I didn't sleep.
Not after what I saw. Not after what I felt.
The whisper of her voice still lingered in my mind like smoke that refused to fade. Every time I blinked, I saw those silver eyes—calm, exhausted, filled with a sorrow that had seeped across centuries. Not rage. Not despair. Just tiredness. The kind you find in someone who had borne the burden of others for too long… and finally collapsed.
The shrine had burned away its spiral mask, leaving behind the faint gleam of a crescent moon embedded in the stone.
And the Flame inside me—the one I had almost forgotten was there—now pulsed differently. It no longer simply granted strength. It hummed with intent. With memory. As if… it wanted to be remembered.
As if it remembered her.
We left the Hollow Sky before dawn.
Lira walked beside me in silence. She hadn't spoken since the vision, and I hadn't asked. Something had changed in her eyes. There was a stillness there now, a steadiness born not of peace, but of realization. She had seen something too. Even if the system didn't speak directly to her… something else had.
We were both marked.
Marked by the same moonbound fire.
The forest had changed. Not in appearance, but in the way it breathed. The wind no longer carried the scent of decay—it carried something older. Something watchful. The trees no longer loomed with menace, but instead, they bent as we passed… like they knew. Like they had seen her walk before me.
And now they bowed to the echo of her passing.
I followed instinct more than logic. The System told me there were three Echo Nodes—points of forgotten resonance where Seluriel had left fragments of herself. No maps. No signs. Only the rhythmic pulse in my chest, guiding me forward.
Hours passed.
We climbed a moss-slick ridge and emerged into a field of collapsed stone cairns—graves that had long since lost their names. The air was thin here, touched by frost and something older. In the center of the field grew a single tree—twisted into a perfect spiral, its bark gnarled and silvered, its roots clawing into the earth like grasping fingers.
[System Notice: Echo Node Proximity – 68% Resonance]
There was something buried here.
Not bones.
Not metal.
Memory.
I stepped forward and knelt at the base of the tree. Its roots trembled as I placed my hand upon them, and the Devourer's Core surged to life—sensing not flesh, not soul, but a trace of resonance woven into the soil.
And I saw.
Visions.
A little girl standing beneath the moon, lifting a silver pendant toward the sky.
A young priestess, kneeling in prayer, hiding something beneath this very tree—crying as she sealed it away.
Spirals. Fire. Screams.
And silence.
[Echo Node Unlocked – Moonbound Keepsake]
[Resonance Increased: 21%]
The roots shifted, and something rose from the dirt—a silver teardrop amulet, shaped like a crescent moon. It was warm in my hand, humming softly in tune with the flame in my chest.
Lira approached quietly, her eyes drawn to the glow. "What is it?"
"It's a memory," I whispered. "Hers. She left pieces of herself behind… for someone to find."
"Why?"
I looked up at the twisted branches. "To remember her. To finish what she couldn't. Or… to learn what was taken from her."
Lira stared at me for a long moment. "You're changing."
"So is everything."
[Objective Progress: 1 / 3 Echo Nodes Recovered]
As we turned to leave, the wind shifted. It blew from the north now, carrying with it the faintest sound.
A woman's voice.
Faint. Almost drowned by the rustle of trees.
"Do not mourn me. Mourn the world that forgot."
The flame in my chest pulsed again.
I clenched the amulet tighter, then slipped it into my cloak.
The Spiral Cult hadn't just cursed this land. They had erased her. Buried her name. Twisted her memory into madness.
But now the truth was waking.
One echo at a time.