Kael crawled from the ash like a broken prayer.
The wind at the base of the Hollow Spire had changed—warmer now, alive with strange scents: scorched roses, old ink, and something that reminded him of Elira's skin after rain.
He was not sure how long he had lain there, breathing earth and memory.
But he remembered what he had seen:
—Her face splitting in half, one side Elira, the other a crown of fire.
—Her voice saying "on our terms" with no trace of doubt.
—The light that had kissed him like death, yet left him whole.
Almost whole.
His left hand had turned black to the wrist. Veins of crimson pulsed within, as if something lived inside it.
The creature that guided him was gone.
But Kael knew it was not over.
The real journey—her journey—had just begun.
Across the world, kings bled in their sleep.
A shadow stretched from the Spire, reaching into temples, thrones, and graveyards. Statues cracked. Oracles screamed.
The Phoenix Pope of Sol'Vareth drowned in his bath of silver, chanting Elira's name.
The southern continent's sun dimmed by a fraction.
And the Black Archive—a fortress-library beneath the Sea of Dust—awakened its sleeping sentinel.
The word had been spoken.
Vel'raeth.
In the ruins of Ovarin, Elira stood beneath a bleeding moon.
She no longer needed roads.
The world bent where she walked. Stones rearranged, trees leaned to offer fruit. But it came with a price. Children wept in her shadow. Animals turned to salt if they touched her footsteps. Even the clouds avoided her skies.
But Elira didn't weep.
There were no tears left in her new blood.
She walked into the shattered city and raised her hand.
The dead answered.
Not with groans or decay, but remembrance. Bones reassembled not to live—but to testify.
A thousand spirits lined the cracked streets, whispering forgotten truths:
—"We died because you broke the pact."
—"You were supposed to stay asleep."
—"He begged us to kill you. We couldn't."
Elira listened.
Then she spoke, and her voice scattered birds from dead trees.
"No more slumber. No more sacrifice. I have returned not to rule…"
Her hand clenched, and the sky darkened.
"…but to finish what I began."
Kael followed.
He kept his distance.
She didn't look back, not once.
But every now and then, he felt her remembering him—like a tremor in his chest, or a vision in the corner of his sight: her fingers on his cheek, her laughter in the ruins of childhood.
He did not know whether he followed her to save her…
…or to kill her before she lost what little was left.
But Kael still carried the shard of her old self—the ring she gave him, long ago, before names like "Vel'raeth" and "Second Ending" poisoned their bond.
And he believed—hoped—that somewhere inside the god she was becoming…
…was the woman he loved.
In the Sanctum of Iron Glass, the Council gathered.
Seven thrones. Seven masks. Seven terrified rulers.
"She has returned," said the Mouth of Silence.
"She will tear the seams of the Pact," said the Blind Regent.
"She must be ended before the Breach sings again," whispered the Queen of Knives.
They agreed on one thing.
Elira had to die.
But none dared approach the Hollow Spire.
Instead, they summoned him.
Tarn Vael, the Hound of Chains.
Buried beneath a glacier for breaking time.
Sealed in obsidian for burning the god-wind.
His chains unraveled now.
And as he stepped into the poisoned air, eyes glowing with ancient fire, he smiled.
"I warned you she'd wake."
The Council offered him blades, beasts, relics.
He spat.
"I only need one thing."
His eyes turned north.
"To bleed the girl, bring me the boy."
Kael's dreams bled.
He did not sleep, not truly. But when exhaustion dragged him beneath, what came was not rest, but visions.
A table of bones.
A wolf made of mirrors.
Elira on a throne of ash, staring with eyes that knew the future—and wept for it.
When Kael awoke beneath the blackwood trees of Velmoor, his fingers were clenched so tightly that blood had welled in his palm. He opened it.
The ring was gone.
No thief had taken it. He felt it vanish—absorbed into the growing rot that climbed his arm.
She's claiming me.
The thought landed like stone in his gut.
Or maybe I was always hers.
Elsewhere, Elira entered the Vale of Roots.
No map led here. It was older than cartography. A wound in the world, hidden beneath myths, guarded by silence itself.
This was where the Forgotten lingered.
Not the dead.
Not demons.
But those who were erased.
They crawled from the tree hollows in silence, faces made of drifting mist, bodies thin as memories.
And when they saw Elira—they knelt.
"You remember us," they breathed.
"I do," Elira said.
They sobbed, softly.
It was a terrible sound, like parchment burning slowly.
"We were your voices. Your hands. You used us, and you loved us. And then… you buried us."
"I didn't know," she whispered.
"You chose not to."
One stepped forward. Its form was almost human now—eyes like glass, hair made of woven roots.
It touched her chest.
"The god you were left us behind. Will the one you become do the same?"
Elira did not speak.
She simply opened her arms—and the Forgotten embraced her.
For the first time since the Spire cracked, the wind laughed.
At the foot of the Black Mountains, Tarn Vael knelt.
Not in worship, but in preparation.
The chains on his shoulders shifted like snakes, whispering curses older than language.
Before him, the Council's gift.
A blade made of void-ice. A name carved into its edge.
Kael.
He grinned.
"They still don't understand," he said to the wind.
Then louder, to the horizon:
"I'm not hunting him."
He rose.
"I'm releasing him."
And the wind ran red.
Kael crossed into Irothin on the third dusk.
The forests were wrong here. Trees grew with bark like skin, and sometimes, they bled.
He spoke to no one. Not that there were many left.
The closer he came to Elira's path, the emptier the world became.
He came upon a village of stone circles—no buildings, no roofs. Just patterns on the ground, worn smooth by generations of footsteps.
All gone.
In the center, a pool of ink.
Kael knelt beside it and saw his face—but older. Worn. Eyeless.
The vision whispered:
"She remade time. In one branch, you killed her. In another, you became her sword."
"And in this one?" Kael asked.
The reflection smiled.
"In this one, you beg her to remember your name."
The Council, shaken by silence, voted to burn the north.
If the ground itself could be salted, perhaps Elira would be slowed.
But by the time the fire ships reached Velmoor, the trees had already moved.
Whole forests uprooted. Valleys shifted. Rivers turned direction.
The land itself was fleeing her shadow.
And the Council, for the first time in six centuries…
…began to fear it might not survive.
Elira stood before the Tomb of Names.
It was not a tomb of bones.
But one of truths.
Each name carved here had been erased from history—either by the Spire, or by Vel'raeth herself in ages past.
She traced her finger over one.
Kael Veyr.
She remembered this name.
Not the boy who followed her now—but the first Kael. The soldier she loved before gods turned her cruel.
"Will you forgive me?" she asked the name.
No voice replied.
But her shadow lengthened, and the stars dimmed—and that was answer enough.
She touched the stone.
And the mountain cracked open.
Kael saw the mountain rupture from ten leagues away.
He ran.
Faster than he had any right to.
He didn't know what Elira had awakened this time.
But he knew it had teeth.
And the world was still bleeding from the last bite.