The throne wasn't gold. It wasn't carved from celestial marble or wrapped in divine silk.
It was stone, cold and cracked, half-swallowed by roots and silence.
Once a symbol of divinity.
Now? Just another ruin.
Rael stood before it, the Mark of Ruin still pulsing on his chest like a second heartbeat.
His eyes lingered on the throne's sharp edges, the bloodstains long faded into stone.
> "This is where they passed judgment."
"This is where I was condemned."
His hand curled into a fist.
The ground beneath his feet trembled—faint at first. Then louder. Like something ancient had been waiting… for him.
A circle of crimson glyphs lit up beneath him.
> "Bearer of the Ruined Oath," a voice boomed, not from above but from within.
"Do you kneel, or do you rise?"
Rael didn't flinch. "I rise. And I tear down every god that ever knelt above me."
The throne pulsed once—then went still. But it had heard him.
---
From the shadows, a chill crept in. The warm glow of the glyphs dimmed as frost swept over the stones.
> "You speak loudly for a dead man," came a voice. Female. Calm. Dangerous.
Rael turned.
She stood cloaked in silver-blue robes, her feet barely touching the ground, her gaze like a winter that never ends.
Aurelia.
Once the Oracle of Light. Now a ghost of her former grace.
> "You should've stayed buried," she said, stepping forward.
"The gods don't forget."
> "Good," Rael replied. "Neither do I."
---
The tension cracked between them like thunder on a still day.
> "Why are you here?" he asked.
> "Because something's changing," she said, eyes narrowing. "The old seals are breaking. And you... you're the echo that follows ruin."
She raised a hand. Frost coiled around her fingers, not threatening—just... reminding.
> "So what now, Rael?"
"You found your throne. Broken. Forgotten. Like you."
He didn't answer. He stepped past her—toward the edge of the ruined temple.
Outside, the world waited. Black skies. Dying wind. A continent cursed by silence.
Rael looked up.
> "Now I rebuild the throne."
"And then—I burn the heavens."