"Some promises outlive death. Others rewrite it."
---
The chamber of remembrance had cracked at the edges.
The preserved corpse of Aeyana's past self had dissolved into salt, the altar shattered by blood older than time.
But now…
The silence between the three was deeper than stone.
Rhaelor.
Kael.
Aeyana.
---
Each of them remembered now.
The vow made under moonlit ivy in the city of Thirel, when they were only children — three orphans promised to different temples. One chosen by flame, one by the blade, one by the song of forbidden stars.
---
> "Do you remember?" Aeyana asked, voice echoing like prayer.
> "Say it with me," Kael whispered.
> "Not yet," Rhaelor said, stepping forward. "Not until we mean it again."
---
He took her hands. She didn't flinch.
Kael stepped beside them, reluctant but unflinching.
Then together, they recited the vow that once made the gods tremble:
> "No sun shall rise that divides our path.
No blade shall fall that severs our breath.
No god shall rule the fire between us.
We walk as three.
We fall as one.
And we rise again…
As storm, as flame, as silence."
---
The vault trembled.
Outside, the gods felt it — an oath once buried now burned in the veins of fate again.
But this time, it would not bind them to servitude.
It would liberate their legacy.
---
Kael turned to them both.
> "They will come for us now. Not just the Silencers. The Twelve Who Judge. The blind one. The mother of veils. Even the god who wept blood to kill you."
> "Then let them come," Rhaelor said. "But this time… we don't kneel."
---
Aeyana stepped into the light, her hair glinting like embers reborn.
> "Let's show them what happens when they try to bury fire in silence."
---
Above them, the stars shifted.
And far to the east, in the ruins of the Temple of Strings, the First God opened his eye.
> "The Oath has been spoken," he hissed.
> "Then we must awaken the Fourth."
---
End of Chapter 22: The Last Oath Between Three
---