There was no floor in the space beyond the Wound.
No ceiling. No sky.
Only *reflection.*
Lucas floated in a void of broken mirrors and inverted sound. Each shard showed a version of himself: some noble, some monstrous, some dead. One version had devoured Ephraal. Another had become a god and destroyed time.
He reached for none of them.
Instead, he called out: "I am not you."
And the mirrors shattered.
Before him stood the Throne of Echoes, built from the collective power of every pact ever made, every demon's gift and cost. Malgros's essence pulsed within it.
"You belong here," the Throne whispered. "You've earned it."
"I didn't come to sit."
The Throne hesitated. "Then what do you seek?"
Lucas turned.
Behind him, every soul the Veil had destroyed. Every alternate version of him. His mother. Corin, even Neve, standing silently in the mirrored air.
"I came to unmake the pact."
The Throne screamed, but Lucas was already inside it—reaching past the fire, past the void, down into the *promise* that had first sparked when he bled and called Malgros.
"I offered myself for vengeance," he said. "But I didn't know who I was yet."
His voice cracked. "I know now."
The Throne exploded.
Ephraal howled.
The Wound *sealed.*
And Lucas fell, not as a demon, not as a god.
But as a man.