They left the Hollow Stacks before dawn, when the mist was thickest and the Ghost Bells tolled their slowest. Draven moved through the swamp like he'd been born to it—sure-footed on uncertain ground, reading the water's surface for signs of sinkholes and submerged hazards that would pull an unwary traveler down to join the drowned.
"Stay in my footsteps," he instructed. "Exactly in them. The swamp remembers paths. If you follow where I've walked before, it'll be less likely to swallow you."
"Less likely?" Lyrienne asked.
"Nothing's guaranteed in Murkmire. Except death. That's very guaranteed."
They traveled in single file—Draven leading, then Corvin, then Mirethorn, with Lyrienne bringing up the rear. The Lumes that had followed her from Gloamspire stayed close, their light dimmed to barely a flicker. Even they seemed afraid of this place.
The landscape shifted as they moved deeper into the realm. The cypress forests gave way to more open swamp, where dead trees stood like skeletal sentinels and the water took on different colors—black in some places, rust-red in others, occasionally a sickly green that bubbled ominously.
"Don't touch the green water," Draven said without looking back. "That's where the regret pools. If it gets on your skin, you'll remember every mistake you've ever made all at once. Drives people mad within minutes."
"How do you know all this?" Mirethorn asked.
"Fifteen years in exile. You learn the swamp or the swamp eats you. I chose to learn." Draven paused to check their direction against the position of what passed for the sun in Murkmire—a pale disc barely visible through the perpetual overcast. "We're making good time. If we keep this pace, we'll reach the border crossing by nightfall tomorrow."
"What happens if we don't?" Corvin asked.
"Then we're stuck in the deep swamp overnight. And the things that hunt at night in Murkmire don't just kill you. They make you forget you were ever alive."
"You're very comforting," Lyrienne muttered.
They stopped at midday to rest on a relatively solid island—a raised mound of earth covered in moss that at least didn't squelch under their weight. Draven produced rations from his pack: dried fish that tasted like despair and water purified through methods he didn't explain and they didn't ask about.
"So," Draven said, studying Corvin. "You bonded with the Umbra Core. How'd that feel?"
"Like having three centuries of other people's memories poured into my skull all at once," Corvin said. "Not recommended."
"And now you're going after Floros. Planning to bond with two Cores?"
"If I have to."
"That's insane. One Core is dangerous enough. Two might fragment your mind completely. You could lose yourself in all those conflicting memories."
"I know the risks."
"Do you?" Draven leaned forward. "I've spent fifteen years watching people lose themselves to this swamp. I've seen what happens when someone's sense of self gets eroded. They become echoes. Hollow things wearing human shapes. Two Cores could do that to you in an instant."
"Then I'll have to be stronger than that," Corvin said simply.
Draven studied him for a long moment, then laughed. "You really are an optimist. I can't decide if that's admirable or just sad."
"Can't it be both?"
"I suppose it can."
They ate in silence for a while, listening to the distant tolling of Ghost Bells and the occasional splash of something large moving through the water.
"Can I ask you something?" Lyrienne said to Draven. "About your brother. About what happened."
Draven's expression hardened. "You can ask. Doesn't mean I'll answer."
"Why did you kill him?"
"Because I was young and stupid and jealous." Draven's voice went flat, emotionless. "Tharos—my brother—he was everything I wasn't. Charming. Diplomatic. Good with people. Our father favored him. The court loved him. And Virelda... she looked at him the way I wanted her to look at me."
"So you killed him over a woman," Mirethorn said, and there was judgment in his tone.
"I killed him because I was a spoiled prince who thought the world owed me everything." Draven met Mirethorn's eyes. "You want to judge me? Go ahead. Can't be worse than what I've already said to myself every night for fifteen years."
"Did she love him?" Lyrienne asked softly. "Virelda. Did she love your brother?"
"I don't know. I never asked. I just assumed, and I acted on that assumption, and by the time I realized I might have been wrong, Tharos was dead and Virelda was exiling me." Draven stood, shouldering his pack. "We should keep moving. Sun's not going to stay up forever."
They continued through the afternoon, the terrain growing progressively worse. The water deepened until they were wading waist-deep through it, and the smell intensified—not just rot now, but something chemical, like the swamp was breaking down reality itself.
Corvin's shadow behaved strangely here. It kept reaching down into the water, as if trying to touch something beneath the surface, and every time it did, ripples spread outward that moved in wrong directions—spiraling, zigzagging, sometimes moving backward.
"Your shadow's attracting attention," Draven said. "The drowned can sense it. They're curious."
"Is that bad?"
"Depends on what they decide to do with their curiosity."
As if in answer, shapes began to appear in the water around them. Not quite visible, not quite invisible—translucent figures that drifted just beneath the surface, keeping pace with the travelers. Watching.
"Don't look directly at them," Draven instructed. "Don't acknowledge them. As long as they think we can't see them, they'll just observe. But if they know we know they're there..."
"What happens?" Mirethorn asked.
"They test us. They try to pull us under. See if we're worthy of staying alive or if we should join them in the deep."
The drowned followed them for an hour, silent escorts in the murky water. Corvin kept his eyes forward, but he could feel them watching. Could sense their attention like weight pressing against his mind.
Then, without warning, one of them surfaced.
It rose directly in front of Corvin—a young woman, or what had once been a young woman. Her skin was pale and waterlogged, her eyes milky white, and her hair floated around her head like she was still submerged. She wore a dress that had been beautiful once, now tattered and green with algae.
She opened her mouth, and water poured out. With the water came words:
"Shadow-touched. We know you. We remember House Thornevale."
Corvin froze. Draven had said not to acknowledge them, but this one was speaking directly to him. Ignoring her felt impossible.
"You remember my family?" he asked.
"We remember everything. That's our curse. We can't forget." The drowned woman tilted her head at an angle that should have broken her neck. "Lord Matthias came to us. Three centuries ago. Before the Regnant took power. He asked us to keep a secret."
"What secret?"
"Where he hid something precious. Something the Regnant would kill to find." She smiled, revealing teeth worn down to nubs. "We've kept that secret all this time. Waiting for a Thornevale to return. To ask the right questions."
"I'm asking," Corvin said. "What did Lord Matthias hide?"
"Not what. Who." The drowned woman reached out, and her waterlogged fingers brushed Corvin's cheek. The touch was cold enough to burn. "Your sister. The true heir to House Thornevale. She survived the Purge. Matthias hid her with us, in the deep places, where even shadows can't reach."
Corvin's world tilted.
"I don't have a sister," he said. "I'm the last Thornevale—"
"You're the last known Thornevale. But the bloodline is more resilient than the Regnant knows. More resilient than even you know." The drowned woman began to sink back into the water. "She sleeps in the Sunken Cathedral. Beneath Old Murkmire. Waiting. If you want her, you'll have to dive. You'll have to join us in the deep. Temporarily."
"Wait—"
But she was gone, leaving only ripples that moved in spirals.
"Did that really just happen?" Lyrienne asked. "Or was it a hallucination? The swamp makes people see things—"
"It happened," Draven said grimly. "The drowned don't lie. They can't. Death strips away the ability for deception. If she says there's a Thornevale in the Sunken Cathedral, there is."
"But how?" Corvin's mind raced. "The Regnant killed everyone. Every Thornevale. He said so himself—"
"He thought he did. But your family was clever. They had contingencies." Draven started moving again, faster now. "We need to keep going. The drowned don't just give information freely. They want something in return, and they'll come to collect."
"What could they possibly want from us?" Mirethorn asked.
"Depends. Sometimes they want memories. Sometimes they want company—they get lonely in the deep. Sometimes they want you to deliver messages to the living they left behind." Draven glanced back at Corvin. "But from you? They probably want help retrieving whoever's in that cathedral. Which means we're going to have to make a detour."
"We don't have time," Lyrienne protested. "Virelda's ritual could complete any day now—"
"And if there's another Thornevale alive, that changes everything," Draven countered. "The Cores respond to bloodline. If your sister has stronger blood than you, Corvin, she might be able to bond with multiple Cores without fragmenting. She might be the key to stopping all of this."
"Or she might be dead," Corvin said quietly. "The drowned said she sleeps. Not that she lives. What if she's been dead for three hundred years and they just haven't noticed?"
"Then we'll know," Draven said. "And you'll have closure. But if there's even a chance she's alive..."
Corvin looked at his shadow. It had spread out around him protectively, as if trying to shield him from this new information.
"We go to the cathedral," he decided. "But we make it quick. We can't afford to lose more than a day."
They changed course, following Draven toward the heart of the swamp where Old Murkmire's ruins lay submerged. The water deepened further, until they were swimming rather than wading, their packs held above their heads.
"There," Draven said, pointing.
Through the murky water, Corvin could see structures—buildings, towers, what looked like an entire city preserved beneath the surface. Fish swam through windows. Eels nested in doorways. And in the center of it all, rising like a great stone beast, was the Sunken Cathedral.
"The Drowned Regents will know we're here," Draven said. "This is their domain. Their seat of power."
"Will they try to stop us?" Lyrienne asked.
"Probably. They don't like people disturbing the deep. But if we're fast, if we're lucky, we might get in and out before they mobilize."
They dove.
The water was cold and dark and full of things that brushed against them with too many limbs. Corvin's shadow spread out like a cloak, creating a bubble of dim visibility around him. He could see Lyrienne nearby, Lumes glowing in her hair like bioluminescent jellyfish. Mirethorn swam with the grace of someone who'd spent time in water gardens. And Draven moved like a fish, completely at home in the drowned city.
They descended toward the cathedral, past buildings whose names Corvin could read carved in stone: The House of Whispered Truths. The Academy of Forgotten Arts. The Palace of Perpetual Mourning.
This had been a place of culture once. Of learning. Now it was a tomb.
The cathedral doors stood open—massive things made of wood that should have rotted centuries ago but hadn't. The drowned had preserved them, maintained them, kept them ready for someone to enter.
Inside, the water seemed thicker, darker. Corvin's shadow couldn't penetrate far, and even Lyrienne's Lumes struggled to maintain their light. They swam through a nave whose pews still stood in rows, down an aisle toward an altar where something glowed with faint silver light.
A glass coffin.
Inside lay a girl—no, a young woman, maybe eighteen or nineteen. She had Corvin's dark hair, his pale skin, and features that were similar enough to his own that there was no denying the relation. She wore clothes from three centuries ago, and her hands were folded over her chest, holding something that pulsed with that silver glow.
A Core.
Not Umbra. Not Floros. Something else.
"That's not one of the ten," Mirethorn's voice said in Corvin's head—they'd taken pills before diving that allowed limited mental communication underwater. "I've studied the Cores. That one's different."
Corvin swam closer to the coffin. His shadow reached out and touched the glass, and the moment it made contact, the girl's eyes opened.
Silver. Pure silver. No pupils, no iris, just liquid silver that seemed to glow from within.
She sat up—impossible, she should have drowned instantly, but she sat up and the water around her behaved differently, pulling back, creating a bubble of air inside the coffin.
She looked at Corvin, and when she spoke, her voice carried through the water as clearly as if they were standing on dry land:
"Hello, brother. I've been waiting for you."
They surfaced in the cathedral's bell tower, which still had an air pocket—a large chamber at the top where the water hadn't completely filled. The drowned had maintained it, creating a sanctuary within the sunken structure.
The girl—Corvin's ancestor, apparently—had followed them up, swimming with inhuman grace, still holding the silver Core against her chest like it was the only thing keeping her alive.
They gasped for breath, pulling themselves onto the stone floor of the bell tower. The air tasted stale and wet, but it was air.
"Explain," Corvin said once he could breathe properly. "Explain everything. Who are you? How are you alive? What is that Core you're holding?"
"My name is Seraphine Thornevale," the girl said. Her voice was soft, musical, with an accent that hadn't been used in Umbrafell for three hundred years. "I'm your great-great-aunt—your father's grandfather's sister, though we've never met. When the Regnant came for our family three hundred years ago, Lord Matthias saved what he could. The main bloodline was smuggled away, hidden, their memories sealed generation after generation. I was sent here, to the deep, with this."
She held up the Core.
"This is Memoria. The Eleventh Core."
Silence fell over the chamber.
"There are only ten Cores," Lyrienne said carefully. "The Heart of Night shattered into ten pieces when the Primacy broke—"
"That's what they tell you. That's what the cosmology says. But it's not complete truth." Seraphine's silver eyes seemed to see through them all. "The Heart of Night did shatter into ten major fragments. Those became the realm-Cores you know. But there was an eleventh piece—the Heart's memory of itself. Its self-awareness. The cosmologists deemed it too dangerous to acknowledge, so they erased it from history."
"Why?" Corvin asked.
"Because Memoria doesn't just grant power over memory magic. It grants the ability to rewrite memory itself. To change the past. To make reality forget what actually happened and remember something different." Seraphine stood, water streaming from her ancient clothes. "The Cores are powerful, but they're bound by the universe's rules. Memoria can change those rules. Can reshape reality by making it forget its current shape and remember something different."
"That's..." Mirethorn trailed off. "That's too much power. No one should have that."
"Exactly. Which is why House Thornevale was entrusted with it. We were the keepers of memory. The archivists of truth. Our job was to make sure Memoria was never used." Seraphine looked at Corvin. "But now the Regnant is gathering the ten major Cores. And others are too. If any of them succeed, if someone gathers all ten and attempts to restore the Primacy, they'll need Memoria to finish the ritual."
"So you've been hiding here for three hundred years, guarding a Core that could end reality," Draven said. "That's... honestly impressive."
"The drowned helped. They kept me in stasis, sleeping but not dead, aging but not living. And they kept the secret." Seraphine turned to the water, and three figures emerged—the drowned woman from before, accompanied by two others. Regal figures, wearing crowns of coral and robes of seaweed.
The Drowned Regents.
"Shadow-boy," the first Regent said—his voice bubbling, wet. "You've found what you came for. Now you owe us a debt."
"What debt?" Corvin asked.
"Three centuries we've kept your sister safe. Three centuries of protecting Memoria from those who would steal it. That kind of service deserves compensation."
"Name your price."
The three Regents looked at each other, some silent communication passing between them. Then the first spoke again:
"When you face the Regnant—and you will face him again, the threads of fate are clear on this—you will remember us. You will tell him that the drowned have not forgiven. That we remember what he took from us. That when his time comes, we will be waiting in the deep to claim him."
"That's it? Just deliver a message?"
"Just deliver a message. But mean it. Make him afraid. Make him remember that there are older powers than his, and death is not the end of vengeance."
"I can do that," Corvin said.
The Regents nodded, satisfied. Then they sank back into the water, leaving only ripples.
"So," Lyrienne said into the silence that followed. "We have a new member of the team. And she's carrying a Core that can literally rewrite reality. This isn't going to complicate things at all."
"Actually, I can't use Memoria," Seraphine said. "I can only hold it. Using it requires bonding with it, and I was never meant to bond. Father Matthias made sure of that. He bound me to the Core as a guardian, not a wielder. I can carry it, protect it, keep it safe. But I can't access its power."
"Can anyone?" Mirethorn asked.
"Only someone with both Thornevale blood and another Core. The Cores recognize each other. If you tried to bond with Memoria, Corvin, with Umbra already inside you, they might harmonize. Might allow you to use both."
"Or they might tear me apart," Corvin said.
"That's also possible."
"Wonderful." Corvin rubbed his face. "So now I have a sister who's been sleeping for three centuries, carrying a Core that nobody's supposed to know about, and we still need to get to Thornsveil before Virelda completes her ritual."
"When you put it like that, it sounds complicated," Draven said.
"It is complicated!"
"But we're not alone anymore," Lyrienne pointed out. "We have Seraphine. And she's been studying the Cores for three hundred years—even in stasis, she said she could sense them, learn from them. She might know things we don't."
"I know many things," Seraphine confirmed. "For instance, I know that Queen Virelda's ritual will complete in exactly four days. I can feel Floros calling out, trying to resist her, but it's weakening. If you want to stop her, we need to move now."
"Four days." Corvin calculated quickly. "Two days to reach the Thornsveil border, one day to travel through the realm to the Garden Palace, one day to actually confront Virelda. It's tight, but possible."
"Assuming nothing goes wrong," Mirethorn said.
"When does anything go right?" Draven countered.
They spent the night in the bell tower—dry, relatively safe, with the drowned standing guard below. Seraphine didn't sleep. She sat watching the water, one hand still pressed against Memoria, and Corvin noticed she barely blinked.
"It's strange," she said when she caught him watching. "Being awake after so long. The world feels different. Faster. Hungrier."
"It is," Corvin said, sitting beside her. "Different, I mean. Umbrafell is ruled by fear now. The Regnant controls everything. And the other realms are just as bad—each one has someone trying to gather power, consolidate control. It's not the world Father Matthias knew."
"Do you remember him? Father Matthias?"
"No. The servant who smuggled me out—she sealed my memories. I only got fragments back when I bonded with Umbra. Glimpses. Emotions more than actual events."
"He was kind," Seraphine said softly. "Stern, but kind. He believed in duty above all else. In sacrifice for the greater good. He gave up everything—his life, his family, his legacy—to make sure the Cores would be protected."
"Did he know? That there was an eleventh Core?"
"He was one of three people who knew. Him, the High Scholar of Vesperhold, and the Pale Moon Saint of Noctheris. They made a pact to keep Memoria secret, to hide it where even the other Core-holders couldn't find it."
"And now that secret is out," Corvin said. "Because I found you."
"You were always going to find me. It's written in the threads. Ashreth Vesperna saw it centuries ago—two Thornevales, reuniting, carrying the weight of memory and shadow together. She tried to prevent it, but some fates are inevitable."
Corvin thought about the visions he'd seen. The woman who loved him. The futures where she died.
"Do you know about Ashreth?" he asked. "About what happens when I meet her?"
"I know she loves you in every timeline. And in every timeline, you break her heart—either by dying or by surviving when she doesn't." Seraphine looked at him with those unsettling silver eyes. "But I also know that love isn't logical. It doesn't care about fate or prophecy or the sensible thing to do. It just is."
"Have you ever loved someone?"
"I've been asleep for three hundred years, brother. I haven't had the chance." She smiled sadly. "But I dream. And in my dreams, I've loved many people in many ways. It's one of the benefits of being bound to Memoria—I can experience memories that aren't mine. Love that never happened. Lives I never lived."
"That sounds lonely."
"It is. But it's also beautiful. I've seen the best of humanity through borrowed memories. I've felt joy and hope and connection, even if only second-hand." She stood, stretching. "We should sleep. Tomorrow will be difficult."
She was right.
They left the Sunken Cathedral at dawn, swimming back to the surface with Seraphine in tow. She moved through the water like she'd been born to it, and Corvin realized she probably had been—three centuries of stasis in a drowned cathedral had fundamentally changed what she was. She was as much a creature of Murkmire now as any of the drowned.
They reached solid ground by midday and began the trek toward the Thornsveil border. The landscape shifted gradually—less water, more solid earth, until they were walking through marshland that almost felt normal.
And then they heard the bells.
Not Ghost Bells this time, but alarm bells. Sharp, insistent, echoing across the swamp.
"That's the border alarm," Draven said. "Someone's crossed from Thornsveil into Murkmire. A lot of someones."
They crested a hill and saw them—a force of at least fifty soldiers, wearing the green and gold of Thornsveil's royal guard, moving through the marshland in organized formation.
"Virelda's forces," Mirethorn breathed. "She's sent an army to the border."
"Looking for us?" Lyrienne asked.
"Looking for anyone trying to enter Thornsveil. She must know that people will try to stop her. She's sealing the realm." Draven swore creatively. "We'll never get through that many guards. Not without being captured or killed."
"Then we don't go through them," Seraphine said. "We go under."
She knelt and pressed her hand against the ground, and Memoria pulsed with silver light. The earth remembered what it had been before the swamp—solid, firm, full of tunnels and caves.
The ground opened.
A passage descended into darkness, old mining tunnels from before the Dominion flooded. Seraphine had made the earth remember them, made reality forget they'd been sealed for centuries.
"That's terrifying," Lyrienne said.
"That's useful," Corvin countered. "Let's go."
They descended into the earth, into tunnels that smelled of old stone and older secrets, while above them Virelda's forces searched for intruders they would never find.
The path to Thornsveil had opened.
And with it, the final confrontation drew closer.