The Hollow Reaches trembled as silence returned.
Maelis stood at the edge of the collapsed altar, still feeling the echoes of the revenants bowing before her, the soul-crystal's detonation still ringing in her bones. Her sigil had dimmed, but something had changed.
Not just her power.
Her presence.
She no longer felt like a shadow of herself.
She was becoming whole again.
And that terrified her more than anything.
Riven sheathed his blade, though his fingers lingered near the hilt. "That masked Harvester… he wasn't sent to kill you. He was there to warn you."
Maelis nodded slowly. "He called me 'unwritten truth.' Like I'm a story they tried to erase."
"You're not a story," Riven said, voice low. "You're a weapon they were afraid to leave loaded."
They walked through the narrowing canyons of the Reaches, the stone walls marked by ancient runes—some glowing faintly as they passed. A sign that her presence was awakening things long buried.
After an hour's trek, they came to the remnants of a ruined sanctum. Its broken arches were inscribed with a symbol that made Maelis's pulse spike—
Two overlapping circles, bound by a jagged line.
The Seal of the First Pact.
She didn't know how she knew that. But she did.
Inside the sanctum, they found a cracked obsidian basin filled with dust and charred parchment. At its center: a burnt sigil plate bearing the same mark. She reached toward it.
As soon as her fingers touched the metal, a sharp pulse of memory ripped through her.
Her breath caught. The world tilted.
Everything—the stone, the sanctum, even her own heartbeat—vanished into stillness.
And then came the memory.
Vision.
She stood within a grand obsidian chamber, the ceiling so high it vanished into shadows. The air shimmered with soul-light, suspended like stars in a night sky. Seven robed figures surrounded her, arranged in a circle of authority. Their faces were hidden behind ancient bone masks, each etched with a unique symbol—Justice, Silence, Flame, Echo, Order, Truth, and the final one... Void.
"You've broken the First Pact," said the figure marked by Silence.
"No," Maelis's past self said, stepping forward. "I've honored it. The soul is not a weapon. It's a record—a living memory. We were never meant to use it to control the world."
"You woke the Soulbound," snarled the mask of Flame. "You stirred the Forgotten. If these truths spread—"
"They deserve to spread!" her voice cracked with fury. "We harvest souls without understanding what we're destroying. Every life lost… is a story erased. A truth stolen."
The mask of Echo whispered, "That truth could unravel the entire foundation of our power."
"Then let it," Maelis said. "We cannot build an eternal Order on lies."
The figure marked by Void stepped forward. "You chose rebellion."
"I chose remembrance."
"You will be sealed. Your soul divided. One half will carry your fire. The other, your silence."
Her past self didn't resist.
"I'll forget," she said, "but not forever. One day, the pieces will return. And when they do…"
Her voice lowered, promising something inevitable.
"…I will burn down the Order with the truth I remember."
Maelis gasped as the vision snapped back.
Her knees hit the cold floor of the sanctum.
Riven was already beside her. "What did you see?"
She stared at the sigil plate in her hand—still glowing faintly from her touch.
"They severed me," she said softly. "Split my soul because I defied them."
Riven's expression darkened. "What truth did they try to bury?"
"That we're not just stealing power," Maelis said. "We're erasing history. Real people. Real stories."
She rose slowly, holding the fragment. As she did, the soul-sigil on her chest pulsed again—brighter this time. The second shard of her soul locked into place.
A memory restored.
A purpose reignited.
The ground beneath them rumbled—a deep tremor that made the walls shake.
"Time to move," Riven said.
They ran, just as the sanctuary began to collapse behind them. Dust and fractured stone chased their heels as the past buried itself once more.
Outside, the Hollow Reaches had changed.
The wind had stopped.
The air hung still.
And from the far cliffs, a dark shadow unfurled massive, ragged wings.
A creature not of flesh, but of soul-ash and ancient vengeance.
It saw Maelis—and screamed.
The scream was not sound.
It was memory unraveling.
A thousand voices cried out from the void-born thing's maw—snatches of names, dying wishes, and truths devoured by time. The very air twisted with its presence, warping reality like a mirage on fire.
Maelis staggered, clutching the glowing soul fragment tight. Her newly awakened sigil flared in response, recognizing the creature for what it truly was.
"A Wyrm of the Void," she whispered. "A guardian of forgotten souls."
Riven's eyes narrowed. "Voidspawn. I've only read about them in the Restricted Codices. They're supposed to be myths."
Maelis shook her head. "No. They're consequences."
The Wyrm dove.
Its body was a tapestry of shifting forms—faces half-formed in smoke, memories that had been ripped from the world. It screamed again, and the earth cracked as if trying to flee.
Maelis reached for her soulfire. It roared to life in her palms—but it flickered, unstable.
"The memory I reclaimed," she said. "It's clashing with the bindings still in place. I'm not whole enough to hold this power."
"Then buy us time," Riven said, drawing twin daggers forged from cold-iron and bound soulglass. "I'll keep it distracted."
"No," she said quickly. "It feeds on forgotten things. If it touches you—"
He was already moving.
Riven launched forward, blade slicing through the Wyrm's smoky underbelly. It shrieked, not in pain, but rage—like someone being reminded of a name they'd sworn to forget.
Maelis focused.
She knelt and drove her hand into the ground, summoning the memory-sigil from within. It pulsed once, then flared outward in a ring of gold and white fire. Runes ignited along the shattered floor, pulling from the reclaimed shard.
"Come on," she whispered. "Show me more. Give me what you sealed."
The sigil flared.
And suddenly, she remembered the name of the Wyrm.
"Aezharon."
The moment she spoke it, the Wyrm froze mid-air.
Riven stumbled back, blinking. "What did you just say?"
"It was a Soulkeeper once," Maelis said, rising slowly. "One of the First Order. They erased it, like they tried to erase me. But its name survived… in me."
Aezharon twisted in the air, eyes blazing with unnatural light. And then—
It bowed.
Not in submission.
In recognition.
"You carry the Severed Flame," it said in a voice that sounded like ash falling through silence. "You were once my kin."
The glow of Maelis's soulmark surged, bright enough to cast shadows across the cliffs.
And the Wyrm whispered:
"One more shard is closer than you think."
Then, with a beat of wings and a final echo of memory, it vanished into the sky—leaving only a scattering of ash, and a hollow silence.
Riven exhaled sharply. "That… was not in the mission briefing."
Maelis looked down at her palm. The fragment of the burned sigil had fused to her skin.
Another mark.
Another vow.
She turned to Riven. "We're not just uncovering my past anymore. We're waking the past of the Order. And if Aezharon is just the beginning…"
She didn't finish the sentence.
She didn't need to.
The truth was already taking shape—and it was vast, ancient, and far more dangerous than anything either of them had imagined.