The sky above them was wrong.
It pulsed gold and crimson like a slow-beating heart, rippling across the heavens in waves that shimmered like molten fabric. There were no stars—just drifting orbs of light too large and slow to be called suns, and too pale to warm the land.
The trio stood at the edge of a basin ringed by jagged cliffs. The ground was dark glass, cracked and veined with glowing gold. In the center of the basin stood a spire—crooked and half-collapsed, but humming with faint energy.
"We're not in the Fold anymore," Nyx murmured, stepping cautiously onto the cracked glass. "But we're not in Faerun either."
Iris glanced at the sky again. "Where are we?"
Thalen's jaw was tight. "Somewhere that shouldn't exist."
The spire called to them.
Each step closer made the shard of the Heart in Iris's satchel grow warmer. Not just in temperature—but in awareness. It wanted to be here.
The closer they came, the clearer the carvings on the spire became. They weren't fae glyphs or Fold-born star-lines. These were older. They twisted around the base like living script, the letters bending into one another, refusing to be fully read.
Nyx stared at them and said, quietly, "I think this place was sealed away. Hidden. Maybe even from the Astral One."
"By who?" Iris asked.
Nyx pointed to the script. "Whatever language that is… it's not one I've ever seen in Faerun, or even in the Spire of Echoes."
Thalen touched the stone. "Then someone—something—older than the Fold wanted this place forgotten."
Inside the spire, the air was heavy with silence.
The walls glowed with veins of gold and red, like blood vessels under translucent skin. In the center stood a dais shaped like a fractured clock face, its numbers mismatched and incomplete. Gears floated above it, spinning without sound.
As Iris stepped onto the platform, the shard pulsed, and one of the floating gears snapped into place.
Immediately, the spire reacted.
Images appeared in the air around them—fractals of memory, flickering like candlelight:
A woman with hair like starlight, whispering words to a child with a broken watch.
A court of silver-cloaked figures kneeling before a burning sky.
A gate, massive and alive, being shut from the inside.
Nyx reached toward one of the images, but it vanished before he touched it. "These aren't visions," he said. "They're records."
Thalen looked at Iris. "You triggered this."
Iris looked down at the shard in her hand. "It recognized this place."
"And that means the Heart came from here," Nyx added. "At least in part."
Thalen knelt beside the platform. "This spire—it's like a vault. Someone hid part of the Astral One's essence here. Maybe even split it on purpose."
Nyx frowned. "Then maybe it wasn't sealed to protect others from the Astral One… but to protect it from itself."
Before Iris could respond, the spire began to tremble.
The glowing veins dimmed. The fractured sky outside flickered—and for a moment, Iris thought she saw something enormous move across the horizon.
A massive, coiled silhouette.
Thalen was already on his feet. "We're not alone."
They rushed to the doorway—just in time to see something land at the edge of the basin.
It was not the Lord of Masks.
It was worse.
The creature that rose from the earth had no form, only suggestions of limbs, wings, mouths. Its surface shimmered like oil over broken glass, reflecting the spire and the sky.
Iris felt the shard in her satchel go cold.
Nyx hissed a curse. "A Dream Remnant. A piece of the Astral One's original body."
Thalen's blade was already drawn. "How do we fight something that isn't alive?"
"We don't," Nyx said. "We survive it."
The Remnant surged forward.
It didn't move across the ground so much as bend space to meet them. The moment its shadow touched the basin, the glass began to melt into golden liquid.
Iris raised the watch. The dial spun wildly, gears shifting on their own.
One symbol—a spiral with a jagged edge—glowed on the face. She pressed it.
Light exploded outward in a dome, shielding the spire for a moment. The Dream Remnant struck the barrier and recoiled, its surface distorting in agony.
Thalen stared at the shield. "What did you do?"
"I think…" Iris hesitated. "The watch remembered how to defend itself."
The shield wouldn't last.
Cracks were already forming.
"We need to leave," Nyx said. "This place is breaking apart."
Thalen nodded. "Back through the way we came?"
"No," Iris said. The watch spun again, revealing a new symbol—a vertical eye, blinking slowly. "There's another exit."
She pressed it.
A portal burst open in the air above the dais—dark and starless, but steady.
"Where does it go?" Thalen asked.
Iris looked at them both. "Where the next fragment is."
As the Dream Remnant screamed and lunged, they jumped.
The sky shattered behind them.
And the forgotten realm crumbled into memory.