Beneath the Throne of Velkaron, the earth had no scent. No sound. No heat. The stairway spiraled endlessly downward, carved from obsidian glass that shimmered with ghostly memories scenes flickering faintly along the walls: burning skies, cities in reverse time, stars dying like candles snuffed in water.
Alden held his sword before him, its runes dim in this place where magic itself seemed uncertain. Elira followed, a veil of warding light cast around their small expedition. Kaelen brought up the rear, his grip white-knuckled on the hilt of his moonsteel blade.
The Umbrakin guide, a being called Sythren, walked barefoot ahead of them, his steps utterly silent despite the stone. His voice rang not in the air, but inside their minds.
"This path leads to the Sanctuary of Memory. There, Velkaron waits. Not in body. In echo."
"He remembers all that was. All that could be."
They had descended for nearly an hour when the stairway opened into a vast underground hall, impossibly vast. Great pillars of shadow glass rose into an unseen ceiling, and suspended between them were tapestries made of starlight and smoke, each showing events that had never happened.
One depicted Zevrak kneeling before Aldric. Another showed Nyxara crowned as Empress of a united Eldaris. A third… Alden could barely look at.
It showed himself impaled by a blade of light, held by his sister.
Elira turned away from it, shaken.
"This place… it shows possibilities," she whispered.
Kaelen muttered, "Or lies."
Sythren gestured toward a pedestal at the chamber's heart.
"Place your hand upon the Mirror-Heart. Let it see you."
Alden stepped forward, hesitating only once. As his fingers touched the surface of the pedestal, a jolt of raw energy surged through his arm. His eyes flared white and then the chamber fell away.
He stood in a different world.
The sky was torn into pieces, stitched together by silver veins. Cities floated in the air with massive temples of light and crystal. And at the center of it all stood a figure cloaked in shifting shadow and gold, sitting on a throne of intertwining branches and blades.
Velkaron.
He was not monstrous. Not yet. He looked… like a man. Human, perhaps; but his eyes burned with stars, and his presence pressed against Alden's soul like gravity.
"Why do you come here?" Velkaron asked.
Alden steadied himself. "Because the world is unraveling. Because your name is returning to it."
Velkaron rose from the throne, footsteps echoing on nothing.
"They bound me in silence. Not because I was evil. But because I asked why creation must be ruled by order alone. I offered choice. Chaos. Change. I was cast out for it."
"Because you threatened balance," Alden countered.
"No," Velkaron said, voice suddenly soft. "Because I understood it."
He stepped closer. "You think yourself the heir of peace. The golden child of unity. But unity is a lie. What unites eventually fractures. What holds, must one day fall."
Alden narrowed his eyes. "Then why whisper to us through the Veil? Why pull us here?"
Velkaron tilted his head. "Because I am tired. And because soon, they will come. The ones who made even me kneel. When they return, you will need more than unity."
Alden felt the ground vanish beneath his feet.
He gasped and stumbled as he returned to the chamber. Elira caught him, concern etched in her face.
"What did you see?"
"Velkaron," he whispered. "And something worse."
Before he could speak further, the tapestries flared this time, showing rifts opening across Eldaris. The scenes were hazy, prophetic… yet too real.
In one, the dwarven capital collapsed into a sinkhole. In another, the Silver Tree of Sylvaran withered, its branches blackened by smoke. And then, a third tapestry: Solhaven swallowed by a shimmering tear in the sky.
Elira stepped back, horrified. "These are visions of the future."
Kaelen growled. "Or they're warnings we're already too late to stop."
Sythren stepped forward.
"The world forgets. But memory lives. Velkaron offers you the truth. He cannot cross the Veil alone… but his whispers now reach all who bear the blood of the Four Kings."
"You are not the only ones listening."
That night, aboard the Elarion Windrider, Elira lay in her cabin unable to sleep. The whispers still echoed in her mind, even beneath layers of wards and silence spells.
Then came a knock at her door.
Alden entered quietly, his face drawn and weary.
"Another vision," he said without preamble.
She nodded. "I saw the Mirror again. But this time… it was whole. Floating in the sky, casting shadows over the sea."
Alden sat beside her.
"Velkaron isn't just trying to return. He's trying to reshape the world from its roots. Not through war, but through memory."
Elira whispered, "And if he succeeds, nothing will be as it was. Or ever should be."
They sat in silence.
Then Alden asked the question neither had dared voice.
"What if he's not wrong?"
Elira turned slowly.
"He might not be," she said. "But that doesn't make him right either."
Far from their ship, in the quiet deserts of the southern waste, a man knelt before a flickering tear in the sky. The rift pulsed with dark violet light, and voices swam through it, the fragments of memory, whispers of forgotten names.
The man raised a blade made of obsidian and bone. Around him, others knelt, cloaked in ash.
They chanted in unison.
"Velkaron remembers."
"We are the Undying Flame."
"Let the Fifth Throne rise."