—The Valley Remembers—
The ruins of the Valley of Fallen Oaths were not just stones and bones.
They were memory.
Not the kind passed down in books or bard's song—but living memory, soaked into the roots, etched into the air. If one stood still long enough—if one listened truly—they could hear it. Screams buried beneath moss. Promises whispered between vines. Lies fossilized in ash.
Kael Virehart had been coming here since he was fifteen.
Even then, he knew this place was bound to him. Not by coincidence or curiosity—but by design.
He was the Eighth Vessel, cursed to inherit the sins of each preceding life. Born under a fractured moon, branded with soul-glyphs before he could speak, Kael had never been free. Only aware.
And awareness was the cruelest chain of all.
Now at twenty-four, his body bore over two dozen glyphs. Each one tied to a curse locked beneath the world's crust, each one feeding on his spirit like roots through soil. And now—after years of quiet torment—the first of those seals was breaking.
The cycle was repeating again.
And this time, something felt different.
Not just darker.
Deeper.
Older.
---
—Silren's Warning—
"You've walked too far into memory," said Silren, his voice gravelled from years of silence and steel. "And if you fall in… I cannot pull you out again."
Kael didn't answer. His eyes were focused on the broken altar before him—twelve rings etched into obsidian, each representing one of the Primordial Curses. But now, one of those rings was cracked clean through. Lightless. Cold.
The Curse of Severance—the one that severed fate from flesh—had awakened.
"I felt it three nights ago," Kael said. "The glyph burned hotter than it ever had. And then I saw... her."
Silren frowned. "Who?"
Kael hesitated. "Nyra."
Silren stiffened. "That name is forbidden."
"I know," Kael snapped. "But she was in my dream. She remembered me. She called me by my true name."
The old warrior studied him carefully. "You believe these dreams are fragments of your past lives?"
Kael turned to him, eyes glowing faintly. "No. I know they are. I remember the battlefield at Arveth. The blood sky. The tower of bone. I remember dying—over and over—each time reborn with more curses stitched into me."
Silren's hand drifted to his sword hilt, but not out of threat. It was reflex. The kind of gesture men made when truths made the ground feel too unstable to stand on.
"Then you know the cycle cannot be broken," Silren said.
Kael's voice was steel. "And yet I will try."
---
—The Hollow Tongue's Return—
By dusk, they came.
The wind died.
The birds vanished.
And one by one, shadows lengthened unnaturally across the valley floor.
They came barefoot, silent, faces hidden behind porcelain masks, each with a different crack or tear etched into them. Cloaks of night-ink flowed around their frames as if alive, and behind them floated thin parchment scrolls, unraveling with glyphs that shimmered red in the fading light.
The Order of the Hollow Tongue had returned.
Kael recognized the leader instantly.
His mask bore no eyeholes—just a sunken mouth carved into a perpetual, silent scream.
He stepped forward and spoke.
"We have opened the first gate. The Devourer breathes once more. The Vessel has arrived."
Kael raised his hand—and the glyph on his palm pulsed.
"Back away from the seal," he warned.
The masked figure tilted his head. "You carry the marks of the ancient design. You are the doorway."
"I'm also the lock," Kael hissed.
---
—The Fight: Invocation of the First Curse—
It happened too fast.
The Hollow Tongue chanted in a tongue that made the sky flicker like a broken mirror. Symbols lit in midair—shapes that burned to look at. Then the earth split at the altar, and from its depths came a storm of smoke and limbs.
The First Curse had awoken.
A figure rose—not entirely human.
Clad in chains of shadow, its ribcage exposed like a cage within a cage, and its face obscured by a mask made of mirrors. Each step it took twisted gravity. Each breath inverted light.
The Curseborn was not alive.
It was a memory given form.
And Kael was its enemy.
He shouted an invocation, and the glyphs on his arms exploded in flame.
"Voth'kar en Elistar!" — Starbind Seal: Flame Within the Skin!
Chains of golden fire burst from his hands, lashing toward the Curseborn. It raised one arm and caught them—and the fire turned black.
Not even starfire could hold it.
It laughed—a sound like glass breaking underwater—and swiped with its claws. Kael dodged, barely. The ground behind him melted like wax.
Silren dove in, sword glowing with runes of the old kings. He struck fast—but the blade passed through mist.
Kael cursed. "It's not here fully. It's still manifesting!"
"Then we kill the summoners!" Silren growled.
---
—A Glimpse of the Past—
As the battle raged, Kael's vision fractured.
The Curseborn's aura triggered a memory—no, a regression.
He was no longer in the valley.
He was on a battlefield beneath three moons.
He wore black armor. His name was... Kaerun Virehart.
And he stood before Nyra, her eyes burning with betrayal.
"You promised you wouldn't become one of them," she said.
"I didn't choose this," he said. "I was born into the bloodline. I'm only trying to stop it."
She lowered her sword. "Then why do I see a monster?"
---
—The Return—
Kael gasped, returning to the present as Silren yanked him out of the path of a second blow.
He hit the ground hard, coughing blood.
"You blacked out," Silren barked. "Focus!"
"I remember her," Kael muttered. "She knew me. Not in this life, but before."
"There's no time for riddles," Silren snapped. "That thing—"
"—is only the first," Kael finished.
And then—gathering what strength he had—he invoked the Glyph of Desolation. A forbidden sigil.
His entire arm blackened. Veins glowed red.
He drove his palm into the ground.
And the Curseborn screamed.
The shockwave collapsed the altar and sent the Hollow Tongue flying. The creature shimmered—its body destabilizing. And then—like shattered ice—it crumbled and vanished.
Silence.
Only the wind returned.
---
—The Aftermath—
Kael slumped against a broken column, breathing hard.
"Your arm…" Silren said.
The glyph had spread.
It now climbed his shoulder and neck.
"It's worth it," Kael muttered.
"No. It's the beginning."
Silren looked toward the collapsed altar.
"One seal broken. Eleven more remain."
Kael nodded. "And the deeper I go, the more I'll remember."
Silren looked at him, truly looked at him.
"Are you prepared to hate who you used to be?"
Kael didn't answer.
Because he already did.
---
—Meanwhile...—
In a cathedral deep beneath the ocean, an immortal priestess held a page of prophecy written in Kael's own blood—gathered from a past life.
She read the final line aloud, whispering:
> "The Vessel shall fall twelve times…
And on the thirteenth, become the Curse itself."
She looked up at the chained god sleeping in the pit.
"It has begun again."