The Throne of Lost Names
The Memory Guard bound their wrists not with rope, but with bands of flickering light—symbols dancing across the restraints like shifting runes. Carter felt a dull hum through his skin, as if the restraints were syncing with his thoughts.
Commander Vael led the procession down the mountain path in silence. Her soldiers—faceless behind chrome visors—marched with precision, boots striking the stone like a heartbeat. The tension hung thick in the air, and though no one spoke, every glance shared between Carter, Sera, Lysara, and Ezra screamed of one thing: what now?
By nightfall, they reached the base of the mountains, where a peculiar structure awaited them.
It wasn't a vehicle.
It was a gate.
Floating in midair, surrounded by six pillars of glowing obsidian, the gate shimmered with blue fire. Shapes moved within the portal—buildings, stars, shifting memories like fragments of dream.
Commander Vael turned to face them. "This portal leads to the Eternal Throne. You may feel... disoriented. Do not resist the passage. If you do, it will erase you."
Ezra raised an eyebrow. "Cheerful."
One by one, they stepped through the gate—and the world bent.
---
Carter felt himself torn into pieces—not painfully, but like being stretched across time. He saw himself as a child, running through fields. As a teenager, staring at the stars. As a boy reading a forgotten book that whispered secrets no one else could hear.
Then it all came back together with a snap.
He was standing inside the Throne Citadel.
It was unlike anything he had imagined. A vast, glass-walled city floating in a sea of stars. Towers twisted toward the heavens, their tips breaking through the clouds. Walkways curved with impossible geometry. People walked the sky as though it were a floor, and whispers echoed from walls that had no mouths.
But most striking of all was the Throne itself—a colossal seat carved from obsidian and star-metal, suspended above a circular chamber of memory pools. The pools glowed with every color of the human soul, shifting and swirling like oil on water.
And sitting on the Throne was a boy.
No older than Carter.
His hair was white as bone, his eyes pitch black, and his face carried the wisdom of centuries.
"I am Auren," he said, his voice soft but resonant. "The Last Witness."
Carter stared. "You're... the ruler of the Eternal Throne?"
"I am the one who remembers," Auren replied. "The others are long gone. They chose forgetfulness. I chose pain."
Commander Vael knelt beside him. "My liege, they possess the Codex fragments. The girl Sera has seen the Architect's memory."
Auren rose from the throne and stepped down, barefoot, walking across the pool as though it were solid. Each step he took left ripples in the glowing liquid.
He stopped in front of Sera and touched her temple lightly.
"You carry it," he murmured. "The faultline."
She blinked. "What does that mean?"
"You are the convergence," Auren said. "The last rewriting is within you."
The others exchanged worried looks.
Ezra stepped forward. "We came here because of the Wyrm. Because of what's happening to the world. We want to stop it."
Auren smiled, but it was a smile full of sorrow.
"The Wyrm cannot be stopped. It is not a creature. It is not even alive. It is consequence made manifest. Every time a truth is buried, every time a history is rewritten, every time a god falls and we lie about why—it grows."
He turned toward the Throne.
"But it can be redirected. For that, I need your help."
Lysara narrowed her eyes. "What kind of help?"
"You must descend into the Memory Abyss," Auren said. "Where the first lie was written. Where the Codex was broken. If you survive... you'll learn how to change everything."
"And if we don't?" Carter asked.
"Then you will forget yourselves. And the Wyrm will eat the stars."
The chamber dimmed. The pools flared.
And behind the Throne, a door began to open.
Inside was only darkness.
And a single staircase leading down.