The land changed as they moved toward the pull.
Not all at once. But constantly.
The wind no longer came from one direction. Sunlight burned silver in the distance but gold overhead. The stars lingered after dawn, faint constellations twitching like eyes that hadn't decided to open yet.
Kael didn't navigate by map anymore. He felt the way forward—like pressure in his ribs, like memory guiding a footstep before thought could catch up.
Tovan muttered, "This place doesn't make sense."
"It's not supposed to," Elira replied, watching a river flow uphill beside them. "It's remembering itself."
By nightfall, they passed into silence.
Not quiet.
Silence.
Sound still existed—footfalls, breathing, fire crackling—but none of it echoed. When they spoke, they heard their words twice—once aloud, and again as if whispered inside their minds by a mouth they couldn't see.
Kael's spiral throbbed.
The next morning, they arrived.
A wide, open field of smooth black stone.
No grass. No wind. Just flat expanse carved into spirals so vast they only became clear from the center.
Kael stepped into the field.
At the center stood monoliths—tall, silent, each carved not with symbols, but with the shapes of mouths, ears, and spirals. No writing. Just intention.
Tovan scanned the area. "There's no reason this place should exist."
Kael placed his hand on one of the stones.
It responded.
Not in sound—but in thought.
"You have carried what was sealed. Now speak, and we will listen."
The voice came into all of their minds at once—Elira gasped. Tovan staggered.
Kael closed his eyes.
And memory surged.
Each of them saw something different.
Elira stood in white robes beside a sealed relic gate, feeling the weight of keys at her hip. She knew the Vault. She was its keeper.
Tovan saw Kael standing over him with a blade—not angry, but sad. Kael whispered: "This version ends here."
Kael saw his sister's eyes looking into his. She held the Echoheart. "You already chose. You just don't remember why."
The field flickered.
Stone peeled back like layers of thought. Beneath the spiral, light moved—not bright, but aware.
Kael stepped forward.
"I didn't come here to control anything," he said aloud. His voice was steady. "I came to remember it right. So someone else wouldn't have to."
He spoke:
Of the Vault, and its hunger for unresolved purpose. Of the echo that repeats not out of cruelty—but because it cannot forget. Of choosing not to seal or destroy, but to carry.
The field listened.
And then it spoke again.
"If you remember wrongly, the world will echo that mistake."
The stone beneath Kael's feet cracked.
Light surged upward—not hot, but thinking.
The light brushed against his skin like thought given warmth—soft, searching, and too aware.
The spiral was not a prison.
It was a question.
And Kael had only just begun to answer it.