The valley stretched out before us like a wound that never healed. The land was quiet, but it was not peace. It was the kind of silence that comes after a scream too loud for the world to bear. The soil glittered faintly in the fading light, not with dew or frost, but with something harder. Fragments of glass fused into the ground, shaped like bones, like weapons, like memory itself.
We had walked for hours, maybe more. Time lost meaning in this place. Even Aurelius, who usually had a clock ticking somewhere in his mind, had stopped trying to measure it. He only stared ahead, his expression caught between fascination and dread.
Lyren moved ahead of us, her boots crunching over shards of history. "This is where it happened," she said quietly, though no one had asked. "The fall."
I did not need her to explain what she meant. I could feel it under my skin, the storm inside me thrumming like a pulse that did not belong to me. The air itself seemed to vibrate, thin and sharp, like the breath before lightning.
Drokmar would have said something simple and grounding here. Something about moving forward or staying alive. But the space where his voice should have been stayed empty, echoing like the valley itself.
Aurelius knelt and brushed his hand across a half-buried shield. Its surface still hummed faintly, whispering against the wind. "Residual energy," he said. "Old magic. It should not still exist."
"It does," I replied, though my voice sounded distant even to me. "It remembers."
He looked up at me sharply. "What did you say?"
Before I could answer, the storm inside me stirred again, slow at first, then rising. The air thickened. Clouds gathered where there had been none. I felt the pressure building, not outside, but in my chest, behind my ribs. It wanted out. It wanted to speak.
Aurelius rose quickly. "Kael," he said, tone suddenly edged with warning. "Control it."
I tried. I really did. But this was not the same as before. The storm was not mine anymore, it was reaching, calling. It wanted something.
The first sound came like a sigh through the valley. Then another. Then a thousand, layered atop one another until the air trembled. Shadows began to move between the glass and bone. Not alive, not dead, something in between.
Figures formed from dust and light, outlines of armor and faces blurred by time. They stood as if still locked in their final battle, swords drawn, shields raised, waiting for an enemy that had long since vanished.
Lyren froze, blade half-drawn. "Are those, "
"Echoes," Aurelius said. His voice was barely above a breath. "Remnants caught in the fracture between memory and existence."
The closest one turned its head toward me. I felt my heartbeat stop. Its eyes were nothing but pale light, but they looked right through me.
"Stormbearer," it said. The voice was hollow, like thunder in a canyon. "You return."
The words struck me like a physical blow. My knees nearly gave out. That name, Stormbearer, it was not Kaelion. It was older, deeper. Something inside me recognized it, and that terrified me more than anything.
"I am not, " I began, but the wind swallowed my voice.
The echo stepped closer. It carried a spear that glowed faintly with stormlight, the same color as mine. "You sealed us," it said. "And now you break what you once swore to protect."
My pulse roared in my ears. The air around me flickered, showing flashes, armies of light, skies split open, storms like gods tearing through mountains. I was there. I saw my hands raised, the storm answering my call. And then, silence. The sealing.
I fell to my knees, gasping. The vision vanished as quickly as it came, leaving behind only the cold taste of rain in my mouth.
Lyren was suddenly beside me, her hand gripping my arm. "You are bleeding," she said.
I looked down. Thin streaks of light, not blood, ran down my wrists where the storm pulsed beneath my skin. "It is not blood," I said.
Aurelius stepped closer, his eyes sharp. "This place reacts to you. It is feeding off your resonance."
Before I could answer, the ground beneath us groaned. A deep, ancient sound that came from below the valley. Cracks spread through the glassy soil like veins of lightning.
The echoes began to fade, their forms dissolving into streaks of light that bled into the air. But one remained. The one who had spoken. It lowered its spear and looked at me. "You cannot undo what you were," it said. "You can only remember."
Then it raised its hand. The storm inside me surged in response. I could not tell if it was an attack or a plea.
The ground erupted.
Lyren shouted something, but the sound was lost in the chaos. The valley split open beneath us, swallowing the ruins whole. I grabbed her before she fell, the storm lashing out instinctively. Wind roared, stone shattered, and light tore through the cracks like veins of fire.
The world tilted, collapsing inward. I wrapped the storm around us both, pulling her against me as we fell through the storm's fury. For a moment, I saw flashes again, faces, battles, symbols carved into the sky. My name. Not Kaelion. Something older. Something I could not yet say aloud.
When we hit the ground, the storm cushioned the impact. The air was thick with dust and ozone. Lyren lay beside me, barely conscious, her face pale. I forced myself up, pain burning through every muscle.
Aurelius was shouting from above, his figure barely visible through the haze. I could not hear his words, but his expression said enough, get out. The valley was collapsing.
I gathered the storm again, but it felt heavier now, slower, like it was resisting me. As if it had learned too much of me, or maybe I had learned too much of it. I reached for Lyren, lifting her carefully.
The ground shuddered again. Massive slabs of glass and stone fell around us, glowing faintly from the stormlight still clinging to them. The echo's voice came once more, faint, almost kind.
"Do not forget again."
Then the light vanished.
I burst upward, letting the storm propel me and Lyren out of the rift. The world exploded in brightness as we broke through the surface, air rushing around us in a violent gust. We landed on the edge of the valley, both barely standing.
Aurelius ran to us, his face pale. "You tore a hole through time itself," he said. "Do you understand what that means?"
I did not answer. I could still hear the echoes in my head. Not words now, memories. Battles. Names. And one phrase that kept repeating, soft but unrelenting.
"He remembers."
The storm quieted slowly, withdrawing into the space behind my heartbeat. Lyren opened her eyes, just barely, and managed a faint smirk. "Next time," she said weakly, "you can fall alone."
Despite everything, I almost smiled. Almost.
I looked out across the valley. It was gone now, swallowed, erased, as if it had decided to hide its secrets again. Only a faint shimmer remained where the stormlight had touched.
Aurelius stood beside me, eyes scanning the horizon. "He felt that," he said softly. "Wherever he is, Varok felt it."
Far away, across the steel cities of the north, a man of iron and fire lifted his head. The storm rippled faintly against his armor, and a thin smile crossed his face.
"He remembers," Varok said, his voice low and calm. "Good."
And somewhere inside me, the storm trembled like it was answering back.