the throne, the unraveling wouldn't stop.

If no one held the Hollow in place, it would keep consuming.

And if he walked away…

Everything would collapse.

The weight of it pressed down on him, heavier than anything he had ever carried before.

It wasn't just a choice.

It was responsibility.

It was a sentence.

"You're lying," Vex snapped. "You always lie. This isn't the only way."

But the Monarch only stared. Waiting.

Not arguing. Not forcing.

Just waiting.

Because it didn't need to convince them.

Because Riven already understood.

Vex turned to him. "Riv." His voice dropped, barely above a whisper. "Don't. Don't you dare."

But Riven wasn't sure he had a choice anymore.

Because the Hollow was already inside him.

Because every step he had taken, every battle he had fought, had been leading him here.

Because if he didn't do this, no one else would.

And everything—everyone—would be lost.

He took a slow breath.

And he stepped forward.

---

The Throne's Price

"Riven, NO!"

Vex lunged, but the moment Riven's hand touched the throne—

The world shattered.

Pain.

Not physical. Not something he could fight or push through.

Something deeper.

Like his very existence was being unmade and rewritten all at once.

The unraveling was inside him now.

It surged through his veins, rushing into the space where his name, his past, his identity had once been, filling it with something vast and endless and—

He wasn't alone.

He could feel them.

The others.

The Sentinels before him.

The ones who had taken this throne before he ever existed.

They weren't gone.

They were part of it.

Trapped in the Hollow, bound to the unraveling.

And now, so was he.

---

A New Monarch Rises

When Riven opened his eyes, the world was different.

He wasn't standing anymore.

He was sitting.

On the throne.

The weight of it settled into his bones.

The unraveling storm beyond the walls stilled.

And in the mirror shards that still floated through the air, he saw himself—

But it wasn't him anymore.

His reflection was shifting.

The armor was different. Darker. A crown of fractured light hovered just above his head, flickering in and out of existence.

And his eyes—

His eyes were empty.

A deep, endless void, the same as the Monarch's had been.

Because the Monarch was gone now.

Because he was the Monarch.

Vex stumbled back, shaking his head in horror. "No. No, no, no, Riven, don't do this—"

But it was too late.

The choice had already been made.

The Hollow had already claimed him.

And now, there was no turning back.