The ruins of the Aetheric Spire loomed above the horizon like the ribs of a broken colossus. Twisted marble spines rose from crumbled foundation stones, their ends scorched black from the glyphstorm that shattered the upper rings. Moss and skyroot had reclaimed the ground-level halls, softening the ruin's violence, but a quiet tension still lingered in the bones of the place.
Kael stepped between the sun-bleached archways, his boots crunching over broken glass sigils. The sun was dipping behind the fractured towers, casting golden streaks across his coat and the blade strapped to his back. They'd come this far, survived the Abysswell, faced the Tenfold Bind's judgment. But none of it compared to the silence before this storm.
Riven moved beside him, eyes scanning every corner, one hand lightly touching the glyph-etched hilt at his waist. He was always alert now. Since the Black Echo, he hadn't quite been the same.
"They say the Spire's base still echoes with the voices of those who tried to rewrite the leyline's origin," Riven murmured.
Kael nodded. "Then we're here to listen to ghosts."
A flicker of pale blue shimmer passed between the ruins—a glyph-mirror ward activating as they stepped deeper in. The air grew denser, humming with trapped memory.
Vex walked a few paces behind, his gaze distant. He hadn't spoken much since Caelion Spire. His shoulder still bore the faint scar from the glyph surge—Kael had seen him trace it absentmindedly more than once. Something brewed behind his eyes. Doubt, perhaps. Or something darker.
The team stopped at the Spire's sanctum—a half-collapsed atrium with a domed ceiling cracked open to the sky. In the center hovered a mirrored pillar surrounded by broken ley-glyph rings. The last heart-knot of the Aetheric Archive, pulsing faintly.
Then it activated.
A shimmer of gold and violet ran through the ring. A voice—calm, layered, and ancient—spoke:
"Initiate detected. Final inquiry activated. Choose your glyph: to restore, to rewrite… or to ruin."
Kael stepped forward, the others flanking him with wary silence. The glyph-mirror glowed as images flashed across its surface—visions of Aurinfall's past, potential futures, and a split-second image of Kael himself, crowned in flame.
The Heart of Aurinfall pulsed beneath it, suspended in air. It wasn't a stone or artifact—it was a living crystal, thrumming with primal glyphic essence. The origin point. The shard of memory the continent had long forgotten.
Kael reached toward it. Not to take it. Just to feel its pull.
"I've seen this in my dreams," he whispered. "Before I even Awakened."
A long silence followed.
Then Vex spoke, his voice sharp. "And what happens if you make the wrong choice?"
Kael turned slowly. Vex's eyes were locked on the glyph-mirror, his jaw clenched.
"We've risked everything to reach this point. What if it's a trap? What if the Tenfold were right to seal it?"
Riven stepped between them subtly, tension rising in his stance.
"We didn't come this far to doubt ourselves," Kael said. "We came because Aurinfall needs a future unbound from the ones forced on us."
Vex looked down, the flicker of anger behind his eyes fading to something colder. But he didn't argue further. Not yet.
They made camp at the edge of the Spire's sanctum. No fire—only the residual glow of ley-motes rising from the earth like drifting embers.
Kael sat apart, eyes locked on the Heart. He could feel it stirring inside him, answering to something deep—deeper than even his glyphbound soul. Not command. Recognition.
This wasn't just power. It was memory. It was choice.
Behind him, Vex stood silently at the edge of the light, half in shadow. Watching.
Tomorrow, they would decide everything.
Tonight was the last breath before war.