The mountain did not speak in words.
It groaned.
It wept.
It remembered.
As Coker stood on the jagged path leading up to the peak, the wind around him changed. It no longer howled—it whispered. Low voices, hundreds, maybe thousands, muttering in a language older than language.
Behind him, the stone soldiers marched in perfect silence. Lilin was beside him, as always, light on her feet, eyes heavy with knowledge she wouldn't yet share.
And above them, the sky bled ash again. Gray snow drifted from clouds that weren't clouds, and every flake that touched his skin melted like it recognized him.
Coker paused.
They had climbed halfway up the slope when the ground beneath him vibrated—not from footsteps or distant thunder, but from something deeper. Something buried.
"What is that?" he asked.
Lilin's expression darkened.
"The seal beneath the seal."
---
They reached a wide plateau near the summit—flat, circular, and utterly silent. No wind. No birds. Even the ash seemed to stop falling here.
In the center of the plateau stood an altar made of stone that wasn't stone—smooth, black, and warm to the touch. It pulsed gently, like a heartbeat.
Coker stepped toward it.
Lilin didn't follow.
"I can't go further," she said. "This is the place where your past ends… and your future begins."
Coker turned to her. "What happens if I touch it?"
She hesitated. "Then the last voice will speak to you."
He stepped forward.
"And if I don't like what it says?"
"Then the mountain crumbles. And the world goes blind again."
---
Coker placed his hand on the altar.
And the world fell away.
Everything—sound, light, ground, gravity—vanished.
He was floating in darkness.
Not empty darkness.
Alive darkness.
And then it spoke.
Not in words. Not in sound.
But in truth.
**"You are not what they made you."**
He spun, though there was no body to move.
**"You were not born. You were forged."**
Images burst into his mind: a forge larger than mountains, a star bleeding gold, and a blade—no, a boy—being shaped from that light. Hammered by something unseen. Screaming with each strike.
He saw himself fall to a ruined world, wrapped in chains not of metal, but of memory.
He saw a name.
A name no one remembered.
Not even him.
**"They erased your story. They sealed your throne. But they could not destroy the hunger."**
The darkness wrapped around him.
**"That hunger… is your true self."**
---
Coker fell to his knees.
Back on the mountain.
The altar still pulsed beneath his hand.
He was breathing heavily, eyes wide. The soldiers behind him hadn't moved. Lilin watched carefully, as if she feared what he'd say next.
"What did it show you?" she asked.
Coker didn't answer.
He couldn't.
Instead, he stood slowly and faced the edge of the plateau.
Down below, the valley twisted.
The sky had changed color again—now dark green with veins of silver. Rivers moved backward. Trees bent toward him like they were praying.
Then—
A rumble.
But not from the mountain.
From the air.
The sky cracked.
And something began to fall.
---
Not a star.
Not a comet.
A fortress.
A floating citadel, descending from the clouds like a forgotten god returning home. Its walls were carved with the same ancient runes as the altar. Its towers bled fire from their windows. Chains hung from its underside, dragging through the sky like anchors.
Coker stared up, unmoving.
"That's…" Lilin's voice was breathless. "That's the Vault of Echoes."
"What is it doing here?" he asked.
"It's not coming for you," she whispered. "It's coming because of you."
---
The Vault struck the valley floor miles away with the force of a thousand storms. Dust and fire exploded into the air. The shockwave hit the mountain, shaking the very stone beneath them.
Some soldiers fell.
Coker stood still.
The altar behind him glowed bright, brighter than ever before—then shattered into dust.
He didn't flinch.
He just turned around and whispered, "It's all coming back."
---
Later that night, by a fire the soldiers built near the plateau's edge, Lilin watched Coker sit in silence.
She finally spoke.
"You don't trust me anymore."
Coker glanced at her. "I never fully did."
"Then why keep me close?"
"Because I think… you're the only one who hates me honestly."
Lilin didn't smile. "Do you want me to leave?"
"No," he said. "I want you to tell me what I am."
She sighed.
"You were once called the End That Walks."
"That doesn't sound heroic."
"You weren't a hero. You were… necessary."
He looked into the flames. "And now?"
She stared at him. "Now, you're human. And that terrifies everyone."
---
In the Vault of Echoes, deep in its heart, something stirred.
A girl.
Sleeping inside a glass tomb.
Her hair was silver. Her body covered in ancient armor. Her hands glowed faintly.
As the Vault landed, her eyes snapped open.
She whispered a name.
"Coker."
Then the glass shattered.
She stepped out.
And the war began again.
---
Far away, the stars blinked.
A council of watchers stood on a ring of floating stone around a black sun. They looked down on the world below. Silent. Judging.
One of them, cloaked in feathers, spoke first.
"He's breaking the thread."
Another, with skin like obsidian, answered. "He is the thread."
A third, ancient and faceless, murmured, "Then we are already too late."
---
Back on the mountain, Coker woke from a short, restless sleep.
He had dreamed again.
This time, of a girl with silver hair standing atop a burning tower, holding out her hand.
She was crying.
And she whispered, "Please… don't become him."
Coker sat up and held his face in his hands.
He didn't know who she was.
But something inside him did.
And it was afraid.