The Veiled Hollow was nothing like they expected.
Not a tomb. Not a temple.
It was a memory made stone—walls formed from obsidian thoughts, air thick with silence older than gods.
As Kael and his companions descended into the spiraling path of the Hollow, torchlight revealed visions etched into the stone: kingdoms burning, skies split by red lightning, a crimson figure standing atop mountains of ash.
Kael paused, his eyes narrowing at the carvings.
It was him. Or something that wore his face.
"Are we being watched?" Darric murmured.
"No," Lyra replied, voice low. "We're being remembered."
At the base of the Hollow lay a circular chamber—a dais of glass and veins of living flame. And atop it sat her:
The Oracle.
She was neither alive nor dead. Draped in molten silks, her face hidden behind a mirrored mask, her presence radiated like heat before a storm.
She did not speak. But when Kael stepped forward, her eyes—twin glimmers beneath the mask—opened.
And reality shattered.
Kael stood alone in a space without form. His companions were gone. His blade gone.
Before him loomed the silhouette of a king, but faceless—crowned in obsidian thorns, crimson lightning pulsing beneath its skin.
Kael staggered forward.
"Who… are you?"
The Sovereign did not answer. Instead, Kael saw it—
Flashes of the future.
Cities falling.
His own hand, drenched in blood not his own.
A throne of black stone rising beneath his feet.
Lyra—bleeding.
Darric—crumbling into ash.
Kaelen—smiling as the world burned.
Then the Sovereign's voice, cold and ancient:
"You are the heir to the flame. But all flames consume."
Kael collapsed to his knees, gasping as the vision faded. The others rushed to him—Darric steadying him, Lyra kneeling beside him, worry etched across her face.
"What did she show you?" Isryn asked, her voice softer than usual.
Kael stared ahead, eyes distant.
"Futures. Or warnings. Or both."
The Oracle remained still, yet in Kael's hand now rested a small crystal shard, warm to the touch and pulsing with familiar energy.
"The Ember Keystone," Lyra whispered. "It's real."
Isryn stepped forward. "This means the path to the Obsidian Crown is open."
Darric looked grim. "Then so is the war."
Kael slowly rose.
"Then we don't stop. Not now. Not ever."
Behind them, the Oracle's flame dimmed—her task done.
Ahead of them, the world waited to burn.