The body burned in silence.
Aren stood a few paces from the pyre, arms folded, face expressionless. Caelin sat on a broken stone pillar nearby, hands wrapped around her as the smoke curled into the night sky. Her journal sat next to her with the latest entry:
From the private journal of Caelin Mor
Filed under: Forbidden Orders & Silenced Legacies
"The Wraithborn do not die. They are quieted. Buried in vaults lined with rune-iron and burned prayers. But if the Oath stirs, so do they.
Some say they once sang. That their order began as a chorus of memory-keepers—those who mourned the dead by echoing their last words. But when the first veil split, the Queen's ancestors carved their tongues and silenced their song.
I found a mark today. Three vertical lines carved into the wood behind the library gate. It's their sign. The Order of Silence.
I shouldn't be afraid. But I am.
Because when the Wraithborn walk… the Oath is already bleeding."
##
The Wraithborn didn't scream. Not even in death. But something in the flames made her skin prickle. Like the fire was swallowing more than flesh. Like it was devouring memory itself.
"He was one of the Silent Few," she murmured.
Aren nodded. "They're not supposed to leave the eastern crypts. Not unless the Oath is threatened."
She looked at him carefully. "And you still think I'm the one they're after?"
"No," he said. "But they have you on their mark for some reason."
Caelin pulled her coat tighter around her. "Then we need to stop running blind. You said your uncle disappeared near a lake—Verrith's Hollow. Is that still your next step?"
Aren's jaw tightened. "It's the only place I've ever felt something..." He looked away, unsure what word he was searching for, then continued simply, "before I knew what it meant."
She rose to her feet, eyes locked on his. "Then take me with you."
##
They left before sunrise.
No royal escort. No carriages. Just two cloaked figures riding hard toward the edge of the known world, leaving the city and its cracked illusions behind.
Neither of them spoke for most of the journey. Not because there was nothing to say—but because too much weighed on them both, and so much was at stake.
##
The cursed lake had no name on the maps.
Locals called it Verrith's Hollow—but only in hushed tones and never at night. Caelin's breath fogged in the pre-dawn air as she stood at its banks, boots sinking slightly into the damp reeds. The surface was unnaturally still, not glass-like, but taut—as if the water itself held its breath.
Aren stood beside her, gaze locked on the black mirror before them.
"This is where your uncle vanished?" she asked.
He nodded once. "They found his cloak tangled in the roots."
"No body?"
"No bones, no note. Just a memory echo. You ever seen one?"
Caelin looked at him, frowning. "Those don't exist."
Aren raised an eyebrow and turned to her. "You just saw a Wraithborn, felt the power they hold in memories, and misery. Do you think that's the only thing you thought was a myth and found out is real?"
"Wel- I- Um- I mean, come on-" Caelin wasn't sure where to go with that. Though she thought he had a point, a memory echo was just a funny thing old people would say when they remembered something they thought they forgot. Right?
"There's more going on than people are saying, but it's not my job to educate the scholar, so I'll just guard you and make sure you don't die before the end finds us all."
After a beat of silence, he continued, "But this," He held up his right hand so she could see the silver ring he wore. Old. Worn. Inscribed with runes. "It was his ring. I left it at his empty grave. But it came back."
##
They set camp a safe distance from the waterline. Caelin laid out her research scrolls beneath the canvas awning while Aren gathered firewood—though the surrounding trees were half-dead and unnervingly quiet.
The lake, she'd read, was once a valley—a place of green and song, buried by a flood no storm had caused. The oldest records claimed it was a burial site for an Elaren rebellion. A sealing ground.
"They drowned them here," she whispered, tracing the carved symbols on a slate shard pulled from the lake's edge. "They didn't kill them. They sealed them."
Aren returned, dropping a bundle of branches beside her.
"You've got that look again."
"What look?"
"The one that usually leads to danger."
Caelin offered a small, tired smile. "You signed up for it."
"No. I was assigned to it. Not the same thing."
She tucked the slate into her satchel and rose, brushing dirt from her coat.
"There has to be more than what I'm seeing from the surface, I need to go in," cocking her hip she said. "Which means you either get to go for a swim, or you can make sure I come back."
Aren crossed his arms and replied in a measured tone, "I thought we came out here so that I could remember something, not so you could go swimming in a cursed lake. How about you sit there, it's getting dark now anyways, and eat your dinner. Then maybe, and that's a big maybe, we can check it out in the morning. It may be my job to keep you alive, but that also means I might have to save you from yourself at times."
She almost fought him on it, but then realized it had gotten darker since she had been busy looking over the findings she had discovered close to the lake upon their arrival. Almost like the slate had been left for them, but it was too dark now so she easily accepted his terms.
##
Later, with Caelin laying on a woven mat near the fire, head cradled in her arms. Aren sat beside her, knife in hand, every sense alert. She had a passing though, wondering when Aren would find rest, but she soon closed her eyes and whispered her goodnight.
Then the world slipped away.
##
She woke beneath the lake.
Not drowned. Not dying.
Floating.
Above her, the water shimmered with twilight hues. Below her, a city. Black stone. Shattered towers. A single, giant statue—an Elaren with six wings and eyes blindfolded in chains—stood atop a crumbling dais.
Whispers coiled around her like currents.
You are not meant to see.
The Bondbreaker sleeps.
The Veil fractures.
One will awaken. One will forget. One will burn.
She turned—and Aren stood beside her, eyes hollow with silver light. Not himself. Not fully. A fragment.
"Aren?"
He looked at her. But spoke in a voice not his own.
"You will not leave unchanged."