The descent into the forgotten woods felt like slipping out of the world they knew.
Kael followed Riven through the narrow, broken tunnels that threaded the city's underbelly. The air grew colder with each step, and the last hints of light from Aerath faded behind them. Every stone they passed bore the scars of old magic—warding glyphs worn down by centuries of lies.
"Where are we going?" Kael asked, his voice a rough whisper. Days of running and hiding had taken their toll.
"Beyond the city's bones," Riven said. "To the Hollow Vale."
Kael staggered slightly. His feet ached. His robes, once pristine, were little more than rags. Hunger gnawed at him, and the wound from the Seraph Guard's glyph still throbbed under his arm despite the demon brew.
He didn't know how long they'd been moving. Time had melted into a blur of fear, exhaustion, and burning questions.
They passed beneath a final arch—crumbling, half-swallowed by the earth—and stepped into darkness alive with strange sounds.
The Hollow Vale lay before them.
It wasn't a forest in the true sense—more a corrupted echo of one. Twisted trees with blackened bark loomed overhead, their branches clawing at the starless sky. Pale sap oozed from their trunks, shimmering faintly under Riven's emberlight.
Kael shivered. It felt like walking into the lungs of something ancient and half-dead.
"This place... it was part of Aerath once?" he asked.
Riven nodded grimly. "Long ago. Before the angels 'purified' the land. They built their shining capital right on top of what they destroyed. This Vale... it's what's left. Hidden beneath the world they forced into being."
Kael turned slowly, trying to see where the city ended and the forest began—but there were no clear borders. Only ruins, half-swallowed by roots, and fragments of old roads that led nowhere.
"So we're still near Aerath?" he said slowly.
"Too near," Riven said. "The Hollow Vale stitches into the city's outer bones. It wraps around the forgotten edges—close enough that the angels watch, but fear to enter. And the place we're headed—Velkrion Sanctum—lies directly beneath the heart of Aerath."
Kael's stomach twisted. "You're saying… if we keep going… we go back under the city?"
"Yes," she said, a hard glint in her emberlit eyes. "But deeper. Into the places even angels are afraid to walk."
They moved carefully now, weaving through the Vale's broken pathways. Twice they had to hide as squads of winged Seraph Guards swept overhead—searching, their Radiant spears casting harsh beams into the mists.
Each time, Kael pressed himself into the gnarled roots, heart hammering, while Riven masked their presence with murmured Infernal glyphs.
Only when the patrols passed did they dare move again.
Finally, after what felt like an eternity, they reached a cliffside choked with brambles. There, hidden by illusions and crumbling stone, stood an ancient gateway—an entrance into the deeper forgotten tunnels.
Above it, carved in weathered symbols, was the mark Kael had seen before in his visions: twin flames intertwined.
"Velkrion," he breathed.
Riven laid a hand on the stone. It responded with a faint pulse of emberlight.
"This is where your ancestors tried to make their last stand," she said quietly. "Before the Veil smothered their names."
Kael hesitated.
"Once we pass through," Riven said, "there's no turning back. The Hollow Vale hides us—but the depths of Velkrion are warded. They'll feel it when we break the seals."
Kael swallowed.
He thought of the burning city from his visions.
Of the horned woman weeping over the dead.
Of Father Elion's smile as Aerath burned.
He stepped forward.
"Then we go," he said.
Riven smiled—not with triumph, but with grim pride.
Together, they crossed the threshold into the lost sanctum.
And the darkness swallowed them whole.