Age 15
Vault of Silence, Deep Below the Temple
Kael stood alone before a door that had no handle, no lock, no hinges.
Just a name carved into its surface.
His own.
KAEL
Not the ash name the cult had given him. Not the runes scrawled across his robes. His true name, sealed into stone.
Behind this door lay the final rite of the Severed Path: the Culling.
No one spoke of what happened inside. Only that once you entered, you came out empty of everything that came before.
No hesitation. No doubt. No memory.
Just a vessel for purpose.
A servant of the Path.
He touched the carving.
The stone dissolved like ash, and darkness welcomed him in.
The chamber was a mirror, endlessly reflecting his form across black glass. His voice echoed back at him in strange distortions.
Then came the voice—not his own, not the Hollow Circle's.
"You carry seven names within you. Speak them. Cut them. Burn them."
Seven names. Seven truths he still clung to.
They appeared as shadows in the mirror.
Kael — the boy, before the cult.
Son — to a mother who screamed his name.
Brother — to Lira, though they shared no blood.
Traitor — to the girl he let die.
Murderer — of a father who once begged for mercy.
Weapon — of the Severed Path.
Doubt — the name he never spoke, but always felt.
Each flickered in the glass, whispered truths he wanted to deny.
The blade appeared in his hand again—the Knife of Forgetting.
He knew what he was meant to do.
Cut each name.
Let them die.
Let himself become nothing but Path.
He raised the blade to the glass.
Paused.
His reflection stared back—calm, precise, obedient.
But inside, something burned. A memory that had survived too long.
Lira's hand.
Her voice.
"Don't let them erase you."
The blade trembled.
He lowered it.
"No," he whispered. "I'll carry them."
"All of them."
The room shuddered.
The mirrors cracked—not shattered—but fractured with light.
The shadows hissed.
A voice roared:
"You deny the Severing?"
Kael bared his teeth. "I completed the Severing. But I kept the parts you wanted dead."
"Then you are incomplete. Broken."
"No," he said, stepping forward. "I'm almost real."
The mirrors exploded into swirling motes.
The chamber dissolved.
Kael stood in a different space now—white marble, gold-touched glass. The threshold of the Tower.
Waiting for him, cloaked in silence, was a member of the Hollow Circle. No mask. Just a scarred face and ancient eyes.
"You are not like the others," the priest murmured. "You carry ghosts."
"They make me stronger."
"Or they will be your undoing."
The priest stepped aside.
The door ahead pulsed with impossible light. A sigil written in forgotten time rotated slowly on its surface.
Kael stepped forward.
Into the Tower.