Chapter 57:
Threads of Flame and Footsteps of Dawn
I. The Child of the Hollow
The boy no longer simply breathed—he shaped the breath of the world.
When he walked, flowers that had not bloomed for ten thousand years unfurled in reverence. The Hollow buzzed with power, alive with ancient energy. Clouds formed runes in the sky, and beasts from distant mountains knelt at the border of his path.
The goddess watched with mixed awe and dread. Her son did not cry, laugh, or scream. He listened. To wind. To soil. To the stars.
> "You hear them, don't you?" she asked.
The child blinked. The world trembled slightly.
> "They are calling me," he finally said.
> "Who?"
> "The forgotten gods… the ones my blood remembers."
His body began to radiate a glow not of fire but of memory—as if the cosmos were remembering its oldest child.
---
II. Errin's Soul-Fire Trial
Within the lake of memory, the twelve spirals of flame now formed twelve gates, each with a name that rang like prophecy:
1. Path of Eternal Flesh
2. Path of No Return
3. The Lover's Fall
4. Crown of Bone
5. Ashen Victory
6. The Father's Loss
7. The Reclaimer's Trial
8. Serpent's Sleep
9. One Thousand Tears
10. The Final Seed
11. He Who Bends Sky
12. The Path of None
Errin hesitated before gate seven—The Reclaimer's Trial. The whisper of his ancestors stirred behind it.
> "We gave you threads of soul, Errin," came a voice from beyond.
"Now prove you are worthy of weaving fate itself."
He stepped forward, and flame poured through him. Every bone in his body cracked, reforged, and rethreaded with ancestral sigils. The divine marrow within him began to awaken.
His skin shimmered with resistance—no blade could pierce him, no poison mar him. But now, his soul would be the battlefield.
And on that soul, memories not his own began to write themselves.
---
I & II: A Moment Between Father and Son
In a rare convergence of realms, father and son stood under a moon that was neither in the Hollow nor in the spiritual plane.
They faced one another, silently.
> "They will come," Errin said.
> "I will not run," the boy replied.
Errin's soul, forged anew, shimmered with bound potential. The boy's bloodline, unlocked, pulsed with dormant might. Both were incomplete, but in that incompleteness—there was beauty.
And danger.
> "We must prepare," Errin said, voice quiet.
> "We must remember," said the boy.
---