The Hollowing Sea faded behind them like a fading nightmare, its silence replaced by the rustle of dunes. Elira and Kael now walked across the Ashen Wastes, a desert scorched not by sun, but by memory. Each grain of sand shimmered faintly, as though touched by lost magic.
Elira could feel the change in the embers — the first three now fully joined, their warmth deeper, steadier. But with their strength came another sensation: watching eyes. Something — or someone — knew.
> "They'll be hunting us now," Kael said, his hand on the hilt of his blade. "The more you carry, the more the Pact will feel it."
> "Let them feel it," Elira replied, her voice hardening. "They've lived in shadows too long."
They camped near the bones of a fallen colossus — a giant stone statue half-buried in the dunes. By firelight, Kael unfurled an ancient map marked with blood-red ink.
> "We're here," he said, pointing to the center of the waste. "But the next fragment lies in the Whispering Vault, beneath the sunken city of Vaelor."
> "What makes it whisper?" Elira asked.
> "Not what. Who," Kael replied. "The vault is a prison. A thousand souls buried alive when they refused to bow to Mareth. Their oaths became eternal."
That night, Elira dreamed.
She was walking through fire. Not flames that burned, but those that remembered — images flickering in the heat: her mother's voice, her brother's laughter, the night her world ended.
At the heart of the fire stood a man with no face. Cloaked in smoke. His voice was thunder without sound.
> "You carry what is not yours."
> "It was given to me," Elira said.
> "Then prepare to burn with it."
She awoke with a gasp, the embers in her chest smoldering hotter than before.
---
They reached the ruins of Vaelor at midday.
Sand had devoured most of the city, leaving only jagged spires and archways jutting out like the ribs of a long-dead beast. At its center: a massive circular slab of stone — the seal of the Whispering Vault.
Kael approached first, pressing his hand to the seal. It pulsed, once. Then again.
> "It's waiting for you," he said.
Elira stepped forward. As her fingers touched the stone, whispers erupted — hundreds of voices all at once, layered and overlapping. Some pleading, some screaming, some simply calling her name.
The slab cracked open.
Stairs spiraled down into the dark, and with them came a cold wind that smelled of dust and time.
> "Only you can enter," Kael said, his expression grave. "I can't follow. The Vault only opens for the bearer."
Elira hesitated — then descended alone.
As she walked deeper into the earth, the voices faded to a single one: her own, echoing softly ahead of her.
And in the deepest chamber, beyond iron gates and fire-burned stone, the fourth ember waited.
It was black, rimmed with light.
Not cold, but not warm either.
Balanced.
Waiting to choose.
---