The Hollow Throne

Chapter 25: The Hollow Throne

The Gate didn't feel like falling.

It felt like being unraveled.

Noah's thoughts twisted into threads of memory and light. He saw flashes of his childhood—his old apartment, his mother's voice, the mirror in the hallway he used to avoid. Then he saw things he couldn't have remembered: wars in the Veil, battles before he was born, the Hollow King sealing the last Veilwalker in a prison made of silence.

Then—

Impact.

He landed on one knee, gasping.

The world around him was... wrong.

Everything looked upside-down, but gravity still pulled normally. Twisted towers grew from both the ground and the sky, spiraling toward each other like jaws closing. Black stone. Burning trees. Rivers that flowed upward. Light bled from cracks in the air, as if someone had shattered the sky and smeared starlight across the seams.

Lyra dropped beside him, already scanning for danger. Riven landed with a grunt, blades drawn.

"This," Lyra said, "is the Hollow Realm."

It was deathly quiet.

No wind. No insects. No whispers.

Even the shard in Noah's pouch had gone still.

Then something moved.

A single figure stood atop a long set of broken stairs ahead, cloaked in flowing threads of silver and smoke. No face. No features. Just a presence that pressed into the bones like gravity.

Noah instinctively stepped back. "Is that—?"

"Yes," Lyra said, eyes locked forward. "That's him."

The Hollow King.

He didn't walk. He glided, as if the world bent to make way for him. As he approached, the very air seemed to wrinkle.

And then he spoke—not aloud, but inside Noah's skull.

"You've brought me the sixth shard. As expected."

Noah clenched his fists. "I didn't bring you anything."

The Hollow King tilted his head. "You brought yourself. You always would. You are the seventh piece."

"What are you talking about?" Noah asked.

The Hollow King raised a hand, and the mirror in the center of the throne room shimmered to life. It didn't show a reflection.

It showed Noah—as a baby. Swaddled. Crying. A silver rune glowing faintly on his chest.

"You were touched before birth. Marked. The last of the bloodline that once sealed me."

"You are the key. The gate. And soon, the throne."

Riven cursed under his breath. "We're not here for prophecy, shadow freak."

The Hollow King turned his gaze. "And you are not the one who decides."

Without warning, a ripple of dark force lashed out. Riven blocked it with both blades, but the shockwave threw him across the stones. Lyra raised her staff and channeled a blinding burst of silver light.

Noah moved.

He didn't plan. He just reacted.

The shard in his pouch ignited—fully awake now. His veins glowed as runes spread across his skin, responding to the Realm around him. A memory surged into his hands, not his own—but from the first Veilwalker who ever lived.

"Open the veil. Turn the lock. Seal what breaks."

He raised his hands and summoned the glyph.

Not one.

Seven.

A full circle of glowing symbols burned around him, humming in the same rhythm as the Realm's twisted heartbeat.

The Hollow King paused.

"You've awakened the Circle of Reflection," he said. "Impossible."

"I'm full of surprises," Noah growled.

The light surged.

The glyphs spun.

And the throne behind the Hollow King shattered.

The Realm screamed.

Not from pain—but defiance. Something ancient had stirred in response.

From the shattered stones, voices rose—Veilwalkers of old, bound in fragments, now freed by Noah's awakening. Their spirits formed a glowing ring around him, their power pouring into his body.

The Hollow King reeled.

Then roared.

He launched forward, faster than thought.

Noah moved to block—but the King didn't strike him.

He struck the ground.

A sigil activated—a seal Noah hadn't placed.

The trap.

The Hollow King froze, caught between two mirrorfields. His shadow stretched, distorted, split into fragments by the Veil itself.

"You're not the only one who plans ahead," Lyra said, holding up the final shard—the seventh, the one she had hidden all along.

Noah turned, stunned. "You had it this whole time?"

"I needed to know you were ready," she said. "Now seal him."

Noah nodded.

He raised the shard.

And spoke the final command.

"By mirror's law and light's decree, I seal thee behind what cannot break."

The glyphs spun faster.

The Hollow King screamed—

—and was gone.

Just like that.

The Realm collapsed inward, the towers dissolving, the sky imploding.

Noah, Lyra, and Riven were ripped from the Hollow Throne, flung through the spiraling void.

Back toward the waking world.