Lucien had discovered many unpleasant truths since awakening in this life.
Ancient dragons knew him.
Immortal beings had spent twelve thousand years waiting for his return.
He had apparently created a crown capable of ending realities because he had been lonely.
And now, after all of that, he was forced to confront a possibility he found uniquely offensive.
Something behind the black door loved him.
He stood motionless upon the golden road while the word continued to echo through the Infinite Mindscape.
"Lucien."
Not a command.
Not a threat.
Just his name.
Spoken with the quiet familiarity of someone who had repeated it for a very, very long time.
The sensation unsettled him in ways the Architect never had.
Enemies were simple.
Love was considerably more complicated.
"No."
The word left his mouth immediately.
The Eighth looked toward him with an expression that suggested he had expected that response.
"Yes."
"No."
"Yes."
Lucien folded his arms.
"I refuse."
"That's reasonable."
"It is?"
"No."
The Eighth sighed softly.
"But you've always responded to emotional distress by pretending it doesn't exist."
Lucien stared at him.
"I do not."
The older version of himself raised an eyebrow.
"Lucien."
"What?"
"You once spent four hundred years claiming you weren't upset."
"About what?"
"Everything."
Silence.
"That seems excessive."
"It was."
The black door opened another inch.
Darkness continued to spill across the Infinite Mindscape floor, though Lucien was beginning to notice something strange about it.
It wasn't consuming the stars.
It was avoiding them.
As though it feared damaging something precious.
"Master."
The Last Witness remained standing before the door, his expression unreadable.
"Yes?"
"What is behind it?"
The old man closed his eyes.
"You know."
"No, I don't."
"Part of you does."
Lucien disliked answers that implied he already possessed information he very clearly lacked.
"That isn't helpful."
"I know."
He was beginning to hate that phrase as well.
Outside the Mindscape, Sol continued watching him with eyes larger than worlds. The ancient being had grown strangely quiet since the black door opened.
Lucien noticed immediately.
"You're not speaking."
"I AM THINKING."
"Dangerous."
"AGREED."
The response was so immediate that Lucien almost smiled.
Almost.
"Do you know what's behind the door?"
The mountains shifted slightly.
When Sol finally answered, its voice carried an unfamiliar emotion.
Sadness.
"YES."
"And?"
"IT CRIED WHEN YOU LEFT."
Silence.
Lucien blinked.
"I'm sorry?"
"EVERY DAY."
The words settled over the ruined city like falling snow.
"FOR A VERY LONG TIME."
Lucien felt the ache in his chest return.
Dangerous.
That feeling was becoming increasingly common.
The older Lucien with the black sword looked away.
Seraphina closed her eyes.
Even the Dragon King lowered his head.
Interesting.
Apparently, everyone knew.
"Enough."
Golden light flared around Lucien once more.
"I am becoming increasingly frustrated by everyone's habit of possessing information regarding my life while refusing to share it."
"To be fair," Orion said, "we've tried."
"No, you haven't."
"We considered it."
"That doesn't count."
"It should."
"It doesn't."
Orion looked mildly offended.
"I disagree."
"Your disagreement has been noted and discarded."
The old immortal stared at him for several seconds before laughing.
"Oh, we're definitely still us."
Lucien chose to ignore that.
His attention remained fixed upon the black door.
The loneliness emanating from beyond it had not diminished.
If anything, it had grown stronger.
There was something deeply unsettling about realizing that a being powerful enough to terrify the Last Witness could also be profoundly lonely.
"Why doesn't it come out?"
The question escaped before he could stop it.
Silence followed.
Then, very quietly, the Eighth answered.
"Because you asked it not to."
Of course.
Naturally.
Lucien closed his eyes.
"I am beginning to suspect that every significant problem in existence can be traced back to one of my previous decisions."
"That's not entirely fair," Orion said.
Lucien looked toward him.
"No?"
"Some of them are the Dragon King's fault."
The ancient dragon looked deeply offended.
"I continue to maintain that the moon insulted me first."
"No, it didn't."
"It was looking at me."
"That's what moons do."
The Dragon King remained unconvinced.
Lucien decided not to pursue that line of discussion.
Instead, he focused on the Eighth.
"When?"
The man looked toward the stars.
"The end."
"That's not an answer."
"It rarely is."
Lucien resisted the urge to throw himself into the abyss.
A surprisingly common impulse, apparently.
"The end of what?"
The Eighth's expression became distant.
"The first time."
Silence.
"The first time I died."
"Yes."
Lucien felt the world grow quieter around him.
"Tell me."
The Eighth hesitated.
For the first time since arriving, he appeared genuinely uncertain.
"It won't help."
"That wasn't a request."
The man smiled faintly.
"There he is."
"There who is?"
"Us."
Lucien was rapidly developing strong opinions regarding his previous incarnations.
Eventually, the Eighth sighed.
"You remember the First War."
"No."
"You will."
Helpful.
"At the end of it, you stood alone."
The stars above the ruined city dimmed.
"The dragons were dying."
The Dragon King closed his eyes.
"Reality had begun to collapse."
Orion looked away.
"And something beyond existence had finally found a way inside."
The black door trembled.
Lucien listened in silence.
"You fought it."
"Did I win?"
The Eighth laughed softly.
"No."
That answer surprised him.
"No?"
"It couldn't be killed."
"That seems inconvenient."
"It was."
The Eighth's gaze shifted toward the door within the Infinite Mindscape.
"So instead, you spoke to it."
Lucien frowned.
"Spoke to it."
"Yes."
"While reality was collapsing."
"Yes."
"That seems irresponsible."
"It was."
Silence.
"What did I say?"
The Eighth was quiet for a long moment.
Then—
"You asked why it was crying."
The world stopped.
"What?"
"It had spent its entire existence alone."
The loneliness behind the black door intensified.
"It didn't understand fear."
The Eighth's voice had become very soft.
"It didn't understand anger."
Lucien remained silent.
"But it understood loneliness."
The ruined city had gone completely still now.
No one moved.
No one spoke.
"And when it reached into reality for the first time..." The Eighth smiled sadly. "You were the first thing it ever touched."
Something inside Lucien broke.
Small.
Human.
Painful.
"No."
"Yes."
"No."
The Eighth continued anyway.
"You sat beside it for seven days."
A memory surfaced.
Not complete.
Just a fragment.
Darkness.
An endless expanse without stars.
And himself, sitting beside something he could not comprehend.
"You don't have a name either?"
The memory vanished.
Lucien's breathing became uneven.
"What..."
"You promised to come back."
There it was again.
Always promises.
"You gave it your name."
Silence.
The black door stopped moving.
Even the darkness seemed to hold its breath.
"What?"
"It asked what it should call itself."
The Eighth looked directly at him.
"And you said, 'Until we think of something better, you can borrow mine.'"
Lucien stared.
"No."
"Yes."
"No."
"Lucien."
"What?"
"You've always been terrible at naming things."
Fair.
The Eighth smiled.
"It loved the name."
The loneliness beyond the black door suddenly felt unbearable.
Lucien pressed one hand against his chest.
"How long?"
The Eighth understood the question immediately.
"Since before the stars."
Silence.
"It has been waiting for me."
"Yes."
"Why?"
The Eighth's expression became impossibly gentle.
"Because one day, you left."
The black door opened another inch.
No darkness emerged this time.
Instead, a hand reached through.
Small.
Human.
It simply rested against the edge of the doorway.
Waiting.
Lucien stared at it.
And somewhere deep within his soul, he remembered one final fragment.
A voice from beyond existence asking a single question.
"WILL YOU COME BACK?"
And his own answer, spoken with all the confidence of someone too young to understand the weight of promises.
"Of course."
The memory faded.
The hand remained.
Waiting.
Patient.
Like everything else in his life.
And for the first time since his rebirth, Lucien found himself unable to look away.