Kael stood frozen.
For the first time in over a decade, he saw the man he'd thought dead—not in a coffin, not as a memory—but standing in flesh and blood beneath the fractured sky of the Bastion.
Karel Verrin's expression trembled. His voice was barely a whisper.
"You… remembered me."
The others watched silently, awe-struck. Even Thorn's usual snark had been burned away by the weight of the moment.
"I didn't just remember," Kael replied softly. "I never forgot."
They embraced. Not as strangers, not as ghosts, but as father and son.
Lyra smiled faintly. "We did it. We broke the Bastion."
But Merek frowned, staring into the distance. "No… we cracked it. That's not the same."
The Waking Bastion
The destruction of the Core had released the forgotten, but it had also awakened something deeper—something older.
As the ground beneath them groaned and shifted, a low hum echoed across the wasteland.
The Bastion was changing again.
Kael pulled away from his father. "We need to move. Now."
They exited through the shattered walls of the Bastion, following the stream of mist now spilling from the ruined heart of the structure. Hundreds of glowing motes drifted in the air—names once erased, now searching for vessels to return to.
Some of the motes circled Karel, absorbed into his body.
"I can feel them," he murmured. "Fragments of me… pieces I never knew were gone."
"You weren't just imprisoned," Kael said. "You were disassembled."
The New Hunt Begins
Once they reached the edge of the valley, the team regrouped. Karel sat beside a dying fire, speaking slowly of what he could recall—his time as a Record Keeper, his betrayal by the Order, and the first time he saw the name of Kael removed from all documents.
"They started with your mother's name," Karel said quietly. "She vanished from every record before they came for mine."
Kael's jaw tightened. "So it was deliberate. They tried to erase us completely."
"Which means," Thorn added, "the Order knows exactly who you are… and that you're alive."
Lyra stood, eyes distant. "We have to go underground. The Bastion was just one prison. There are more… and not all are made of stone."
The Dead City
Before leaving the region, Kael led the group to the ruins of Nareth—the city where his family had once lived.
Nothing remained but blackened stone and the rusted bones of buildings.
Karel knelt near a burnt foundation. "This was our home," he said. "You were just a child…"
Kael said nothing.
But inside, he remembered every flame. Every scream.
And now, with his father beside him and his mother's fate still unknown, vengeance no longer burned alone.
It carried purpose.
The Road Ahead
"We'll head east," Kael said. "To the Cradle of Names."
"The what?" Thorn asked.
"It's where the Order was born. If we want to end this… we start there."
Merek nodded. "The heart of the lie."
Kael looked up at the stars, fists clenched.
The war for names had just begun.
To be continue...