The Crownless Moon

🜂 Aldric – The Weight of Flame

The throne room had changed.

Since the awakening of the Flame within him, Aldric no longer walked through the Keep like a man—he moved like a force held barely in check. Wherever his boots touched, the marble beneath him glowed faintly. The guards bowed lower now—not out of fear, but reverence tinged with awe.

Still, Aldric hated it.

He stood at the center of the Flameborn Citadel, staring up at the newly revealed Pillar of Memory—a tower that had erupted from the Keep's heart the moment the Devourer stirred. Its surface pulsed with runes from his dream, with flame-script no one dared touch.

At his side, Maerlyn traced the glyphs with wary eyes. "She responds to you now. Virelya's oldest wards. She's remembering her First King."

"I am no king," Aldric said quietly. "Not yet."

Maerlyn arched a brow. "That's not what the Flame thinks. Or the city. Or your bloodline."

Aldric remained silent. But the fire in his chest burned hotter now. Not pain. Not even heat. Just presence.

As though something ancient had awakened in the marrow of his bones.

He clenched his fist.

"I need to speak to the Spireguard," he said. "And the Crescent Watch. We ride to the Wound before the next moonfall."

Maerlyn hesitated. "And if the Hollow opens before then?"

Aldric's eyes burned like twin pyres.

"Then we close it from the inside."

🜃 Villain POV – The Hollow Flame

He had once been called Cyrien Thorne, Captain of the Flamebound. A hero of Virelya. A loyal son.

Now he was Hollowflame—a name whispered only in terror along the borders of the Realms.

His body was smoke and cinder, but his soul was fused to the ember crown that now nestled within the Hollow, beating like a second heart. The Seer of the Starlit Court had given him form again—not life, but a mockery of it.

He stalked the Veil-Edge Forest, watching as the trees bled sap that shimmered with starlight.

His thoughts were broken, half-devoured by void magic—but one image endured: Aldric.

He remembered training the boy once. Teaching him how to draw a blade without losing his soul to it.

Now, Aldric carried the flame he had died to protect.

He should never have been chosen.

The thought echoed in his hollow skull as he knelt before a newly forming rift. Within the crack in the air, he saw glimpses of Virelya's heart—its crystal core, its living flame—and beneath it, the Devourer pulsing like a great black sun.

Soon, the Hollow would widen.

And when it did, he would rip Aldric from his throne and offer his bones to the Void.

🜁 Rowena – Threads of Moonlight

Rowena stood atop the Moonspire with Kaelin, the cold wind braiding her dark hair as she traced the stars above.

"They've shifted," she murmured. "Even the constellations feel it. The Crownless Moon rises two nights early."

Kaelin didn't respond at first. His eyes were fixed on the horizon, where a soft violet haze had begun to spread—neither dawn nor dusk, but a twilight of unnatural hue.

"I saw a girl last night," he finally said. "In my dream. She wore my mother's face. But her eyes… they weren't hers."

Rowena turned. "Was it the Echo Queen again?"

Kaelin nodded. "She told me I was forged for war. Not peace. She said I'd choose the blade again. That when Aldric falls, I'll be the one to end him."

Rowena stepped closer, resting a hand on his shoulder.

"She's wrong. Dreams may show what could be—but not what must be. And you're more than a weapon."

Kaelin turned to her. "And if I'm not?"

Rowena's voice didn't waver. "Then I'll still stand beside you."

For a long moment, they stood in silence—warriors forged by pain, bound by prophecy, staring into the maw of a storm that hadn't yet broken.

Behind them, the Flamekeepers lit the first Beacon of Preparation atop the city walls.

🜂 Aldric – The Gathering Storm

Later that evening, Aldric stood in the great Hall of Oaths, surrounded by the commanders of the Watch, the Spireguard, and the remaining Houses that had not fled.

He raised his hand, and silence followed like a closing fist.

"The Hollow is widening," he began, "and the Starlit Court prepares to tear open the Veil. We cannot wait. Virelya must strike first."

A murmur rippled through the hall.

General Riven stepped forward, scarred and steady. "Strike where, my Lord? The Wound is a graveyard. And the Hollow is no longer mortal ground."

Aldric unrolled a map—not one from their time, but one recovered from the Tower of Ashes. It showed something deeper than land: ley lines, fault lines of ancient flame converging around the Wound like a snare.

He pointed to a single convergence point, circled in silver ink.

"The Flameheart. Beneath the Wound. If we can reach it before the Devourer fully manifests, we can burn out the Hollow's anchor."

"And if we fail?" a voice whispered.

Aldric looked up.

Then the marks on his skin burned bright, and his voice turned to fire.

"Then we make sure the last thing the Hollow sees is Virelya standing unbroken."

🜁 Villain – The Seer's Promise

Within the Onyx Spire, the Seer watched the Crownless Moon begin its rise.

She smiled.

"They still think the flame will save them," she murmured to the dark.

Behind her, Hollowflame stepped from the veil.

The Seer touched his brow. "You remember him, don't you?"

"Too well."

"Then go," she whispered. "Let the boy remember you not as friend… but as the end of all flame."

🜂 Aldric – The Descent Beckons

The obsidian stairwell spiraled downward like the throat of a god.

Aldric descended into the lower sanctum beneath Virelya—known to the elders as the Ember Crypt—where the original Flamebound Kings were laid to rest in stone sarcophagi. Each bore runes that pulsed softly as he passed, responding to his presence like memories stirred from sleep.

He carried with him the Crown of Ash, forged anew from remnants of the shattered flame sigils left after the first Siege. In his left hand, the hilt of the Blade of Kings flickered as if sensing what came next.

Maerlyn followed at a distance. "The deeper we go, the louder the Flame sings."

"It's not a song," Aldric muttered. "It's a warning."

Ahead, a sealed archway emerged, guarded by two crystalline Flameborn statues. They stirred as Aldric approached—stone eyes glowing with ancient fire—and the arch split open with a groan like splitting bedrock.

Beyond it, the Flameheart chamber pulsed.

At its center hovered a sphere of pure flame—twisting, eternal, alive. The heart of Virelya itself.

As he stepped closer, Aldric saw visions within the fire: Rowena bleeding under a crimson sky, Kaelin kneeling beside a burning city, the Devourer breaking free of the Hollow, fire unraveling into voidlight.

The Flame showed him not just what was—but what could be lost.

He reached out.

The fire did not burn.

It welcomed him.

---

🜁 Kaelin – The Blade Between

Kaelin stood in the Moonshade Hall, surrounded by old steel and older memories.

The twin swords of his lineage—Veilbreaker and Dusktongue—rested on the ceremonial dais before him, untouched since the fall of House Thorne.

He stared at them long, breath shallow.

"I saw your fall last night," said a voice behind him.

Rowena.

Kaelin didn't turn. "Which one?"

She stepped beside him. "You stood alone, veiled in blood and silver. You wore no sigil. No crown. Only flame, and silence."

His hands curled.

"That's not how I see it. In mine, I strike down Aldric to save the Realms."

Rowena met his gaze. "And do you believe it?"

He said nothing.

She stepped closer. "Dreams are roads, Kaelin. But you choose where they lead."

He looked down at Veilbreaker. The steel shimmered, catching not light, but fragments of possible futures. In one, his blade was bathed in Aldric's fire. In another, in the blood of the innocent.

"Then gods help us," Kaelin whispered, "because the road ahead is dark."

---

🜃 Hollowflame – The First Strike

The Hollow's edge quivered.

From a single split in the veil, Hollowflame emerged, cloaked in blackened armor threaded with star-silver veins. Around him, Hollowed Flameborn shambled like broken puppets—silent, burning from within with wrongness.

Above, the Crownless Moon rose fully. A harbinger of endings.

He stood before the Obsidian Gate—the last outer defense between Virelya and the Wound—and raised his hand.

The void sang.

Behind him, twisted trees withered. Ahead, the wards flared weakly.

The Gate would not hold.

He stepped forward—and cast his name into the Hollow.

The ground ruptured. Fire poured sideways, swallowed by shadow.

---

🜂 Aldric – The Flameheart Speaks

As the chamber trembled, Aldric saw the Flameheart flicker—not in weakness, but in anticipation.

He knelt, lowering his head, and placed the Crown of Ash upon the pyre-shaped altar at its base.

Flame surged.

YOU ARE KNOWN TO US, said the Flame—not in words, but in memory. YOU WHO BEAR THE UNBURNED NAME.

He gasped.

Visions consumed him:

His mother holding him beside the ruins of Emberhall.

His father casting away his crown.

Kaelin crying beside a broken sword.

Rowena standing at the edge of time.

Then—

Hollowflame.

His face. His voice. His training. The man Aldric had once idolized.

Twisted now.

"I must face him," Aldric whispered.

The Flame pulsed.

YES. AND YOU MUST CHOOSE.

THE FLAME, OR THE WORLD.

---

🜁 Interlude – The Wards Break

A scream echoed through Virelya's lower ward.

Lights flickered. The skies pulsed. From the horizon, a crack ran through the earth like a scar splitting open.

Atop the outer wall, Rowena and Kaelin saw it first—a column of darkness rising, twisting into the clouds.

Kaelin's voice went cold. "He's here."

Rowena gripped her moon-forged staff. "Sound the bell."

They ran toward the battlements as the city's bells began to ring—a cry not of mourning, but of warning.

Virelya was under siege again.

But this time, the Hollow wasn't alone.

Something older stirred behind it. Something the Devourer once served, and the stars still feared.