The text-door dissolved into ash that rose instead of fell, vanishing into the ceiling like smoke remembering its flame.
Beyond it lay a single chamber.
Circular. Vast.
Empty—except for a stone dais in its center.
On the dais rested nothing more than a single blade.
Unadorned. Weathered. Its edge dulled from use, its hilt wrapped in frayed leather that looked like it should have rotted centuries ago.
But the blade bled light. Not outward, but inward—drawing the glow of the chamber into itself until the shadows bent around it.
Ashling felt the anchor quake in her chest.
Nyrelle's voice was barely a whisper. "That's not a weapon. That's a vow made steel."
They approached slowly.
As they drew closer, the chamber began to breathe. Not with air, but with memory.
The walls flickered to life, showing fragments—flashes of Keiran's youth no one should still recall.
A boy kneeling beside a river.
A hand clenched tight on that very blade.
Two moons overhead, touching.
And his voice, raw, young, defiant:
"If the world forgets me, I will not forget it.
If they tear me apart, I will bind myself again.
If they silence me, I will return louder."
The words carved themselves into the chamber stone as he spoke them, looping endlessly, impossible to erase.
Lys swallowed hard. "That… was his first vow."
Nyrelle's eyes were shining with inked tears. "The Concordium tried to erase it. But vows this deep root themselves in the bones of the world."
Ashling stepped to the dais.
The blade thrummed—not like metal, but like a heartbeat echoing hers.
The anchor in her chest roared to match, trying to fuse with it.
She reached out.
Her fingers brushed the hilt.
And the world inverted.
She stood in a void.
No Spire. No dais. Only two moons above her and the river beneath her feet.
Across the river, Keiran himself stood. Not a reflection. Not a broken fragment. Him.
He was younger, but the eyes were the same—grey, burdened, searching.
He held the blade in his hand, point angled toward the water.
"This is where I swore it," he said softly. "And this is where they took it from me. If you claim it now, Ashling… you carry it with me. Forever."
Her voice shook. "What if I break?"
His answer was a sad smile. "Then you'll break as I did. But not alone."
The river swelled, glowing with a thousand memories. She saw flashes—every path Keiran might have walked, every end he might have found. None of them ended gently.
The vow was heavier than steel. It wasn't just a promise. It was a curse disguised as hope.
But if she didn't take it, the Convergence would have no anchor to lock onto. He would scatter again, piece by piece, until there was nothing left but false reflections.
Ashling reached across the river.
Keiran mirrored her. Their hands touched at the blade's hilt.
The vow burned itself into her bones.
The void collapsed.
Ashling gasped, back in the Spire's chamber, the blade now in her grasp. The anchor fused with it, light coiling along its edge.
The walls screamed—not in pain, but in release—as the vow finished writing itself.
Thread alignment: 73%.
Convergence accelerating.
The chamber shook. Dust fell from the ceiling.
Nyrelle backed toward the exit. "We can't stay here. The Spire won't survive another vow being claimed."
But Ashling wasn't listening.
Because for the first time, the anchor didn't just pulse with Keiran's voice.
It pulsed with hers.
And the vow answered both.