The descent beneath the Spire wasn't like the climb. There were no roots guiding their path, no enchanted corridors whispering names or truths. Only a stairway carved from obsidian that spiraled into blackness. Cold, damp, and too quiet.
Each step seemed to echo with a memory not their own.
Kael walked just ahead of Elara, his sword drawn, glowing faintly with the runes of the Hollow Sigil. Behind her, Thorne and Vaelith exchanged quiet glances, their bodies tense, their hands never far from the hilts of their weapons. Nyra was silent for once, her eyes sharp, tracing every flicker of movement in the dark. Talon whistled low, more for comfort than bravado.
It felt like hours before they reached the bottom.
And there it waited---The Vault of Forgotten Flesh.
A vast cavern with walls that pulsed like a living lung. Strange orbs hovered in the air, casting dim violet light. On the ground, ancient symbols had been carved into the stone, radiating a soft hum of latent magic.
At the center of it all stood a pillar of bone.
White. Smooth. Twisting like a spinal column toward the ceiling. Embedded into its base was a heart---black, still beating.
Elara felt it before she saw it. A pull.
A pressure behind her eyes and in her blood, like gravity had inverted for her alone.
Kael steadied her with a hand on her back. "It's calling to you, isn't it?"
"It's more than that," she whispered. "It knows me."
Then the heart opened.
Not like a flower---but like a scream.
It unfolded, revealing a creature curled within---a woman of glass and shadow, her eyes shut, her body suspended by veins of light.
Elara staggered back.
The sigil on her wrist was burning.
"Who is she?" Nyra asked.
Thorne knelt beside the pillar. "She's not dead. She's dreaming."
Vaelith grimaced. "Why does that feel worse?"
The woman's eyes snapped open.
They were made of stars.
And every candle in the room went out.
A voice filled the chamber, layered and thick with ancient tongues.
"You are not the first. But you might be the last."
Elara stepped forward. "What are you?"
The woman didn't blink. "I am what remains. Of Aeyndral. Of the storm. Of the covenant."
Kael moved to Elara's side. "We came seeking answers. The truth about the Hollow Sigil. About the veil. The Nexus."
The woman looked at him. "You seek truth… but the truth is a blade. And all blades require blood."
Then her gaze shifted back to Elara.
"Do you know the cost of what you carry?"
"I'm learning," Elara said. "But I'm not afraid anymore."
The woman smiled. "Then take the mark."
The bone pillar cracked.
From its side emerged a tendril of dark silver---liquid, pulsing, sentient. It floated before Elara like a question.
Kael grabbed her arm. "Wait. We don't know what that'll do."
Elara looked at him, eyes steady. "This is why we came. I have to."
She reached out.
The tendril touched her palm.
Pain. Fire. Memory.
Suddenly, Elara was somewhere else.
A battlefield----beneath a red moon. Bodies strewn across stone and snow. Screams echoing in languages she didn't recognize. She stood among them, a different version of herself---armor dripping with blood, eyes cold and distant. At her side, the same sigil, glowing with hunger.
It was her. And it wasn't.
She watched herself raise a hand---and entire armies burned.
Then the vision was gone.
Elara fell to her knees.
Kael caught her before she hit the ground.
"Elara!"
She gasped. The tendril was gone. Her skin glowed faintly where it had touched her, the sigil now pulsing with a third ring---the final seal.
She was changed.
The woman in the pillar smiled. "Now you carry the whole of the Hollow Sigil. Three seals. Three fates."
"What does that mean?" Thorne asked.
"It means she is the vessel now," the woman said. "And the storm will wake."
Above them, the Spire trembled.
Far away, they heard the first scream of the wind returning to life.
The woman faded, her body unraveling into ash and starlight. The cavern dimmed. And the heart stopped beating.
Elara stood slowly.
"What now?" Kael asked.
She turned to him.
Her voice was calm.
"Now… we make the gods remember why they feared us."