Chapter 22
The flames in the Sanctuary dimmed, but the heat did not fade.
It intensified.
The Sixth Sealing Lord stood like a walking inferno—his form shifting between embers and shadow, robes made of smoldering smoke. Where his feet touched the stone, the floor sizzled and cracked. The altar behind him had turned to molten slag.
He didn't just burn.
He remembered fire.
And when his gaze met Eliendara's, the weight of centuries pressed into her chest.
"I remember your scream," he said again, each word coated in ash. "I remember how you tore your own name from the Book. I remember... betrayal."
Eliendara's legs felt heavy. Not from fear—but from the pull of forgotten truth.
Behind her, Kael stood poised to strike—but even he could feel it. This wasn't just a battle.
It was a reckoning.
"I don't remember betraying you," she said, voice sharp. "I don't even remember you."
The Sixth tilted his head.
"Then let me help you."
He lifted his burning hand—
And thrust it toward her chest.
The fire didn't scorch her skin. It pierced her soul.
Eliendara screamed—not in pain, but in revelation.
Her mind was ripped open.
And she saw it—
A memory not sealed by the Seven…
But sealed by herself.
A younger Eliendara stood in the Temple of Origins, wearing priestess robes, holding a blade made of pure light. Around her stood the Seven Sealing Lords—each masked, each chanting.
"Offer your name. Offer your flame.""Burn the oath into time."
But instead of bowing, the younger Eliendara turned the blade on herself.
She carved her name from her soul.
A scream echoed through the realm.
"If I am the gate, then I unbuild it."
The sealing circle shattered.
The Lords fell—broken, screaming, drained.
And from the ruin of that circle, Elira Vexley was born—A name made to hide Eliendara's true identity.
Eliendara gasped back into the present.
The Sixth Lord stood before her, eyes narrowed.
"You did not betray us," he said slowly. "You freed us. And for that, we tried to erase you."
Kael stared at her. "You broke the pact?"
She nodded, breath shaking. "I destroyed the original seal. I didn't want to be used again."
The Sixth's voice dropped to a whisper that shook the stones.
"And yet… the gate is forming again."
He turned toward the sky—toward the veil between realms.
"The Seventh is stirring."
Eliendara's blood went cold.
"You sealed her last," the Sixth said. "But she was never meant to sleep. If she wakes…"
He stepped back into the cracked floor.
"…not even flame will survive."
Then he vanished—dissolving into smoke and ash.
Thorne collapsed beside the altar—unconscious, his body burned, his eyes hollow.
But in his clenched hand…
Was a single line torn from an ancient page.
Kael picked it up.
The writing shimmered with dark ink.
"Only the true Gatekeeper can face the Seventh.But only if she remembers the night she died the second time."
🔮 Next Chapter Preview – Chapter 23: The Night She Died Twice
Eliendara seeks out the last sealed memory hidden deep in her soul.
But reliving the night she died a second time means facing the person who killed her—
Not Thorne.Not the Lords.But someone far more cruel.
Herself.