There was no sky in the place they emerged.
No stars. No sun. No sense of time.
Only a pale, translucent dome that shimmered above like a reflection cast on still water—and endless ruins beneath it, suspended in silence and shadow.
Ashara rose slowly from her knees, breath still ragged from the sprint through divine fire and stone. The Heart of Echoes throbbed faintly now, no longer screaming but humming in soft pulses like the slow beat of the tide.
"Where… are we?" Caelum asked, his voice hushed as though afraid to wake something.
Ezekiel stepped forward, sword still in hand. "Not anywhere on the map."
Ashara turned in a slow circle. The ruins surrounding them bore the remnants of civilization—arches broken and buried in silver sand, script etched in long-dead alphabets on shattered pedestals, and statues of faceless queens and crowned beasts.
Then she saw it.
A tower.
Half-buried. Crooked. But unmistakably ancient—and familiar.
System Ping:
✦ Liminal Sanctuary: Active
➤ Chrono-Anchor Detected
➤ Memory Thread Proximity – 15 meters
"This place," Ashara whispered, stepping toward the tower. "It remembers me."
The path was winding and quiet, the air heavy with the scent of ash and old salt.
No birds. No wind.
Only the crunch of their boots over forgotten ground.
Caelum walked a step behind her, gaze sharp but unsettled. "I don't like how still it is. Places that look this peaceful usually have corpses hidden in the walls."
"Or under the sand," Ezekiel said.
They reached the tower.
Its doors had long since rotted into dust, but the archway still stood. A faint symbol was etched at the top: a circle split by a thorned line.
Ashara touched it—and her vision flared.
She stood in the same tower—but it was whole.
Stone banners fluttered in a breeze she couldn't feel. A woman stood at the window, her back turned.
Ashara's breath caught.
The woman had her posture.
Her hands.
Her voice, when she finally spoke.
"They won't listen, will they? Not until the sea returns to take what it's owed."
The memory shifted. The tower cracked.
Another version of herself—older, harder—etched something into the floor with a blade of glowing light.
A warning. A prophecy.
"When the Bell tolls and the Sea stirs, the thorn shall bleed anew."
Ashara gasped, stumbling back into her body.
Ezekiel caught her again, steady and wordless.
"You saw something," he said.
She nodded. "Not just a vision. A warning. Left by me. Or a version of me. In this place."
They entered the tower.
Inside, time seemed suspended. The sand that had poured in through cracks floated mid-air, frozen like spilled stardust. A table of stone sat at the center of the room, and upon it lay a scroll—unfaded, pristine, and pulsing with faint magic.
Ashara approached.
System Interface Triggered:
✦ Artifact: Echo-Scribed Prophecy
➤ Author: Ashara – Cycle 4
✦ Translating…
She read aloud.
"They will call it blasphemy. They will burn your name and bind your breath. But when the Heart awakens and the Coil stirs, you must not falter. The gods fear the thorn not for its crown, but for its bloom. Let them come."
"And if you must die again—make it count."
A long silence followed.
Caelum exhaled slowly. "Well. That's dramatic."
Ashara touched the scroll's surface, but it did not decay. "This was written by me. From a life before this one."
Ezekiel looked around the tower. "That would make this place a convergence point. A nexus where your past incarnations anchored their truths."
System Note:
✦ Liminal Memory Anchors – 1 of 6 Unlocked
➤ Each reveals forgotten truths and strengthens system attunement
➤ Next Anchor Location: Shifting Sea – Shrine of the Deep Bloom
Ashara's gaze sharpened. "Six anchors. Six thorns. Six lives?"
Caelum crossed his arms. "Then how many of you have died for this empire already?"
Ezekiel knelt beside the pedestal holding the scroll. Beneath it was a shallow indentation filled with metallic sand. With a single gloved finger, he swept the sand aside—and revealed a symbol etched in gold.
A map sigil.
"It's a path," he murmured. "One the gods tried to erase."
Ashara leaned closer. The sigil mapped across three known regions—The Shifting Sea, The Sunken Vale, and The Vale of Mourning.
At the center: a mark resembling the Heart of Echoes.
And near the coast, a symbol that mirrored the Leviathan Coil.
System Update:
✦ Prophecy Path Initialized
➤ Mainline Quest: Bloom of the Sixth Thorn
➤ Objective: Reach the Shrine of the Deep Bloom
➤ Warning: Divine Resistance Guaranteed
Caelum ran a hand through his hair. "We'll be hunted the moment we leave this place."
"We're already hunted," Ezekiel replied. "This just gives us direction."
Ashara rolled the scroll and slid it into the inner pocket of her coat.
"We find the shrine. We recover the next anchor."
"And what then?" Caelum asked. "Raise another army? Burn the heavens?"
Ashara's eyes glinted.
"If needed," she said. "Yes."
They remained in the sanctuary until the Coil's echo cooled in her chest.
Ezekiel took first watch, his silhouette a dark sentinel at the tower window.
Caelum leaned against the far wall, half-dozing, but his gaze drifted to Ashara more than once when he thought she wouldn't notice.
She sat near the stone hearth, legs crossed, the Heart of Echoes still resting against her collarbone. Her fingers idly traced the outline of the scroll beneath her cloak.
The memory of the older her—the version who carved warnings into stone and dared to defy gods—haunted her.
Who was she becoming?
System Internal Note (Hidden Thread Unlocked):
✦ Ashara's past self predicted the return of the Leviathan Coil
✦ Sixth Thorn Cycle: Imminent Completion
➤ Once all anchors are awakened, the final fork will initiate
➤ Outcome: Unknown
Ashara rose before sleep could take her.
She crossed the tower and leaned beside Ezekiel.
"Do you believe in fate?" she asked quietly.
He didn't look at her. "I used to."
"And now?"
He hesitated. "Now I believe in you."
Their eyes met.
For a long moment, the silence between them said more than any confession.
Then Ashara looked toward the horizon—toward the ruins, toward the sea beyond the shimmering dome, and beyond even that, to the place where the gods waited for her to slip.
"I'm not done rising," she whispered.
"No," Ezekiel said. "You're just beginning."