The air changed the moment Chizzy crossed the outer stones of the Hollow. It wasn't just the damp chill that crept under her cloak, or the silence that stretched too long between bird calls. It was something else.
A pressure. Like a forgotten grief pressing against her chest.
The Weeping Marsh had once been called the Whispering Plains. Fertile. Alive. But after the fall of Liera's sanctuary, it had twisted. Water had swallowed the roads. Trees with silver-veined bark now stood like sentinels, crying sap that shimmered in the moonlight.
And the memories—gods, the memories.
She didn't see them at first. She heard them.
Laughter.
A lullaby.
A woman sobbing through a storm.
The memories here didn't belong to her, but they clung—rising like mist from the marsh, floating just at the edge of recognition.
She pressed forward, clutching her satchel. Inside were two items: the emberstone Dren had returned to her, and the tablet Brivan had entrusted her with—etched with Liera's Keeper seal. It pulsed faintly whenever she neared something alive… or something waiting.
By midday, her boots were soaked, and her legs ached from trudging through mud that sucked at every step. The marsh didn't just slow her body—it gnawed at her mind. Whispers danced between the reeds. Her name spoken in voices she didn't know. Shadows that moved like forgotten friends.
She nearly turned back when she stumbled into the clearing.
There, in the heart of the marsh, stood what remained of the Sanctuary of Liera.
It wasn't grand. Not anymore.
The stone arch had cracked down the middle, vines strangling its once-sacred carvings. Broken pillars leaned like weary guardians. But at the center of it all was a circle of blackened ground—charred, lifeless, untouched by regrowth.
The echo of an ending.
Chizzy stepped into the ring. Her breath hitched.
A sudden wave of memory—not hers—hit her.
A man's voice, desperate. "Please. Don't take her."
A scream. A shattering.
And then—nothing.
Chizzy fell to her knees.
The emberstone flared hot against her chest, and when she pulled it free, it pulsed in response to something beneath the soil.
She dug.
Her fingers tore through mud and ash until they hit a smooth, warm surface—glass.
She unearthed a memory shard.
Not just any shard.
It was glowing faintly blue—an uncorrupted core.
She held it in trembling hands. "Is this… yours, Liera?"
The moment her skin made contact, a warmth spread up her arm.
A vision flooded her mind.
Liera, seated in this very sanctuary, singing softly to the memory basin as it sealed the stories of children long gone. Her eyes were kind. Her voice carried sorrow and strength in equal measure.
Then Malrec entered—frantic, broken. "They're gone," he whispered.
And Liera had looked up at him—not in fear. Not even anger.
But compassion.
She reached out, touched his cheek. "If we forget pain, we forget love too."
The vision shattered.
Chizzy gasped. Tears rolled down her cheeks.
This wasn't just a shard.
It was the last thing Liera had preserved—for him.
She slipped it into the satchel, cradling it like a flame.
A tremor passed through the earth beneath her.
The Beast had felt it.
Malrec would know.
The marsh, once silent, now hummed—with warning, with awakening.
Chizzy stood, eyes blazing. "You wanted to forget her, Malrec. But she remembered you. Even at the end."
She turned toward the Hollow.
There was no more running.
Only remembering.