The High Circle had remained silent for too long.
In the wake of the sigil's rupture, the city stirred not with fear—but with awakening. Kael could feel it beneath his skin: the threads of the Pact realigning, not according to ancient decrees, but to the heartbeat of the present. The people were changing. The world was shifting.
And in the North, the Crownless moved.
It began with smoke on the horizon. Then banners—black, unmarked, fluttering with the wind of revolt. Messengers arrived breathless, carrying tales of cities withdrawing allegiance from the High Circle. Small villages once ruled by bloodline law now declared themselves free territories.
"The Crownless are no longer rumors," Aelira said grimly, tossing down a scorched scroll. "They're organized. And they're looking for you."
"For me?" Kael asked, brow furrowed.
Lin held up another parchment. "Not just for you. For all of us. The ones who've broken the threads. The ones the High Circle can't control anymore."
Kael rose, walking to the balcony of the Sanctum. Below, people gathered—some armed, some not, but all watching. Waiting.
He had lit a match. Now the fire was spreading.
"It's time we stop reacting," he said. "If they want a war—"
Aelira cut him off. "—we don't give them one their way. That's how the Circle wins. Every time."
Kael nodded. "Then we take the war to truth, not destruction."
Lin stepped beside him. "What's the plan?"
Kael extended his hand, and the Echo Root inside him pulsed. A map formed from light and memory—one that revealed every sealed site, every forgotten archive, every uncorrupted relic across the lands.
"We find the others," he said. "The ones with no thrones, no sigils. The ones erased by history. We gather the Crownless—but not as an army. As a reckoning."
That night, they moved.
First to the ruins of Draelion, where forgotten heirs of a shattered house held court in secret. Then to the Singing Marshes, where voices long silenced whispered Kael's name. The world was ready—but it needed more than rebellion. It needed restoration.
The Crownless were not just rebels. They were teachers, farmers, artists, warriors who had watched generations of their kind wither under decree. And now, they had someone to follow. Not a king. Not a god.
A threadwalker.
When Kael entered the Fields of Mourning—once a battlefield turned graveyard, now the heart of the Crownless—he found them waiting. Thousands. No banners. No thrones. Just silent, steadfast hope.
"I won't promise power," Kael said, his voice echoing over the field. "I won't promise conquest."
He drew his blade—not to point it skyward, but to plant it into the earth.
"I promise you truth. And a chance to reclaim what was stolen."
The crowd stirred.
"I am not your king," Kael said. "But I'll walk beside you until every chain is broken, and every lie shattered."
The cheers that rose weren't chants of war—but of homecoming.
The Crownless War had begun.
But it would not be fought with thrones or crowns.
It would be fought with memory. With revelation. And with unity.