The cave was silent, save for the soft crackle of embers.
Pao sat cross-legged on the dirt floor, Solon's manual resting in his lap. The final page still glowed faintly under the flickering firelight—Kezrith Vorr's name inked in something that didn't reflect heat or shadow.
Blood-tied. Thought-bound. Memory-thief.
His hands trembled.
The Lanternbrand on his chest had grown dim, but its warmth remained—like a coal buried beneath his ribs. Not searing. Not soothing. Just there.
A reminder.
A warning.
He read the last line of Solon's message again:
You must not let him remember fully.
You must not remember fully either.
A question twisted in his mind.
What had he already forgotten?
He tried to sleep, but sleep didn't come.
Instead, memory did.
A flash—candles in a circle. A boy, barefoot, sitting in the center.
He was younger. Maybe seven.
Voices chanted around him.
Solon stood nearby, but he looked different—older, gaunt, frightened.
He was holding a blade. Not to strike. To seal.
The boy stared forward, face blank.
And beneath his skin… something moved.
Pao bolted upright, chest heaving.
He could still feel the chanting. The way the ground trembled. The exact pattern of the chalk circle.
It wasn't a dream.
It was a memory.
And it wasn't his.
But it was.
That was the truth clawing at the edge of his thoughts.
There was something buried beneath who he was.
Something Solon tried to hide.
Something Kezrith Vorr had touched long ago.
And it was surfacing.
He broke camp before dawn.
The salt line had held. No creatures crossed it. No dreams bled into the waking world.
But the moment he stepped out into the fog-blanketed canyon, the air shifted.
Something was waiting.
He continued east, one eye on the crumbling cliffs above.
The road narrowed between two fractured statues—once twin saints of fire. Now, their faces had melted into screaming masks.
Ahead, a crooked wooden bridge spanned a deep ravine. A broken bell hung at its center, its rope frayed to threads.
Pao paused.
Something was off.
The fog wasn't moving.
It was watching.
A sharp clink echoed from behind.
Steel on stone.
He spun, blade drawn.
A figure stood on the path—thin, tall, and wrapped in a crimson cloak that billowed despite the still air.
Its face was masked with bone. No eyes. Just slits and a spiral carved where the mouth should be.
It tilted its head.
Pao didn't wait.
He muttered a ward word—"Kaal'sith." The glyph on his blade flared. Barely.
The figure charged.
Fast.
Pao barely blocked the strike—its arm a blur of bone-wrapped muscle. Sparks flew as the blades met. The force sent him staggering back toward the ravine.
The cultist hissed—not with sound, but with intention. The spiral on its mask pulsed.
Pao gritted his teeth and rolled aside.
A second strike buried into the dirt.
"Verun Kaa!" he shouted, slashing upward.
Flame licked the air, slicing across the cultist's robes. It shrieked, stumbling back. Its mask cracked.
Behind it—more shapes emerged from the fog. Three. No, five.
Too many.
He had to run.
But the bridge was narrow. Exposed.
And collapsing was one misstep away.
Still—
He turned and sprinted.
The bridge groaned under his boots. Planks snapped. Fog swirled like a living thing below him. Something moved in it—something with teeth.
He didn't look down.
The cultists followed. Fast. Silent.
Halfway across, a blade nicked his arm. He spun, slashing wide, catching the lead attacker's leg.
It tumbled off the bridge with a scream—cut short mid-fall.
The others paused.
A mistake.
Pao raised his hand and whispered:
"Vaer'nach'tel."
The old name.
The brand on his chest flared.
A flash of something burst from his palm—raw, unfocused magic. Not spell. Not prayer.
Just will.
The bridge exploded in fire.
He woke in pain.
The explosion had thrown him clear of the final few planks. He lay in a shallow ditch, ribs bruised, arm torn.
But alive.
No sign of the cultists.
Only charred wood and ash drifting from above.
He sat up, gasping.
What was that spell?
He had never learned that incantation.
Had never heard it spoken.
It came from instinct.
Or memory.
Kezrith's memory.
He bandaged the wound and drank the last of his water.
By noon, he found another fragment of the Pilgrim's Spine—another path, another chance to reach Azoran Reach.
He didn't stop moving.
The visions were becoming more frequent.
The memories clearer.
And through them, a whisper always lingered:
"We are not separate, you and I."
That night, he dreamt again.
This time, he stood in a palace of ash and bone.
Thrones—seven of them—ringed a pit filled with black fire.
Each throne bore a name he could not speak.
Except one.
The largest.
Etched into obsidian:
Kezrith Vorr.
A figure sat upon it.
Eyes like voids. Hands of shadow. Voice made of him.
"Your body remembers.
Your soul resists.
But your blood… your blood remembers everything."
Pao screamed.
And woke up with the brand bleeding again.
He was changing.
And whatever he was becoming—human or not—
The world was not ready for it.
But the Monarchs were.
They had waited.
They were waking.
And now, so was he.