The silence after battle was never peaceful. It was heavy. Oppressive. Inside the shattered vault of the ancient armory, it settled like a curse.
Emilia stood frozen at the center of the room, her hands still crackling faintly with the aftershock of released power. Around her, relics lay scattered across the floor, and cracks spidered through the obsidian walls, pulsing with residual soul energy.
Asher kept his eyes on her.
"You tapped into Memory," he said. "But you're untrained. That could've killed you."
"I didn't mean to," she whispered, her voice trembling. "He—he was going to kill you."
Elira hovered nearby, her glow dim but steady. "You acted on instinct. Your soul responded. That's rare… and dangerous."
Leaning on his new daggers, Liaen scoffed. "Rare, dangerous—and necessary. We'd be corpses if she hadn't."
"But at what cost?" Elira murmured.
They left the armory quietly. Sareth's presence lingered behind them like rot, clinging to the tunnels. Emilia trailed at the rear, her gaze low. With every step came flashes—images not her own. People she'd never met. Places long gone.
A child's laughter. A mother's tear. A battlefield burning in dusklight. Voices whispering names she didn't know.
She stumbled.
Asher caught her.
"They're not yours," he said gently. "They belong to the sword. The city. The dead."
"Then why do I feel them?" she asked, eyes wide, breath uneven.
"Because Memory doesn't just show the past," he said. "It remembers through you."
They surfaced into the buried underbelly of Alsira—twisting corridors that once held the capital's elite soul researchers. Now, only dust and shadows remained.
Eventually, they found a safe house—an old healer's refuge, its soul wards ancient and crumbling. Elira rekindled them with effort, her form flickering as she worked.
Inside, Emilia dropped onto a bench, covering her ears.
"I hear them," she murmured. "I can't stop hearing them. They're screaming."
Asher knelt beside her. "You've touched a soul domain few ever dare. Memory is power—but it demands a price."
"What price?" she whispered.
"Yourself," he said. "Bit by bit, Memory will take your identity unless you anchor it."
"And how do I anchor it?"
He looked to Elira, then back.
"Purpose."
That night, while Liaen slept nearby, Elira sat beside her husband. Emilia had finally slipped into restless sleep, her aura still flickering with residual echoes.
"She's strong," Elira said. "But I worry."
"She's not ready," Asher replied. "But none of us were."
He stared into the fire. "When you touched the soul plane, you changed. You pulled me back from death—but you never told me what you gave up to do it."
Elira turned toward him with a sad smile. "You already know, Asher. I gave up ever leaving."
Far away, in the ruins of the palace spire, Sareth knelt before a pulsing altar of bone and light.
"She has awakened," he said, voice low.
Behind him, a towering figure cloaked in living shadow stirred.
"Then accelerate the convergence," the creature intoned. "The Vessel must be brought to the Tower of Names."
Sareth bowed. "She will come willingly. She seeks answers. And the dead have many truths to offer."
The shadows laughed—a sound like bones snapping underwater.
Back in the refuge, Emilia woke with a start, drenched in sweat.
This time, the memory wasn't a blur. It was clear.
She stood on a battlefield of blood and stone, watching Asher fight an enemy she didn't recognize. Elira was there—alive. She screamed his name as a spear of void drove through him.
Then everything went white.
Emilia gasped, clutching her chest.
The memory wasn't from the past.
It was from the future.