The drums grew louder.

  Not the steady beat of war or ceremony—this was something older. Hungrier. The sound pulsed through the stone, through the air, through the marrow of Liraeth’s bones. It wasn’t just noise. It was a call.

  And something was answering.

  Kael hauled Sorin to his feet. The Hollow King’s influence had receded, but his skin was fever-hot, his breath ragged. His eyes—still too gold, still too knowing—flickered toward the abyss.

  “We need to move,” Kael said.

  Liraeth didn’t argue. The Chasm of Chains had gone unnervingly still, the liquid shadows now smooth as glass. No more whispers. No more grasping hands.

  That was worse.

  They ran.

  The tunnels twisted, narrowing into jagged passageways that cut at their arms, their backs. The air thickened, tasting of rust and wet stone. The drums didn’t fade. If anything, they grew clearer, resolving into something almost like—

  Voices.

  Chanting.

  Liraeth’s steps faltered. She knew those words. Not the language, not the meaning, but the cadence. The way they curled at the edges, like a song half-remembered from a dream.

  Sorin heard it too. His jaw clenched. “Don’t listen.”

  Too late.

  The chant slithered into her skull, wrapping around her thoughts like vines. She saw flashes—

  A golden city burning.

  A boy with Kael’s smile, his hands red with something that wasn’t blood.

  The Hollow King on his knees, whispering, “You were always the stronger one.”

  Then—

  A hand on her wrist.

  Kael’s grip was iron. “Focus.” His golden eyes burned in the gloom. “Whatever it’s showing you, it’s a lie.”

  Was it?

  The staff trembled in her grip, its light guttering. She wanted to ask him—wanted to demand what he remembered, what he knew—but the drums swallowed the words before they could form.

  Ahead, the tunnel ended in a cavern so vast its ceiling vanished into shadow. The floor was a mosaic of shattered obsidian, each shard reflecting their fractured silhouettes. At its center stood an archway—no, a gate—carved with runes that hurt to look at.

  And before it, a figure.

  Not Riven. Not the Blood Choir.

  A man.

  Or something shaped like one.

  His skin was the color of drowned flesh, his hair long and tangled with strands of silver and black. He wore no armor, no robes—just a single, rusted manacle around his throat, its chain trailing into the dark behind him.

  His eyes were closed.

  But he smiled as they entered.

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  “Little thief,” he murmured. “You took something that wasn’t yours.”

  Sorin went rigid.

  The man’s eyelids peeled back.

  No pupils. No whites. Just endless, depthless black—and in their center, a single pinprick of gold, like a star swallowed by the void.

  Liraeth’s breath caught.

  She knew that gaze.

  She had seen it before—in the Hollow King’s memories, in the altar’s visions, in the moment before the world had shattered.

  Nyx.

  The god in the dark.

  The chain at his feet slithered forward, links clicking like bones.

  “You’ve been gone so long,” Nyx said softly. “Did you miss me?”

  Sorin’s voice was raw. “Run.”

  The god laughed.

  And the world unfolded.

  The air screamed.

  Not in sound—in shape. The cavern’s walls bent like wet parchment, the obsidian floor fracturing into jagged, floating islands. The drumbeats twisted into a chorus of wails, voices Liraeth almost recognized—

  —her own, begging—

  —Kael’s, laughing—

  —Sorin’s, whispering a name she couldn’t hear—

  Nyx took a step forward. The chain around his throat slithered behind him, endless, its links etched with tiny, writhing sigils.

  “You broke the rules, little thief,” he murmured. His voice was everywhere—in Liraeth’s lungs, in the cracks of her teeth. “Stole time. Stole her.” His black gaze slid to her. “Did he tell you what it cost?”

  Sorin moved before she could blink.

  One moment he stood frozen; the next, he was lunging, a dagger of fractured light in his grip—a weapon she hadn’t seen him draw. Nyx didn’t flinch. The blade passed through his chest like smoke.

  And Sorin screamed.

  Black veins erupted across his skin, his pupils swallowing the gold of his eyes whole. He collapsed, clawing at his throat as if something inside him were trying to crawl out.

  Kael was at his side in an instant, sword raised toward Nyx—but the god only smiled.

  “Still fighting it,” Nyx mused. “How very you.”

  Liraeth’s staff flared, its light a desperate shield against the cavern’s unraveling. “What did you do to him?”

  Nyx tilted his head. “Me? Nothing.” A chuckle, wet and low. “It’s the crown that’s eating him alive.”

  The words struck like a physical blow.

  The crown’s not on him. It’s in him.

  Riven’s last taunt echoed in her skull.

  Kael’s sword arm trembled. “Liar.”

  “Am I?” Nyx’s fingers twitched. The chain at his feet moved, slithering toward Sorin’s writhing form. “You felt it, didn’t you, Kael? That little spark when he crushed the manacle? That wasn’t Sorin.” His grin widened. “That was the Hollow King remembering what it’s like to be a god.”

  Liraeth’s breath hitched.

  No.

  The visions. The reflexes. The way he’d torn through the Blood Choir like they were nothing—

  You kept the oath, Liraeth. Even when it broke you.

  That hadn’t been Sorin’s voice.

  It had been his.

  The Hollow King’s.

  Nyx’s chain brushed Sorin’s wrist—

  —and the world split.

  Flash.

  A throne of blackened bone. The Hollow King kneeling, not in submission, but exhaustion. A hand—her hand—pressing a dagger to his throat. His whisper: “Do it.”

  Flash.

  A child’s laughter. A boy with Kael’s smile, holding out a wooden sword. “Promise you’ll never leave.”

  Flash.

  The Hollow King’s fingers tangled in her hair, his mouth at her ear. “You’ll hate me,” he murmured. “But you’ll live.”

  Then—

  Now.

  The chain yanked.

  Sorin’s back arched, a choked gasp tearing from his lips as the black veins pulsed, spreading like roots toward his heart. Nyx’s voice was a serrated whisper:

  “Let him out.”

  Kael roared, swinging his sword—but the blade shattered against Nyx’s chest like glass. The god didn’t even look at him.

  Liraeth acted on instinct.

  She slammed the staff’s base into the ground. Light erupted, not in a wave, but a spear, driving straight for Nyx’s throat.

  The god flinched.

  For the first time, his smile faltered. The chain loosened—just enough.

  Sorin moved.

  Not away.

  Forward.

  His hand closed around the chain. Black veins met black links, and for a heartbeat, the two darknesses fought, writhing like live wires.

  When Sorin spoke, his voice was raw, fractured—human.

  “You want the Hollow King?” A gritted smile, bloody at the edges. “Fine.”

  He pulled.

  Nyx’s eyes widened.

  Then—

  The chain snapped.

  The backlash sent Liraeth stumbling, the staff’s light flickering wildly. Kael caught her arm, his grip the only thing keeping her upright as the cavern shook.

  Nyx staggered, his form flickering like a guttering candle. For the first time, something like rage twisted his features.

  “You dare—”

  Sorin didn’t let him finish.

  With a sound like shattering glass, he twisted the broken chain in his grip—and drove it into his own chest.

  Liraeth’s scream drowned in the explosion of light and shadow.

  When the glare faded, Nyx was gone.

  And Sorin—

  He knelt on the ground, the chain’s broken end dangling from his sternum like a grotesque umbilical cord. His eyes, when they lifted to hers, were different.

  Not gold.

  Not black.

  But both, swirling like liquid metal and ink.

  His whisper was a blade to her ribs:

  “It’s too late for me.”

  Then his head bowed—

  —and the cavern screamed again.