The inner vaults of Vaelgard were not made for the living.
Kaelen descended stone steps worn smooth by centuries, the walls around him lined with torches that flickered not with fire, but with ghostly blue flame. The air was cold — older than death — and each breath felt like it scraped his lungs.
Seralyn walked just ahead, her hand resting lightly on the pommel of her sword. Though she'd said nothing since they'd left the war chamber, Kaelen knew she was unsettled. The mention of Lyssara had shaken something in her — and perhaps in him too.
At the bottom of the staircase, a rune-marked door stood sealed by seven iron locks.
Waiting beside it was Archivist Maeron, an old man draped in tattered crimson robes, his eyes clouded but his voice sharp.
"You are not permitted here," he rasped. "These records are sealed by divine accord."
Seralyn stepped forward. "We have just stood before the Throne of Night. We heard the whispers. We were spared. You will let us in."
The old man hesitated. Then he leaned in close to Kaelen."You heard them?" he whispered. "The bones... they spoke?"
Kaelen nodded. "They said: Two souls bearing light before the Throne of Night."
Archivist Maeron paled. For a long moment, he stared at them as if weighing something ancient and terrible.
Then, without another word, he turned and began unlocking the door — one rusted bolt at a time.
The Vault of Ashes was unlike any room Kaelen had ever seen.
No light reached here. No flame could survive it. The entire space pulsed faintly with a black-red glow that seemed to come from the walls themselves, veins of ancient magic pulsing just beneath the surface.
Dust thick as snow blanketed cracked tomes, relics, and weapons older than memory. At the center of the room was a basin of obsidian filled with unmoving silver liquid. Around it were seven obelisks — each etched with sigils that no longer had names.
Maeron gestured. "This is all that remains of the True Archive. Destroyed by decree of the gods after the Cataclysm. But some fragments survived."
Kaelen approached one of the tomes. Its cover was scorched, its title unreadable, but inside—He gasped.There, amid the ash-streaked parchment, was the sigil he had seen etched into Vorath's throne.
A mark he had thought lost to time.
The Mark of the Seraphic Flame.
Seralyn spoke, her voice hollow. "I thought that mark belonged to the high order of the light-born — the flame-keepers from the first age."
Maeron nodded slowly. "It did. It was the mark of those chosen by the Goddess of Light herself. But it was cast into shadow when one among them… turned."
He paused.
"His name was struck from every record. His love condemned. His legacy shattered."
Kaelen whispered, "Vorath."
Maeron didn't confirm it — but his silence was confirmation.
Then he moved to the basin and traced a finger through the silver pool. Ripples spread, then twisted — forming an image: a field of dead angels beneath a black sun… a woman's silhouette reaching for a fallen warrior… and a sword, dark as void, being lifted for the first time.
"He was not born in shadow," Maeron said. "He was made in it."
Suddenly, the chamber trembled.The obelisks flared. The silver in the basin darkened.
From the deepest corners of the vault, a voice began to rise.Soft. Female. Echoing.
"You speak of what was buried... yet still she weeps."
Seralyn stepped back. "That voice—"
Kaelen turned pale. He had heard it once before.In the Throne Hall. When death should have claimed them.
"She watches still.In silence. In sorrow.*The light remembers what it chose to forget.*"
Maeron dropped to his knees. "Lyssara..."
Then the vault went still.
As Kaelen and Seralyn climbed back toward the surface, neither spoke for some time. But each step felt heavier. Truths once sealed were now open wounds. The story of Vorath was no longer black and white.
And somewhere deep inside, Kaelen felt the prophecy sink its roots into him.They had not merely encountered evil.They had stirred something older. Something sacred.Something... broken.