The city above them did not follow.
Beneath Noctisfall, the air changed. It thickened—less like atmosphere, more like the memory of breath long since lost. The spiral-stamped corridors bled into darkness, their obsidian walls giving way to older stone—granite veined with veins of pale blue, humming faintly as Caelan and Seraphyne descended.
They said nothing at first.
Seraphyne led without lantern or spell. Her steps were measured, unhurried, as if she knew the path by heart. Her midnight robes brushed the stone, trailing soft echoes behind her. Caelan followed, still haunted by the chamber of mirrors, by Kael's voice echoing: You were never meant to survive it.
He did not speak.
Not until the walls began to breathe.
They pulsed—not visibly, but through the soles of his boots, like the thrum of blood in an ancient artery. The deeper they went, the more the Veil whispered.
"Where are we going?" he finally asked.
Seraphyne didn't look back. "To the vault beneath the First Citadel. The place where the Watcher was last named… and where Lyssandra gave up the Crown."
"You mean—she just left it?"
"She didn't leave it," Seraphyne said quietly. "She sealed it."
They reached a circular chamber.
It was vast—carved from stone that shimmered faintly with runes too old to decipher. Twelve arches ringed the chamber, each one cloaked in moss, bone, and thorns of jet-black crystal. At the center stood a sarcophagus, untouched by time. Pale stone. Spiral sigils carved along its edge. No name.
Only one word, etched in ancient duskwrit:
"REMEMBER."
Seraphyne stood beside the tomb and faced Caelan. Her expression was calm, but her eyes betrayed the weight of this place.
"This is not her resting place," she said. "It's his."
Caelan frowned. "The Watcher?"
Seraphyne nodded. "The one who bore the First Crown before Lyssandra. The one who tried to use it. Bend it. Wield it as a weapon."
"What happened?"
She touched the edge of the tomb. "He opened the breach."
For a moment, the Veil pulsed. Runes shimmered on the tomb, and the word REMEMBER flared.
Then came the voices.
Soft. Fragmented. Male. Female. Human. Not.
"Open the gate…"
"He should not have worn it…"
"One spiral too deep…"
"The night remembers..."
Caelan staggered, gripping the stone wall for support.
Seraphyne turned to him.
"You feel it, don't you?"
He nodded. "Like it's… alive."
"It is. This place is not a grave. It's a warning."
As she spoke, one of the twelve arches behind her began to shimmer. The black thorns coiled aside, revealing a door.
No key.
Just waiting.
Caelan stepped toward it—but Seraphyne raised a hand.
"Beyond this door lies the Watcher's remains. But you must enter alone."
He froze. "Why?"
"Because the Veil knows you. It remembers your blood. And what lies within… will answer only to you."
Caelan looked to the arch.
The runes above it flickered—then formed his name:
Duskwither.
A deep breath. Then another.
He walked forward.
The moment he crossed the threshold, the door sealed behind him. Silent. Swift.
And the tomb changed.
It was not a room anymore.
It was a mind.
He stood in a place without walls—darkness swirling like ink around a fractured spiral of stone. The floor cracked beneath each step, glowing with pale fire. A throne floated ahead, suspended in the air, chained by six links of light. Upon it sat the remains of the Watcher.
Or what was left.
Bones cloaked in royal silk. A crown of shadow fused to the skull. Spiral carvings over every inch of the ribcage, like a forgotten scripture. And in its chest, buried halfway through cracked bone—
—was a second pendant.
Twisted. Blackened. Alive.
It pulsed when it saw Caelan.
The chamber shivered.
And then the Watcher's skull turned.
Not by force.
By memory.
Its hollow sockets glowed gold.
"You wear her gift," it said, voice hollow as a bell in a ruined temple.
"You are her echo."
Caelan stepped forward. "You knew Lyssandra."
"I was her mirror," it said. "Her opposite. Her warning."
"I need answers," Caelan said. "About the First Crown. About the breach."
The Watcher's skull tilted.
"You already have them. You dream of them every night."
"But I don't understand them," Caelan said through clenched teeth.
The Watcher laughed—or something like it. A dry, rattling sound that made the fire spiral dim.
"Then you must remember them."
The chains holding the throne cracked.
One link shattered.
A wind that wasn't wind tore through the space, and Caelan fell to one knee.
The Watcher leaned forward.
"The First Crown does not make kings. It unmakes them. It chooses not the worthy—but the breakable. Only shattered vessels can contain its truth."
The pendant in the Watcher's chest pulsed again.
And then—
—he reached for it.
So did Caelan.
Their hands met.
Not with touch, but with memory.
And for a moment, Caelan stood in two lives:
One where he was Lyssandra, casting the Crown into the tomb as blood soaked her blade.
Another where he was the Watcher—eyes burning, soul crumbling, screaming as a breach opened into something beyond gods.
Then—
He was himself again.
Gasping.
The pendant floated between them now—twisting, dark, whispering his name.
"You must find the true Crown," the Watcher said, fading now, voice soft.
"The one they buried beneath the stars."
"The one that ends this world… or heals it."
The throne shattered.
The fire spirals vanished.
The tomb dissolved.
And Caelan stood again in the stone room with Seraphyne, trembling, pendant in hand.
She looked at him, no question in her eyes.
Only knowing.
"You saw him," she said.
Caelan nodded.
"I saw everything."