The location of the original Vault was not on any map.
It wasn't forgotten.
It was erased.
Hidden beneath the ruins of Vaylen Hollow, the original capital—abandoned three hundred years ago after the first civil fracture. Buried by ash, time, and silence.
That silence was breaking.
---
We rode at dawn, under gray skies.
Kael led. Elyra rode beside me. Veyra brought up the rear, wrapped in a black cloak as if ashamed of the color of her flame.
None of us spoke much.
The wind felt thinner the closer we got. And strange things followed us.
A shepherd with no flock, who didn't remember how he got there.
A stream that flowed uphill for a moment, then settled.
Trees whose bark read like history—but whose words rewrote themselves as we passed.
Camden's notes had warned us:
> "The Hollow Regent consumes not bodies, but definitions. It unnames. It unthreads. Be wary of what you believe most about yourselves."
---
We reached the edge of Vaylen Hollow by nightfall.
The city ruins jutted like broken teeth from the ground. Half a cathedral remained, buried beneath vines with leaves shaped like flame.
And beneath it?
The door.
It wasn't stone. It was bone.
The bones of the first Vaultkeepers, sealed into an arch.
It pulsed with warmth that wasn't comforting. It felt… expectant.
Kael placed his palm on it first.
The frost coiled—but then hissed and recoiled.
"It doesn't like me," he muttered.
Elyra stepped forward and lit her hand with steady flame. The glyphs responded, humming softly.
Veyra stood still, hesitant.
I stepped up and reached toward it—and the entire arch flared.
Not red. Not blue.
Gold.
---
The door opened.
The stairs beyond were blackened marble, leading down into a darkness that didn't just swallow light—it remembered it.
---
The Descent
We moved in silence.
The further down we went, the heavier the air became.
Our glyphs dimmed.
Time slowed. Breath shortened.
Elyra whispered, "This is what it feels like to walk into a memory that doesn't want to be remembered."
Veyra replied, "No. This is what it feels like to be remembered wrongly."
---
At the bottom, we entered a massive chamber carved from obsidian and rootstone.
At its center: a cradle.
Not for a person.
For a flame.
And hovering above it was a crystal sphere—pulsing like a heart, flickering with images:
The founding of the kingdom.
The sealing of the Vaults.
The creation of us.
Then the fire inside warped—and a new image appeared:
> The Hollow Regent.
Cloaked in shadow.
Placing something inside the flame.
It wasn't power.
It was doubt.
---
Kael stumbled back, clutching his head. "It's in here."
"What?" I rushed to him.
"My frost—it's unraveling. It's... being overwritten."
Elyra reached for him, but her own flame flickered. "We're being challenged."
Veyra stepped forward and touched the cradle.
The chamber responded.
Vault glyphs crawled across the walls. Not in lines—in circles.
Then the voice came.
Not from the walls.
From us.
> "You carry flame, but not fire."
"You seek unity, but remember division."
"You came to seal me. But it is you who are unraveling."
Kael gasped. "It's trying to unwrite us."
Elyra shouted, "Focus! Remember who you are!"
---
I closed my eyes.
And remembered—
My mother's lullaby.
The feel of frostburn against my fingers.
The look Kael gave me when he thought I wasn't watching.
Elyra's voice during the trial.
Veyra's silence after the flame rejected her.
> "We are not made of memory. We are the ones who carry it."
---
The cradle pulsed—once.
And the chamber quieted.
In its center, a key formed.
Not a physical one.
A glyph, floating in the air: three crowns, linked, surrounded by fire.
Not fractured.
Not false.
Unified.
---
Outside, the Hollow Regent stood atop the southern ridge.
For every step he took forward…
Another city forgot its name.
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