Ezra rose from the rubble—limping, scorched, but undefeated.
His left eye bled from psychic pressure. His grip on his sword was like iron fused to flesh.

Warden stood before him, staggering. His aura flickered like a dying flame.

Ezra (growling):
“Your dominion ends, relic.”

The Warden didn’t answer.

Instead, his body flared—one last surge of ghostly pride.
Chains of thought and memory lashed out from him, dragging the room into chaos.

Walls melted into shrieks.
Ezra’s own memories warped.
His name nearly erased.

But—

Ezra roared, defying the mind storm.

He vanished, blinked forward—and drove his sword through the Warden’s chest.

The Warden gasped.

The psychic storm died with a whimper.

Ezra withdrew the blade, sending the Warden crashing to his knees.

Ezra (cold):
“Confess. Repent. Reign—?
No. You don’t even deserve repentance.”

He raised his blade high, preparing the final strike.

The echoes of battle fade, leaving only Ezra, bloodied and breathless, standing above the kneeling Warden.
The ground trembles slightly beneath them—a hush before history breathes again.

Ezra’s blade glows with latent power, trembling as it hovers above the old knight’s neck.
The Warden looks up at him—not in fear, but in peace.

“You’ve won,” he says softly. “Pride now belongs to you.”

Ezra frowns, confused. “You… relinquish it?”

But before the final blow is struck, the world twists.
A ripple of memory breaks through the Asylum’s walls.
A vision floods in—light and shadow dancing like phantoms.

The skies above the Citadel wept violet fire.
The horizon split. The stars bled.

And still—inside the Sanctum—she stood.

The Late Queen.

Her breath shallow. Her lips cracked.
Blood dripping from her fingertips as she carved the last rune of the Seal.

She was dying.
And she smiled like she was being born.

The Warden fell before her—his armor scorched, his pride already in ruins.

Warden (broken):
“Don’t ask this of me.”
“Don’t make me live without you.”

She cupped his face with trembling fingers.
Her touch—fever-warm. Her hands—shaking like autumn leaves.

Late Queen (softly):
“You always feared death. I feared something worse—”
“That you would forget who you are, if I died.”

“So I’ll make sure you remember.”

She drew her sigil across his brow with her own blood.

“You are the Shield. The Guardian. The Flame that doesn’t consume.”

And then, she leaned close—

Forehead to forehead. Breath to breath.

Late Queen (whisper):
“Guard the Sanctum. Guard the memory. Guard what matters.”
“Even if you hear me scream…”
“You do not come.”

She looked at him one last time.

“If you love me—stay.”

Then she turned and walked to the throne—
Alone.

The walls shook. The enemy breached.

And he—

He ran.

“She needs me.”

He shattered her seal.
He cast aside her command.

And when he found her…

She stood alone in the throne room, surrounded.

Her crown had fallen. Her arms limp.

And still—she smiled.

Late Queen (soft, shattering):
“You disobeyed me.”

She raised her hand. The spell was already complete.

“Goodbye, my beloved.”

Light.

Ash.

Nothing.

Back in the present, Ezra watches as the Warden’s soul begins to unravel, threads of silver and gold dissipating into the cold air.

The Warden knelt, blood spilling from his lips, and looked at the past living before him.

Warden (soft):
“I was her sword.”
“But I chose love when I should’ve chosen duty.”

“They called me Pride…”
“But it was grief. It was selfishness. It was weakness wrapped in longing.”

He smiled as tears carved lines down his ash-stained face.

“You’ll do better.”

He reached toward Ezra—not to stop him, but to bless him.

Warden (whisper):
“You remind me of her fire… and her mercy.”
“Be what I wasn’t.”
“Guard her.”
“Even if she begs you not to.”

As his body dissolved into dust, his final tear glittered like glass.

And then...

Late Queen's voice returns.
Gentle. Loving. Eternal.

“Welcome home… my Hollow King…”
“…Lancelot of the Lake.”

Ezra’s heart stops.

That name crashes into him like a tidal wave of myth and sorrow.
He sees it—truly sees it.

The Warden wasn’t just a guardian.
He was a relic. A love story.
A knight who chose love over legacy.

And he had failed—so that Ezra could rise.

The last remnants of the Warden dissolve into light, drifting upward like fireflies seeking heaven.
Ezra falls to his knees, not from exhaustion—but from reverence.

“I’ll protect her. I swear it,” he whispers. “I won’t let her become Guinevere.”

Behind him, the Asylum grows quiet once more.
But far beneath its roots, a legend sleeps—grateful that his Queen’s voice was the last thing he heard.

And Ezra, now bearing the Sin of Pride, walks forward not as a usurper…
…but as the successor of a tragedy the world forgot.