LOCATION: HOLLOW CREED — THE ASHEN HALL (DAWN)
The chamber had once held a hundred voices.
Today, it barely held twenty.
Smoke curled from the wall sconces, dim and heavy—like the room itself mourned what had been lost. Stone pillars loomed, cracked from past battles. The crest of the Hollow Creed still hung at the far end, stitched in bloodthread, faded but unbroken.
Councilor Nareth Drosk stood beneath it.
Old. Parchment-thin. Eyes like knives sharpened too long. He leaned on no staff. Wore no crown. Just robes of ash-gray and conviction.
He waited until the last murmurs died.
Then he spoke—not loud, but steady.
"They say we are broken."
His voice echoed. Not through power. Through stillness.
"That we are splintered. Scattered. Bled dry. That what remains is shadow of what we once were."
He looked across them.
Scarred fighters. Glyphburned scouts. Ink-scribes who'd picked up blades. The remnants. The ones who stayed.
Zekk stood near the front—shoulders squared, chin raised—beside Lucan Malryk.
Lucan hadn't spoken. Hadn't even looked at Nareth. But he was here. And that alone had meaning.
"But they forget…" Nareth's voice grew harder, "what shadows leave behind."
He took a breath.
A slow step forward.
"Jareth Solen, whose blade has never bent."
"Serin Elowen, whose flame still guards our lost."
"Zekk Arakai, who stood when others fell."
A pause.
Then, with gravity:
"Lucan Malryk."
The name cracked through the hall.
No need to explain it. Everyone knew what it meant.
Lucan didn't react.
Not a twitch.
Zekk, though—his chest lifted just slightly. Like being beside the name meant something now.
"We still have fire," Nareth said. "We still have blades. We still have names that mean something to the world—and more importantly, to each other."
A hush.
Then a rising murmur.
Hope. Stirring from embers.
Nareth raised one hand—and the room quieted again.
He looked at Lucan.
Long. Slow. Measured.
"This Creed does not ask for perfection. It asks for truth. For strength. For someone to carry what remains forward."
Lucan's eyes flicked up. Met Nareth's.
No words passed.
But they understood each other.
Nareth gave a faint nod.
Lucan gave none.
Then the councilor turned to the others—and raised his voice, for the first and last time that day.
"Let the world believe we are ash. Let them think we've scattered to the wind."
"But ash feeds the soil. And from it, we rise."
The room stirred. First whispers. Then fists to chests. Then a shout.
Not organized.
But real.
A cheer. A small one. Then another. And another.
Zekk looked to Lucan—wide-eyed, lit with the kind of belief that doesn't come from sermons but from standing in fire and surviving it.
Lucan?
He said nothing.
He just looked at Nareth again.
And beneath the applause, in the silence only those two shared—
Lucan knew the weight waiting in those words.
Not a command.
A torch.
And the question was no longer if he would carry it.
But when.
---
LOCATION: HOLLOW CREED, STONE PASSAGEWAY — NIGHTFALL
Lucan walked alone, cloak dragging the silence with him. Exhausted.
He rounds a bend—and Zekk, he stood in the middle of the hall, waiting.
"I want to fight better."
Lucan keeps walking. Doesn't stop right away.
"Then go back to the ring. Find someone who won't break your ribs."
Zekk doesn't move. Just says—
"You didn't kill me. That means something."
Lucan stops.
Maybe sighs.
Maybe glares.
Maybe both.
---
LOCATION: HOLLOW CREED — LUCAN'S QUARTERS
Lucan lets Zekk in, against better judgment.
Inside, the room is bare. Weapons resting. Maps scattered. A glyph mirror half-cracked on the table.
Zekk studies it. Lucan notices.
"That's what truth does when you try to reflect it." Lucan says calmly.
"Then I want to learn how to burn it into something unbreakable."
Lucan shakes his head. Pours a drink. Doesn't offer one.
"You're not ready. You want purpose, not power. That's a mistake."
"I don't want a shadow."
Zekk, quiet, firm.
"Then teach me to cast mine."
Lucan studies him.
Doesn't smile.
But says:
"One lesson. Survive it, and we'll see."
---
LOCATION: ASHVALE — SANCTUM BELOW, PRISON VAULT
The walls dripped.
Not with blood—those stains had dried.
Not with water—none flowed here.
But with silence. Heavy. Suffocating.
Chains hung from the ceiling like ornaments of pain. A single lightglyph pulsed in the center, casting the stone cell in a sickly white.
Nyza hung suspended—barely conscious.
Her face was bruised. Lips cracked. One eye swollen shut. Her veil, torn days ago, lay forgotten in a corner. Her wrists bled slow from the shackles—iron etched with null-glyphs. They flickered when she twitched.
She hadn't screamed in hours.
That was what worried them.
Across from her, the Inquisitor paced. Quiet. Gloves soaked, sleeves rolled back. A table nearby held tools no scripture ever blessed.
He didn't speak.
Not yet.
He just drew a thin, curved blade—and held it to her cheek. Slow. Gentle.
Nyza opened her good eye.
Didn't flinch.
Didn't speak.
The door hissed open behind them.
Aelira stepped in.
No guards. No chains. No veil.
Just her.
The Inquisitor looked back, startled. Then—recognition. Respect.
He bowed slightly. "She hasn't broken."
Aelira said nothing. Just walked forward. Her steps deliberate. Slow. Soft as judgment.
She stopped just beside Nyza, staring up at the girl.
Then:
"Out."
The Inquisitor blinked. "But the Lady—"
Aelira turned her head. Slowly.
"Out."
This time, he obeyed.
Door shut behind him.
The silence returned. Thicker.
Aelira stood alone with the girl now.
Nyza's breathing was shallow. Pain made her tilt her head, slow and cautious. She blinked once—processing.
"Come to convert me?"
"No."
Aelira took a breath.
"I came to see if your spine was still intact."
Nyza smirked—barely.
"One of the few things that still is."
Aelira stepped closer. Stopped when she saw the tattoo—half burned, half hidden—beneath Nyza's bruised collarbone.
Her expression shifted.
Softer. But stunned.
"...Velloren."
Nyza didn't react.
Didn't deny it.
"So you do know."
"Your mother—she doesn't know you came?"
"No. She sent Echo Veil. I stowed away. Argued my way into the team. Thought I could see what it was like—fighting for something that wasn't wrapped in mirrorlight and ceremony."
Aelira stared. Not in judgment. In recognition.
"You were a child last I saw you. At the Concord Meeting. You dropped your goblet and blamed it on a priest."
Nyza: "He looked guilty."
Aelira: "He was blind."
They both almost smiled.
Almost.
But the weight came crashing back.
Aelira whispered now.
"Does Halix know?"
Nyza's voice dropped too.
"No. And I want it to stay that way."
Aelira's gaze lingered, sharp behind softness. Her fingers twitched like they were holding back a thousand glyphs.
"You think you can hide blood from her?"
Nyza looked away—slow, stiff.
"I've hidden more."
Aelira's tone shifted—flat, not unkind.
"She reads sin like scripture."
"Then let her read yours," Nyza shot back, voice low but flint-edged. "You're the one breaking protocol by being here."
Aelira took that.
Didn't flinch.
But she moved closer.
Knelt.
Not in worship. In leveling.
Face to face now.
"You were six when we met. You tripped over your own veil at the Concord. Laughed like the world was yours."
Nyza's eyes flickered. Faintly.
"The world wasn't."
"No," Aelira said. "It belonged to mothers with thrones and daughters they couldn't see."
Silence.
Thicker now.
The weight between them wasn't just history. It was legacy.
Nyza swallowed.
"Your mother scares kingdoms, mine blinds them."
"And yet here we are," Nyza muttered, chains clinking faintly as she shifted. "Her daughter playing sympathizer. Mine playing traitor."
Aelira stood slowly, robes brushing the floor.
"You're not a traitor."
Nyza: "Tell your mother that."
Aelira didn't reply.
She just turned toward the door—then stopped.
One hand hovered on the glyph-lock.
For a second, there was a glimmer in her eyes—compassion, maybe.
Or warning.
"You may have come here to escape her shadow. But the moment Halix learns your name…"
"I stop being a prisoner," Nyza finished. "And become a message."
Aelira left without another word.
And behind her, Nyza Velloren exhaled.
Quiet.
But not defeated.
Not yet.