The gate opened like an ancient wound, not with sound but with the silence of something long-buried remembering its own pain.
As Belarion descended the spiral of molten coral stairs beneath the altar, the sea itself seemed to hold its breath. Kaelira followed, her flame-orbs casting reflections on walls lined with ossified prayers and forgotten names.
Each step echoed with memories not yet his—flashes of battles fought in oceans turned to steam, of a throne carved from dragonbone and sorrow. The reliquary beneath Harkened Vale was no simple tomb. It was a crucible of memory, sealed not to protect the relics within, but to shield the world from the truths entombed.
System Notification:
You are now entering a Legacy Memory Core.
Time, perception, and causality may distort.
WARNING: Identity Bleed Possible. Mental Fortitude Recommended.
He crossed the threshold.
Flame-Tongue's Echo
The chamber was spherical—miles wide yet closing in like a coffin. In its center hovered a throne engulfed in petrified flame. Upon it sat a figure not alive, not dead, but recorded in flame itself.
A Flame-Walker of the First Dominion.
And he wore Belarion's face.
Kaelira gasped. "That's not… it can't be you."
But it was. Or would be. Or had been. Time in the Valeheart did not obey causality.
The seated figure opened eyes of molten gold.
"You've returned," it spoke.
Belarion raised his chin. "Then you remember."
"I am the remembering."
System Trait Unlocked: [Eidolic Memory Chain]
You may now converse with preserved echoes of past selves within sealed memory domains.
Trait Effect: Stability of past-lives increased. Echoes may grant skills, titles, or unique quests.
The throne-bound Echo extended a hand. Flame curled from his fingers, reshaping into a single image: a city of glass towers beneath a falling sun, surrounded by celestial fire.
"The Skyfall Accord," the Echo said. "You broke it. We broke it."
"I don't remember making it," Belarion said.
"You will. And you must choose to break it again."
The Pact of Falling Stars
The Echo began to reveal pieces of the forgotten war:
The Flameborn, once celestial stewards, had made a pact with the gods to bind the stars.
In return, they were granted systems—divine engines of growth, bound by law and purpose.
But one Flameborn—Belarion's prior incarnation—rebelled. He refused to let the stars be chained.
He shattered the pact. Killed a god. Burned a realm.
The result? The Court of the Shattered Heavens.
Belarion absorbed the knowledge as if it were his own bones reknitting. The Echo's flame pulsed and shrank, its task nearly done.
Skill Gained: [Skybreaker's Oath]
Passive Effect: +30% effectiveness vs. divine constructs, celestial bindings, and realm seals.
Active Effect: Once per arc, nullify one divine pact or contract.
The walls trembled.
Kaelira clutched her staff. "Something's coming."
The Echo nodded. "The Watcher assigned to this memory."
System Alert:
Interference Detected. Temporal Guardian inbound: [Watcher of the Ninth Thread]
The Watcher Arrives
The walls of the chamber tore open like fabric. Time itself stuttered.
The Watcher emerged—not a being, but a knot of moments. A constantly shifting tapestry of versions of itself. One wore priest-robes, one was armored, one burned with silent lightning.
"You were not meant to awaken this chain," it spoke from a hundred mouths.
Belarion stepped forward, flame wreathing his body.
"I was never meant to exist, and yet here I stand."
The fight was not of body, but of narrative. Each attack rewrote a moment. The Watcher tried to erase Belarion's entrance, but he rewove it with his Memory Ascendant trait. Kaelira cast a mirror-loop spell, forcing failed timelines into attacking the Watcher itself.
They danced through seconds turned into blades.
Then Belarion unleashed Skybreaker's Oath.
One oath, one truth: "No god shall bind what was born in flame."
The Watcher screamed as its form unraveled, timelines collapsing into nothing.
Victory Achieved
You have defeated a Temporal Guardian.
Spoils: [Fragment of the Ninth Thread] – usable in World-Thread crafting.
Title Gained: [Flamewalker Reawakened]
The Echo, now fading completely, offered one last gift—a memory seed, sealed in crystal.
"Take this to the Ashvault Library. There, the Flame That Betrayed Heaven shall speak."
Belarion accepted it. "Will I see you again?"
The Echo smiled. "You already are me."
Departure
As they returned to the surface, the sea had quieted. The red had receded. The Lotus, for the first time in a decade, had bloomed.
Its petals glowed with starlight.
Kaelira whispered, "What now?"
Belarion looked northward, toward a distant spire breaking the horizon.
"Now, we awaken the Flame That Betrayed Heaven."
Next: Chapter 14 – Ashvault and the Fire of Forbidden Tomes