Chapter Two: Vault of Echoes
The Vault of Echoes was deeper than Cael remembered, its descent a spiral of bone-stone stairs and whispering walls. Each step groaned with forgotten voices; flickers of memory etched into the stone like moss. The deeper they went, the thicker the air became—not humid, but dense with emotion, the weight of centuries pressing inward.
Torchlight bent in peculiar ways here. Shadows clung to corners with too much purpose. Cael felt the compass at his hip twitch slightly, its needle spinning before settling—pointing downward to something deeper than the archive itself.
Rima walked ahead, her fingers glowing faintly with a tracer's ward. "We've tripled the locks," she said. "After it awakened."
"What else was disturbed?" Cael asked.
"Seven containment seals cracked. One vault hissed. But nothing emerged. At least, nothing visible."
They reached the final threshold—a door carved from ironwood, etched with seals older than the empire. Rima placed her hand upon a rune and muttered an invocation in the old script. The door pulsed once, then opened with a low groan.
The Vault's heart lay beyond a chamber circular and still, with scrolls suspended mid-air in stasis fields. The walls bore no shelves—only glyphs, glowing faintly like the breath of sleeping giants.
In the center of the room hovered the soul map.
It was unchanged from the night before, but now Cael could feel it: a resonance in his marrow. The red soul path throbbed with something more than urgency. It shimmered with awareness.
"This map is alive," he whispered.
Rima crossed her arms. "We noticed the pulsing changed based on proximity. The closer you stand, the stronger the glow."
Cael stepped forward. The soul path widened, like ink soaking into water. He reached into his satchel and retrieved the Lens of Aeturn. Through its gaze, he saw the path in layers—his own memories stitched between phantom streets, dream-bridges that never existed, and voices he recognized but couldn't name.
Suddenly, the map spasmed.
"Step back!" Rima barked, drawing a Soul binding circle around them.
Too late. The map convulsed, the red path flaring like a wound. A tendril of light lashed out and struck Cael's chest.
He collapsed.
A memory flooded him—not his own. A burning city. A girl with antlers, screaming through glass. A blade made of silence. A name: Elarin.
He gasped awake, the Vault spinning. The map now hovered calm and dim.
Rima crouched beside him. "What did you see?"
He sat up slowly, still shaking. "A name. And an origin. Someone's using the path to rewrite soul history."
Rima's lips tightened. "Temporal cartography?"
"No. Deeper. They're not just changing the present. They're changing the meaning of what was. They're editing souls."
Rima stood. "Then the protections are useless. History itself can be bent."
Cael nodded grimly. "And if they reach the central archives…"
"Every Soul map ever recorded would be vulnerable."
He paced, trying to still the pounding in his chest. "This Elarin—they're searching for something. Or someone."
"Their name was burned into your memory," Rima said. "That suggests intent. A signature."
Cael approached the map again. The red soul path had dimmed, but now an offshoot branched from it—a second thread, golden and flickering.
"What's that?" Rima asked.
Cael didn't answer. He knew it instinctively. That path didn't belong to him.
It belonged to someone else.
Someone who had walked beside him once. Who had vanished the night of the Fire of Seven Echoes.
"Lira," he whispered.
The golden path shimmered in reply.
She was alive.
He turned to Rima. "I need clearance into the Forgotten Tunnels. I need to find where her path resumes."
Rima hesitated. "Those tunnels were sealed for a reason. They run beneath the oldest strata of Nareth—places not even the First dared chart."
"She's down there. Or at least her path is."
Rima stared at him for a long moment. Then she nodded. "I'll get the keys. But Cael…"
He met her eyes.
"Don't follow the golden path alone. If someone can alter your soul, they can trap you inside it."
Cael understood. But he also knew something deeper now: this wasn't about just saving paths.
It was about reclaiming lost selves.
And perhaps, uncovering why his own map had never truly ended.