The ruins rose from the cliffs like bones of a long-dead titan—sharp, vast, and half-swallowed by time.
Vael Aenor.
Once the heart of the Rune Pact. Now, only ghosts lingered.
Erynn stood at the edge of the crumbling causeway, staring at the bridge of broken stone stretching across a chasm. Wind howled through the canyon like a mourning song. Far below, nothing but mist.
"This was once a city?" he asked.
Maerin nodded, her voice tight. "More than a city. This is where the First Seven swore the Oath. Where they sealed the Hollowfire King. And where the Rune Tablets were born."
Erynn's Rune pulsed faintly under his ribs. A low, eager throb.
It remembered.
---
They crossed the bridge cautiously, stone shifting underfoot. At the far end, towers leaned like weary sentinels. Ivy draped the arches. Statues crumbled under time's weight—seven in total, though only three still bore faces.
Inside the central spire, silence reigned.
No dust. No webs.
Just stillness.
And something else.
Something waiting.
---
They descended into the inner sanctum, where a great chamber lay beneath the earth. At its center: a pedestal shaped like a hollow flame. Around it, seven faded murals told the tale of the Oath.
Erynn moved from one to the next.
The Seven standing before a burning gate.
The sealing of the Hollowfire King, his form breaking into shards.
A single rune split into three branches—Creation, Binding, Destruction.
The breaking of the Pact.
The Order forming.
A shadow figure crowned in fire… reaching out.
And last: a boy, his hands alight, standing alone.
Erynn paused.
The boy's rune matched his.
Exactly.
---
"What is this?" he whispered.
Maerin stepped beside him. Her face had gone pale.
"I've seen this before," she said. "In a dream. Years ago."
She touched the mural—
—and the pedestal flared to life.
Light spiraled up, forming a spectral shape above it: a woman in tattered robes, her body made of rune-light. She opened her eyes.
"Runeborn. The Oath wavers."
Erynn stepped forward. "Who are you?"
"I was Vethra, last of the Oathwardens. This is my memory. My warning."
The chamber dimmed. Her voice echoed through stone and soul alike.
"The Seal weakens. The Hollowfire King stirs. And only a bearer of the Final Sigil can choose what comes next."
Erynn's pulse quickened. "Why me?"
"Because your Rune is not of fire, nor frost, nor storm. It is Balance. The Rune that judges all others."
The image flickered. Cracks split the air around the projection.
"But beware—Balance cuts both ways."
"What do I do?" he called out.
The last words drifted like falling ash:
"Find the Sixth Tablet. Before the Hollowflame does."
Then she vanished.
---
Silence returned. But not peace.
Maerin looked at Erynn, eyes wide. "There were only ever five Tablets. If there's a sixth—"
"Then the Oath was never complete," Erynn finished.
They both turned toward the north, where the wind whispered through broken arches.
The hunt had begun.
---
To be continued…