The journey to the Temple of the Forgotten Name began with silence.
Not the silence of peace or sleep, but the kind that lingered in ruins and forgotten corners of the world. A silence so complete it swallowed footsteps, breath, even thought. As Iris, Thalen, and Nyx descended from the Hollow Crown's vale, the world around them felt less like a living realm and more like the echo of one.
The path to the Temple was not marked on any map. Not even the silver-etched diagram inside Iris's watch could pinpoint it directly. It was a place that had erased itself from memory—one that required being remembered to be found.
But the thorn-shaped key Iris had claimed pulsed with a quiet certainty. Whenever they wandered too far off course, it trembled against her chest like a compass needle desperate to point true north.
They passed through the Shivering Glades, where the trees moved in slow spirals, their roots whispering warnings in languages none of them spoke. In the Valley of Echoes, they encountered travelers who had long since forgotten their names, cursed to repeat the last thing they said until their voices turned to dust.
And then, the fog came.
It was not ordinary mist. It crept in like a living thing—silver, thick, unrelenting. It dulled the senses and distorted distance. Iris reached out to grab Thalen's hand once, and her fingers touched the hilt of his sword instead. Nyx muttered under his breath, the glow from his tattoos dimming with each hour.
"It's thinning us," he finally said. "Testing if we'll lose each other before we even get there."
"We won't," Iris said. Her voice cut through the fog like a blade. The key around her neck glowed faintly. The fog recoiled, just enough for her to see the faint outline of a bridge—a narrow span made of broken starlight and bone, hanging over a ravine of void.
They crossed it single-file. Iris in front. Thalen behind her. Nyx last, muttering charms and counter-curses the entire way.
And then, they were there.
The fog parted.
The Temple of the Forgotten Name rose before them—not a structure of grandeur, but one of impossible geometry. It looked different from every angle. To Iris, it was a spire of shadow-glass, reflecting stars that didn't exist. To Thalen, it was a cathedral grown from silver thorns, weeping light. Nyx saw a ruin, ancient and wounded, its broken arches held together by sheer stubbornness.
Iris stepped forward, and the door—if it could be called that—recognized her.
It opened without a sound.
Inside, the world unraveled.
The Temple was not bound by space as mortals knew it. Its hallways twisted like thought. Rooms existed not in sequence but in memory. Every time Iris blinked, the layout shifted.
But the key continued to guide her.
They passed through a corridor filled with broken timepieces—clocks that ticked backward, hourglasses spilling upward, sundials that spun in moonlight. One wall bore an engraving:
"Time is not your jailer. It is your inheritance."
In the next chamber, mirrors lined the floor. Iris looked down and saw not her face, but her selves—versions of her who had chosen differently. In one, she wore the Hollow Crown, her eyes silver with power. In another, she was a child, still in Hollowmere, never having crossed the Veil. One image showed her shattered, the black rose blooming through her chest.
She stepped carefully, choosing not to look down again.
Thalen paused only once, in front of a mirror that showed his mother—the Thorn Queen—reaching out for him, face unreadable. He did not speak, only lowered his gaze and moved on.
Nyx lingered longer than either of them. When he rejoined the group, his face was unreadable, and his usual snark absent.
Finally, they reached the inner sanctum.
It was a circular chamber with no ceiling, open to the shifting sky above. Stars moved in slow spirals. In the center floated a crystalline pedestal, and atop it: a fragment of the Heart of Faerun.
It pulsed golden, fragile and fierce, like a sliver of divinity.
But guarding it was something else.
A figure sat in meditation, cross-legged before the pedestal. Cloaked in robes made of unraveling constellations, their face was obscured, their voice a whisper that echoed through the bones.
"You have come to claim what you do not understand," the figure said.
"We've come to heal a realm," Iris answered, stepping forward.
"To heal it," the guardian said, "you must first break yourself."
Thalen drew his blade, but the guardian did not move. Nyx frowned. "What kind of test is this?"
The guardian rose. No footsteps, no motion—just presence.
"I am what remains of the first Seer. I could not bear the weight. I shattered under truth. But I guard the path so others might have a chance to choose." Their voice became many voices. "To take the Heart, you must face the truth that unravels you."
The pedestal glowed brighter.
The stars overhead spun faster.
And the temple began to hum.
Iris stepped forward. The moment her fingers touched the fragment, time fractured.
She was not in the temple.
She stood in a garden—her garden in Hollowmere. The black rose had bloomed. But now, its petals were falling fast. With each one, her world darkened.
Then she saw herself.
Older. Hardened. Wielding the blade from the Hollow Crown. Leading armies of shadows. Faerun burned behind her.
"You can't run from who you are," the vision said.
"I'm not running," Iris replied. "I'm choosing."
Another vision formed.
Thalen, crowned, alone, broken.
Nyx—betraying her, tears in his eyes.
The Veil, sundered. The mortal world consumed.
Each vision asked the same question: What are you willing to sacrifice?
Her voice broke, but she said it anyway: "If saving Faerun means losing myself, then maybe I was never meant to stay whole."
She reached for the Heart.
And it accepted her.
The Temple exploded with light.
Thalen shielded his eyes. Nyx swore under his breath.
When it faded, Iris stood in the center of the room, eyes glowing faintly gold. The fragment pulsed in her palm.
But the guardian was gone.
Only a final echo remained:
"Two fragments remain. One in shadow. One in fire. Only together can they remake the Heart."
Iris turned to her companions. "We move before the curse does."
Nyx nodded slowly. "Then we go to the Obsidian Hollow. If shadow has a home, it's there."
Thalen hesitated. "The fire fragment… it lies within the Ember Court. And they don't take kindly to visitors."
"I don't care," Iris said. "We're running out of time."
Outside the Temple, the sky shifted again.
One of the moons now bore a crack—a thin, jagged fracture cutting through its face like a wound.
The Astral Curse was spreading.
And Faerun was no longer waiting.