They didn't blink.
The child on the throne sat perfectly still, posture upright, small fingers curled around the edge of their seat made of fractured vow-tokens and folded Chronicle leaves.
The room was silent.
Not because no one dared to speak—but because the very idea of sound seemed suspended in their presence.
Their eyes glowed faintly—not blue like the System, not red like corrupted nodes—but gold. Soft and constant.
Kye stood on the threshold.
He had felt fear before.
He had run from shadows that remembered him before he had a name. He had heard the vault whisper truths he wasn't ready to bear.
But this—this was not fear.
This was the feeling of being read.
"Who gave you the Chronicle?" the child asked.
Their voice echoed in both his ears and behind his thoughts.
Kye stepped forward, not knowing if his legs moved because he chose to, or because the Market itself willed it.
"No one gave it to me," he said.
The child tilted their head.
Kye continued. "I remembered it. Or… it remembered me."
The throne shifted. Not physically—but temporally. Flashes of others who had stood before it blinked in and out: Seyros in flame. Zeraphine with tears. A girl named Arlyss holding a broken blade.
"You speak Article Six," the child said. "But do you know who wrote it?"
"No."
"But you carry it."
"Yes."
The child stood.
They were no taller than Kye's waist. But somehow, they felt older than the Chronicle.
"Then let me ask the second question," they said.
Kye braced himself.
"Have you ever broken a promise so completely that you stopped recognizing your own face?"
He didn't answer.
He couldn't.
But the silence was enough.
The child nodded. "That's where the vault always begins. In the gap between promise and self."
They reached out. Touched Kye's chest.
The ticket burned through his coat.
And a memory flooded into the Market.
A young boy, years ago, standing over a dying man who whispered, "Take my last name. Be someone better."
A promise made.
A promise forgotten.
Kye fell to his knees.
The crowd gasped as the child withdrew their hand.
"You've already wagered," they said. "You just didn't know the cost."
"What is the cost?" he whispered.
The child smiled.
> "To win mercy… you must return the version of you that needed it most."
Kye looked up, tears streaking his face.
"I don't remember who he was."
The throne lit up behind the child.
A new voice spoke from its roots.
Sykaion's.
"You don't need to. He remembers you."
And the child stepped aside.
The throne was empty.
And waiting.