The stair of light spiraled downward—silent, suspended over a void that had no floor and no end.
Kael stepped carefully, each footfall echoing without sound. There was no gravity here, not really. The Vault's will held him in place, like a thought given structure. Above him, the chamber where the First Bearer had stood was already dissolving into shadow.
The Echoheart pulsed slowly now, but heavily. It wasn't calling forward.
It was warning.
The walls weren't walls anymore.
Light folded around him in the shape of things remembered—ridges where stone should be, staircases that looped back into themselves. Spirals hovered midair, carved into nothing. Glyphs blinked in and out, momentary and uncertain.
Then came the voices.
His voice.
Whispering.
Not aloud—but inside.
"You left her behind."
"You wanted the relic more than you wanted the truth."
"You are not chosen. Just willing."
Kael clenched his jaw and pressed forward.
The spiral grew brighter beneath his feet.
Fragments of memory formed in the air beside him—his village, the riverbank, the last time he saw his sister alive. But each memory twisted, slightly wrong. The grass was the wrong color. Her smile didn't reach her eyes.
One memory stopped him cold.
His sister turned to him and said:
"You never saved me. You only carried the memory of trying."
Kael staggered.
That wasn't her voice. Not exactly.
But it could have been.
He reached the end of the stair.
A platform hovered in the void—wide, circular, and breathing. The spiral sigil glowed across its surface, not carved, but grown—veins of crystal and bone knitting the shape into the floor.
The Echoheart flared. Its warmth was unbearable now.
Kael knelt at the center, sweat beading along his brow, breath shallow.
He had come seeking power. Now, he understood—understanding was the trial.
And the Vault spoke.
Not as vision.
Not as memory.
As voice.
"You are not here to change fate," it said.
"You are here to understand why it repeats."
Kael swallowed hard. "Then tell me."
"Every echo shapes the next. Every bearer bends the spiral. They seal the wound to stop the bleeding—but never close it. The relic does not remember how to heal. It only remembers the pain."
Kael's hand gripped the Echoheart. It vibrated violently, then began to shift.
The relic was unfolding.
Not breaking.
Opening.
A seam cracked across the surface, and from within it bloomed light—and something else.
Not a weapon.
Not an answer.
A question.
Kael stared down into it.
The Vault whispered:
"You may rebind the seal—and the spiral will hold another cycle.
Or you may open the core, and face what was once sealed.
But understand—every echo becomes a path. Every path becomes a future."
Kael closed his eyes.
The light from the Echoheart surged outward.
A faint hum rose from beneath the spiral—low, rhythmic, like a heartbeat waiting to be remembered.
And below the spiral, something began to move.