Section 1 : The Memory That Bleeds
The air was thick, stagnant—clogged with the scent of centuries-old grief and something else far more ancient. Aymelle stood beneath the fractured dome of the sunken crypt, her pale fingers brushing against the obsidian pillar now thrumming faintly beneath her touch. The markings on its surface pulsed softly in response—just as Meyr had said they would.
Meyr watched her quietly, his silver eyes reflecting the faint glow of the runes. "It remembers you," he murmured. "Or perhaps... it remembers what you've lost."
Aymelle didn't answer. The hum of the pillar reverberated through her bones, echoing deeper into her chest where the void of her sorrow still lived. She could feel the remnants of the wailing souls—those who had been consumed by the Curse of Remains—woven into the stone beneath her feet. Each footstep was a prayer. A lament.
She stepped back from the pillar and turned to Meyr, her voice soft. "You said it would show me… the truth. About the crying remains. About why they called me."
Meyr nodded once, gravely. "Come."
They passed through a narrow stone archway, descending a flight of time-worn stairs choked by roots that pulsed with an eerie, sickly red. With each step, the temperature dropped, and Aymelle began to feel the familiar sting at the corner of her eyes. Not of tears—but of something deeper. A pressure. A calling.
"I need you to understand something," Meyr said as the tunnel opened into a hidden sanctum. "The Crying Remains are not monsters. Not by birth. They are memories… twisted."
Before her lay a chamber bathed in bluish crystal light, each shard jutting from the ground like fractured blades. At the center floated a large tear-shaped orb, semi-transparent, swirling within it the silhouette of a woman—frozen in a scream.
Aymelle gasped, stumbling forward. "She… she looks like…"
Meyr stopped her gently. "That is not your mother. It's a fragment—a memory preserved in anguish. But there are many like her. Hundreds. Perhaps more."
"What is this place?" she whispered.
Meyr stepped closer to the orb, his voice steady. "This is the Cradle of Forgotten Names. Where the First Weeper sealed the sorrow of an entire age. To keep the world from drowning in it."
"And why bring me here?"
"Because," he turned, meeting her gaze, "you are the first to awaken the Tearborn Path in over two centuries. Your power resonates with the sorrow sealed here. And if you do not understand it—master it—these memories will consume you."
The orb began to pulse. Slowly at first, then violently. Aymelle felt the pressure behind her eyes intensify until a single tear broke loose, falling silently to the ground. As it hit the stone, a wind swept through the chamber.
The orb shattered.
From its broken shell, a shadow surged—a wailing specter of sorrow, its form shifting and unformed, a Crying Remain born anew. Aymelle stepped back, but Meyr didn't move.
"You must face it," he said calmly. "Only then will it listen."
The creature lunged.
Aymelle raised her arm instinctively, a thin veil of tearlight forming around her. The clash threw her to the ground, but her power held. The cry of the specter pierced through her, not in sound—but in memory.
A village burning. A mother's lullaby lost to the flames. A girl clutching a doll soaked in ash.
Tears streamed from her eyes, but she did not turn away. Instead, she stepped forward.
"If you carry grief," she whispered, "then let me bear it too."
Her light brightened—no longer defensive, but embracing. The specter stilled, then slowly dissolved into motes of light, which spiraled into her outstretched hand, forming a single tear-shaped crystal.
Behind her, Meyr let out a quiet breath. "Then it has begun."
Aymelle looked down at the crystal pulsing faintly in her palm. "What has?"
"The pact of remembrance," Meyr said. "With every sorrow you soothe, your power will grow. But so will the burden."
She clenched the crystal tighter. Her voice didn't waver. "Then I'll carry them all."
Section 2 : The Silence That Hunts
The streets of Wushan were quieter than usual.
Even at dusk—when lanterns would typically flicker to life and the scent of grilled spices would drift from corner stalls—there was a stillness that clung to the town like fog. Elwin knew it wasn't just in his mind. Ever since he returned from the blackened edge of the outer forest, after hearing the truth of Aymelle's descent into the Source, Wushan had changed. Or perhaps, the eyes watching him had always been there—only now they no longer bothered to hide.
He adjusted the dark cloak draped over his shoulders, slipping into the narrow alley behind the apothecary. From here, he could see the watchtower where he had met the blind prophet days before. The man had vanished.
No signs. No whispers. Nothing but silence.
"Running won't help," came a low voice behind him.
Elwin didn't flinch. He turned slowly, hand resting near the blade at his hip.
A figure stepped out from the shadow—dressed in dark ceremonial robes embroidered with the emblem of the Old Tribunal: a circle of thorns surrounding a single drop of silver. The Order's secret hand. A Judge.
"So they've sent one of you," Elwin said, voice tight.
The Judge tilted his head. A faint, almost amused smile on his lips. "Don't flatter yourself, Elwin Sallet. You're not the only lost dog sniffing near forbidden places."
"And yet here you are."
The Judge stepped closer, boots soundless against the cobbled ground. "The girl," he said. "The one who touched the Source. You've followed her path."
Elwin didn't answer.
"You've seen what lies beneath," the Judge continued. "The rituals. The crying remains. You even dared walk into the forest where the old tears still fall."
"Why do you care?"
"Because if she awakens what sleeps beneath the Crying Remains," the Judge's voice dropped to a whisper, "then sorrow won't be the only thing that returns."
Elwin's heart thudded.
"She's no longer yours to chase," the Judge warned. "Turn back. Or the next time we meet, it won't be words I send."
The man vanished with the wind, as if never there.
Elwin stood alone in the alley, cold sweat down his back. The name he had refused to speak—the title the old monastery dared not write—echoed in his mind again.
The First Weeper.
And deep in the Source… Aymelle was awakening it.
He exhaled slowly, then stepped from the alley and toward the edge of town. There, in the chapel ruins where his journey had begun, waited an old tunnel sealed by tearstone markings—closed since the fall of the last Keeper.
Tonight, he would open it.
Even if it meant crossing into the Hollow Vein—where the forgotten cried with no mouths, and sorrow bled into madness.
Section 3 : Beneath the Weeping Nest
The tunnels wept.
Not with sound, but with presence—walls lined with veins of glowing, pale-blue crystal, pulsating softly like a heartbeat buried beneath stone. Every step Aymelle took alongside Meyr led them deeper into what felt less like a ruin and more like a womb. A terrible, grieving womb.
Meyr's voice was low, as if the stones themselves might awaken.
"Do you hear them?"
Aymelle paused, ears straining against the silence.
Then she did.
A hum—not quite a voice, not quite a cry. A resonance. Faint and haunting, like wind brushing glass, yet it stirred something deep in her chest. Her hand brushed against the crystal-lined wall, and in that instant, a vision flashed across her mind: a thousand eyes shut in pain, hollow mouths wide in eternal mourning.
She gasped and staggered back.
"They were once like us," Meyr said, his face unreadable beneath the half-mask he wore. "Dreamers. Lovers. Warriors. All turned into vessels of sorrow."
"Crying Remains…" she murmured.
"No," Meyr corrected. "These are older. The Resonant Wombs. Where the first tears were planted. Where grief took root and learned to sing."
He stepped aside, revealing an opening in the rock—a door carved with twisting, weeping figures. As Aymelle approached, the tears carved into the stone shimmered, as if responding to her presence.
"Why are they reacting to me?"
Meyr looked at her for a long moment. "Because you carry her echo."
"Her?"
He didn't answer. Instead, he laid a hand against the door. It opened without a sound.
Inside lay a chamber of silence, and at its center—a pedestal of obsidian holding a fragmented mask, its design strikingly similar to the one Meyr wore. Aymelle felt a chill run down her spine as she approached.
"That mask…" she whispered. "It's… crying."
Indeed, from its hollow eyes, twin trails of dark crystal had formed—like dried tears. As she reached toward it, a pulse shot through the room.
And then—screams.
Not in her ears, but in her mind. Ancient. Agonized. Endless.
She fell to her knees, clutching her head as images flooded her vision—fields drowned in silver rain, bodies of weeping giants laid to rest beneath cathedrals, and a woman with her face, standing alone before a blackened throne, her eyes glowing with sorrow too vast for one life to carry.
When it ended, Aymelle was gasping.
Meyr knelt beside her, voice gentle. "You've seen the Echo of the First Tear."
She looked at him, trembling. "What… am I?"
"A vessel. A key. A memory made flesh."
His hand extended toward her. "And if you're willing, I will gu
ide you to the heart. Where the First Weeper sleeps."
Section 4 : The Hollow Vein
The stench of old blood lingered.
Elwin pressed forward, his boots grinding against bone-dusted stone. The Hollow Vein was not a path carved by men—it was birthed by something far older, far crueller. Narrow and winding, the tunnel pressed in on him like ribs of a buried beast, its walls lined with the remnants of broken sigils and faintly glowing etchings of names long erased by time.
And the whispers never ceased.
They crawled across the surface of his mind like fingers scraping a coffin lid—some mournful, some pleading, and some laughing in a voice that sounded disturbingly like his own.
He gritted his teeth.
"I will not break."
The further he went, the colder it grew—not physically, but spiritually. The light of his lantern flickered each time he passed a branching tunnel. Shadows clung to him like damp cloth.
Then he heard it—footsteps. Slow. Bare.
Elwin drew his blade instantly, stepping into a defensive stance. From the darkness ahead emerged a figure hunched in tattered priestly robes, muttering to himself, eyes wild with a madness far too lucid.
"A Seeker…" the man rasped. "Another Seeker… drawn to Her scent."
Elwin didn't lower his guard. "Who are you?"
The man smiled with too many teeth. "No one. A broken bell. But I remember. Oh yes… I remember her tears."
"What do you know of Aymelle?"
The mad priest's eyes rolled back, and he began to chant—lines of ancient hymnals twisted with pain, his voice cracking as if singing cost him fragments of his soul.
"She bore the mark beneath the veil,
The Tear of Origin, sealed and pale.
Her cry awakened graves of old—
A truth that even gods withhold…"
Elwin stepped closer. "What tear? What truth?"
The priest's hands trembled as he pointed toward the tunnel behind him. "The bloodline of the First Weeper… cursed and divine. Bound to fate. You follow her steps, but not all who follow survive. Not all who love are chosen."
"What do you mean?"
"She must remember. Or all is lost." The man dropped to his knees, convulsing. "She is not just your beloved, Seeker. She is the keystone to the shattering."
And then—his eyes burst into tears of black crystal, mouth slack in eternal scream.
Elwin stood frozen, horrified, as the body began to dissolve into shimmering dust—like every memory it once carried was being reclaimed by the Hollow Vein itself.
The whispers grew louder.
He forced himself to keep walking, heart pounding. Aymelle… what have you become?
But deeper within, beneath his fear, something stirred—a knowing.
He had chosen this path not just to find her—but to face whatever darkness fate had written for them. And if the veil between truth and madness was to be torn, then so be it.
He would not turn back.
Not now.
Section 5 : The Dream of the First Weeper
It began with silence.
Aymelle stood in a garden she did not recognize, where flowers bled silver tears, and the sky wept without sound. The wind carried no weight, yet every breath she drew was heavy with sorrow.
She knew it was not real.
She knew she was dreaming—
But not asleep.
"Where is this…" she whispered.
The petals of a nearby blossom turned toward her, trembling, as if sensing her voice. And then, from the pond at the garden's center, a figure rose—tall, draped in translucent veils, with a face that shimmered like broken reflections.
The First Weeper.
Aymelle fell to her knees before she realized her body had moved. Her soul trembled. Not out of fear—but recognition. It was like gazing into a mirror that reflected not her, but everything she had forgotten.
"You carry my sorrow," the figure said—not with a voice, but through every soundless ripple in the dream.
"Who are you?" Aymelle's voice cracked. "Why do I feel… like I've known this place before?"
The First Weeper reached forward. A single tear fell from her unseen face—and struck the garden floor like thunder. The entire world around them shifted.
Suddenly, the garden withered. The silver flowers burned into ash. The sky shattered into pieces of glass, revealing darkness beneath. Aymelle stood not in a dream—but in a memory.
Children screaming.
Fire consuming stone halls.
Her own voice crying out, not as Aymelle—but as someone else.
"You must choose."
The First Weeper now stood behind her, towering like a statue made of pain and time.
"Choose what?"
"To remember. Or to remain false."
Aymelle's hands trembled. "If I remember… will I lose myself?"
The figure did not answer—only extended her hand. From her palm bloomed a tear-shaped crystal, pulsing with light. It called to Aymelle with unbearable gentleness. It sang of names she could not yet recall, of battles never fought, of lives unlived.
"You are more than one girl in a monastery," the voice finally said. "You are a vessel—of grief, of love, of ending."
Aymelle hesitated.
Then, slowly—she reached out and touched the crystal.
The pain was immediate.
Memories not her own flooded in—visions of a battlefield under crimson rain, a man calling her name across a broken bridge, chains of light shattering beneath her scream.
And a promise.
I will return to you, even if I must walk through the cries of the damned.
Aymelle collapsed. Her tears were no longer silent.
When she opened her eyes, the dream was gone—but the mark of the First Weeper now shimmered faintly on her wrist.
She was no longer just searching for truth.
She was part of it.
Section 6 : The Altar of the Weeping Heart
The wind grew colder as Elwin approached the jagged cliffs of the eastern ravine. The mists that curled around the rocks whispered like lost prayers—voices too ancient to comprehend, yet somehow, they knew his name.
Ahead stood a lone arch of stone, half-consumed by vines that pulsed with a faint blue glow. Carved into the arch's surface was a single symbol: a teardrop cradled by thorns.
This was it.
The Altar of the Weeping Heart.
A place spoken of only in passing in the monastery's forbidden texts. Where sorrow was worshiped, and memory could be severed—or reclaimed.
He placed his hand on the stone. It was warm. Alive.
And it wept.
A soft tremor passed through the earth beneath him. The vines recoiled, and the sealed arch split open with a sigh like breath being released after centuries. What lay beyond was not a room—but a cavernous descent lit by veins of pale light running through the rock.
Elwin did not hesitate. He stepped inside.
The passage grew narrower, until he had to crouch. Every step echoed like thunder. The air was thick with salt and sorrow, and each breath he took tasted like memories not his own.
Visions flickered along the walls—images drawn in weeping light.
Aymelle, cradling a dying girl.
Aymelle, weeping at an altar made of bones.
Aymelle, shattering chains with a scream that cracked the sky.
Elwin's heart pounded. He touched the wall—and the image responded.
It shifted into something else.
A younger version of himself, watching Aymelle disappear into a blizzard of black feathers.
His hand reaching for her—and failing.
"Why did you come here?"
The voice startled him.
From the shadows stepped a figure—cloaked in gray, wearing no mask but still hiding their face in the dark. The stranger bore no weapon, yet Elwin instinctively knew this one was dangerous.
"I'm looking for her," Elwin said, fists clenched.
"She does not wish to be found," the figure replied calmly. "Not as she was. And not as she is becoming."
"Who are you?"
The figure stepped into the light. His eyes were mismatched—one silver, one shadowed. The faint markings on his neck resembled tears flowing upward.
"I am called Meyr," he said, voice like distant thunder. "Watcher of the Hollow Paths. And her path… is no longer yours to walk."
"I don't care what she's becoming," Elwin snapped. "She's still Aymelle. And I won't let her face this alone."
Meyr's expression did not change. But something in his stance softened.
"Then come. The altar awaits. But know this—truth is not a blade you wield. It is a wound you choose to keep open."
He turned and began walking deeper into the caverns.
Elwin followed, unaware that with each step, the tears of the altar began to flow again—awakening memories sealed beneath stone and song.