The Salt Caverns of Kherem were never meant to be entered again.
Taru stood at the threshold, the wind behind him reeking of blood and brine. Before him yawned a narrow passage into the cliffside, its mouth rimmed with glistening white crystal—sharp as teeth. The salt here wasn't clean. It clung to old blood, to whispers, to tears shed generations ago.
He drew his blade, whispering the invocation passed to him by the Fifth Flame. It sparked briefly, then dimmed. Here, light didn't last.
The descent was slow.
Step by step, Taru moved through winding tunnels lined with veins of crimson salt—each one humming faintly, pulsing like wounded flesh. The deeper he went, the colder it grew, and the more he remembered things he wished he'd forgotten.
The brother he let die.
The village he couldn't save.
The woman whose forgiveness he never earned.
He tried to ignore them. But the salt knew.
It fed on regret.
In the heart of the cavern, the Salt Throne waited.
A jagged seat carved from salt and bone, wrapped in chains no one alive had forged. And seated atop it—
Koma.
His former comrade.
His oldest friend.
His betrayer.
"Koma…" Taru breathed, frozen in place.
The man hadn't aged a day. His robes, once golden, were now colorless and cracked with salt. His eyes were hollow, but his voice was whole.
"You should not have come."
"I came to stop the spreading," Taru said. "To seal this place for good."
Koma stood, and the chains fell from his shoulders like dead vines. "You came to bury your guilt. But you don't get to forget me. Not after what you left me to become."
Taru gripped his blade. "You made your choice when you sided with the Broken Flame."
"I didn't side with them." Koma's voice trembled. "I created them."
The truth shattered through the silence like thunder.
Koma—brilliant, bold, once called the "Lantern's Voice"—had been the first to fracture under the burden of the flame. He saw too many names, carried too many deaths. And when no one came to relieve him… he broke.
"They promised I wouldn't forget the dead," he said. "But they forgot me. So I gave the forgotten a name. A purpose."
Taru's hands shook. "You brought this upon the land. The revenants. The possessions. The twisted echoes. You did this."
"I preserved them," Koma snarled. "You all let them rot."
Their swords clashed like history tearing itself apart.
Salt fell like rain from the cavern ceiling as their blades sparked in the darkness. Koma fought with a fury that came from centuries of betrayal. Taru fought with a grief so deep it had turned to steel.
And when their blades locked one final time, Taru whispered the only truth that could end it:
"I never stopped carrying you."
He plunged his blade—not into Koma's heart, but into the Salt Throne.
The ground howled. The chains screamed. The salt cracked and shattered in waves.
Koma fell to his knees as light burst from the floor.
And for the first time in a century, he wept.
"I wanted to be remembered," he whispered, fading into light. "But not like this."
"You are," Taru said softly, catching the last piece of his friend's soul before it vanished.
He emerged hours later, salt crusting his skin, his breath ragged.
Behind him, the caverns collapsed, sealed by the flame he'd reignited with sorrow.
He lit a blossom and watched it rise—glowing with Koma's name.
But even as it soared toward the stars, he felt something wrong ripple through the world.
A second site had fallen.
And now… Elias was missing.