The sky above shimmered like broken glass, each cloud a jagged mirror of time gone awry. The battle had faded, but its aftertaste lingered in the air like burnt iron and regret. Elyra, Kael, and Vespera stood on the threshold of the Vault of Forgotten Truths, a monolith carved from obsidian and starlight. It pulsed faintly, as though breathing, its runes whispering ancient names no living tongue should speak.
Elyra's boots crunched over bones that were not yet dead—trapped in some loop of memory, twitching in eternal agony. The door had no keyhole, no handle, no seams, and yet it knew them. It opened not with a groan, but with a sigh, as if tired of waiting.
Inside, time broke.
The corridor twisted, looping backward into itself. Stars hung in glass orbs above, each one a fragment of a timeline that never was. A dragon roared behind one—Elyra flinched. Another orb held a burning throne. Another, a child holding a dying sun.
"This place is a trap," Kael said, voice low, hand on his sword. "A prison built to look like a temple."
Vespera disagreed. "No. It's a trial. And we were always meant to face it."
What followed was a descent through madness:
Hallways where memories peeled from their minds like skin from bone.
A chamber of mirrors where Elyra fought ten versions of herself—the queen, the tyrant, the martyr, the coward.
A river of ink that whispered Kael's true name, one even he had forgotten.
They reached the heart of the Vault, a dais floating in a void filled with voices. There, a figure waited—a shade wearing Elyra's mother's face.
"You were never meant to survive," the shade said.
Elyra stepped forward. "But we did."
The shade laughed. "Then it begins again."
She gave them a choice: one truth, in exchange for one memory. Elyra gave up her first flight with Starflame. In return, she learned what the gods feared.
Kael sacrificed his memory of his brother's face. He learned why the Crescent Order truly hunted him.
Vespera gave up nothing. The Vault took anyway.
They left hollowed, but enlightened. As the Vault sealed behind them, Elyra turned to the others.
"Whatever's coming..."
Kael finished her sentence. "It's already begun."
And the sky cracked again.