The sky that night was not dark.
It burned.
Aure stood at the edge of the Celestium, the highest point in the realm, where starlight once wove blessings into crowns. Around them, the sky cracked in golden veins, the realm splitting under pressure no one dared name.
And at his feet knelt Lian.
Wounded. Shaking. Alive but not for long.
Aure had seen to that.
"I told you not to follow me," he said, voice tight with rage that masked terror.
Lian looked up, blood on his lips. "I told you I'd never let you go alone."
He reached for him tender, even now.
But Aure stepped back.
Behind them, the Council of Flame chanted. Their robes shimmered with ancient sigils, their hands lifted toward the breaking sky. A ritual that required one sacrifice. One soul to bind the fracture. To hold the plane together.
Aure had volunteered.
But the moment they saw Lian, something inside them split.
"You don't understand," Aure whispered, eyes glowing too bright, body caught between human and divine. "If I complete the Rite… I'll be erased. Not killed. Unmade. My memories scattered. My soul… fractured."
Lian's voice was hoarse. "Then don't."
"If I don't you'll die, Lian. And everything I loved with you."
Aure turned to the Council. The fire behind them roared, louder now, hungry for conclusion.
Lian stood, stumbling forward. "There has to be another way. Let me take your place. Let us both...."
"There's no us in the end," Aure said, but his voice broke on the word. "I've seen it. I become someone else. Someone… hollow."
His hand lifted.
And in it, the sigil.
The one he would use to cut his soul in two.
"Remember me," he said.
Lian cried out. But it was too late.
Aure's hand dropped. The light consumed him.
Half of his soul the part that loved rushed outward, into Lian, tethering them in the bond that would survive across lifetimes.
The other half
The one that held power, pride, pain...
Screamed as it was sealed into shadow.
And from that scream, the Hollow King was born.