The wind screamed across the Shattered Coast, clawing at the jagged spires of Sanctum of Sorrow. This ancient ruin hung at the cliff's edge; rune-carved walls glowed faintly against the bruised sky, purple and gray, as though the stone wept for secrets long buried. Mannn stood on the threshold, cloak snapping like a ragged banner, boots sunk deep in the sodden, salted earth. He had walked here from farther away than any other place, but it had always felt that way with the questions that ate away at him. Was he chosen? Could he be? Like a stone, with a cold and unyielding feel, it sat in his throat.
Inside that air hung thick with myrrh under the faint rot of time; flickering candles in iron sconces had lights so weak that they could not expel shadows clingily hiding in exceptions under a vaulted ceiling. There, at the end of the church, knelt Father Iseult at an altar, draped in silks faded by time. His white robes pooled like spilled milk on the stone floor. His hair, gnarled like old roots, clutched a staff with an obsidian crescent that seemed to devour light. Neither did Iennu turn toward him as footsteps resonated into a heavier and heavier air, as if it too palpably felt intrusion from the sanctum.
"You've come," Iseult said, voice a low rasp, as wind over dry leaves; "the sea whispered your name before dawn."
Mannn stopped dead, hand tightening on the dagger's hilt at his hip-not for threat but for comfort. "I wasn't sure I'd make it," he said, his voice slightly ragged from days of silence. "The roads are unkind."
"The way which this world goes is unkindness," Iseult replied, rising slowly. There was weight in frosted pale eyes looking to Mannn, and it seemed the sadness stretched over more than one lifetime. "But you are here. That's what matters."
Mannn shifted room, like leather friction on boots creaked in disuse. "I wonder why it is that I find myself standing here," he said, talking before he could check his words. "Dream or perhaps voice followed me to where I am now-into some kind of unknown future."
Iseult's lips curved, not quite a smile. "Dreams are the gods' whispers, Mannn. They do not speak without purpose." He gestured to a stone bench near the altar, its surface worn smooth by centuries of penitents. "Sit. Hear the tale I am bound to tell."
Mannn hesitated, then obeyed, the cold stone biting through his cloak. He felt small in this place, unworthy of its grandeur, its grief. The weight of his own doubts pressed harder—years of wandering, of failing those he'd sworn to protect, of carrying scars no one could see. Why him? What could a man like him, broken and unmoored, offer to a place like this?
Iseult leaned with his back against a staff, the eyes raking the altar, where flickering in one silver basin the solitary flame hung, sending shadows upon shadows of the dancers that moved like mourners. "Long ago," he began, "when oceans have yet to rise and stars shifted, the priestess Aeloria was born. She was the effulgence of this shrine; her voice was a melody that soothed the gods themselves. She worshiped the Moonlit Sovereign, the goddess of tides and secrets, and had no rival in her devotion."
The clear reference to Aeloria stirred faint flickers of something in Mannn, as if he were hearing a distant past, a memory that was not his own.
"But, devotion," continued Iseult, "carries the other edge as well. Aeloria loved much-too-much, not only for the Sovereign but for a mortal man, a name lost in time. Their love was forbidden, for the Sovereign had called for her priestess' heart in its entirety. In rebellion, Aeloria cast a binding spell to link-soul unto soul-her beloved. But to defy the ire of the Sovereign is no easy thing."
The flame on the altar flickered with a light distraction. Mannn felt constricted in the chest by an unaccountable pang of sorrow.
"Then the Sovereign cursed her," whispered Iseult. "Aeloria's soul was ripped from her body and sealed into this sanctum, caught in a prison of stone and starlight. Her lover was thrown into the sea, with no knowledge of the fate awaiting him. The curse was saddled with cruelty: Aeloria shall remain chained, neither alive nor dead, until some day her soul mate shall return for her liberation. Not just an ordinary soul mate, one whose heart resonates with hers, whose destiny is entwined with hers through the ages."
A sharp intake of breath came from Mannn. Suddenly the dream that had brought him here was clearer—A soft, agonized voice of a woman calling his name from beyond a veil of mist. "How could anyone know?" he murmured scarcely above a whisper. "How could anyone be sure that they are the one?"
Iseult's gaze softened, but with no hint of comfort in it. "The soul knows," he said. "It feels the pull, the ache of a bond older than flesh. But such a path is fraught. The Sovereign's curse demands a price-the sacrifice of the heart. To free her, a soul mate must give something equating to that which causes her suffering."
With clenched hands in his lap, Mannn asked, "What kind of sacrifice?"
Iseult was silent for a moment. He turned to the altar, his staff tapping the stone floor with a heartbeat sound. "That I don't have an answer for. The will of the Sovereign is mystery, even to Her servants. But this: The one who frees Aeloria shall shoulder a burden heavier than any they have ever known."
The words settled over Mannn like ash. He was no stranger to burdens—his sister's death, the village he'd failed to save, the nights spent staring at a sky that offered no answers. But this felt different, divine in its weight, as if the gods themselves had turned their gaze upon him. He wanted to protest, to say that he wasn't a hero and not a chosen one. He was just a man scarred and weary, chasing a dream that he understood barely.
"Why tell me this?" he asked, his voice sharper than he intended. "Why me?"
Iseult's piercing gaze returned to him as though chiseled from ancient granite. "Because you are here," he simply replied. "Because the sea whispered your name. Your coming on this threshold was by the stars. You are not here by chance, Mannn."
The twist came like a blade between ribs. Mannn's heart stuttered. "You mean... it was foretold?"
"Yes," Iseult said, his expression grave. "The scrolls of the Sanctum speak of a wanderer marked by loss whose steps would echo Aeloria's sorrow. Even before your coming into this world, your coming had been written into the stars. The Sovereign has watched you, Mannn, through every trial, every doubt. She has seen your heart."
Mannn stood up suddenly, the screech of the bench across the stone very audible. "No," he said, his voice trembling with a mix of fear and anger. "I am not what you are thinking. I am not.... I failed everyone I cared about. My sister, my home—gone because I wasn't enough. How could I be anyone's soulmate? How could I be hers?"
System: her soulmate?
Iseult's eyes held a flicker of compassion, but his voice remained steady. "The Sovereign does not choose the flawless, Mannn. She chooses the broken, for they know the weight of redemption. Aeloria's curse is not a punishment but a test-of her soulmate's strength, of their heart's truth."
Mannn turned away and paced toward the altar. His hands trembled. The flame's light cast his shadow long and jagged across the floor. "I don't believe in destiny," he said, voice raw. "I don't believe in gods playing games with my life."
"Belief is not required," Iseult said softly. "The truth remains. You feel her, don't you? In your dreams, in the quiet moments when the world falls away. A voice, a pull, a sorrow that is not yours but lives in your bones."
Mannn froze. The priest's words were too precise, too piercing. The dreams had begun months ago-her voice, her face obscured by mist, her hands reaching for him. He'd thought it grief, madness, anything but this. "What if I'm not the one?" he whispered. "What if I try and fail?"
"Then Aeloria remains bound," Iseult answered, heavy with finality. "And you will carry that failure until the stars fade."
The sanctum seemed to close around Mannn, the air thickening with the weight of centuries. His sister's face, joyous and laughing, with blood on his hands. The burning village and its screams, which he could not hide. Savior was not his title. But he was a man who ran from pain, chased after dreams he could not understand. Yet he could indeed feel the pull that drew toward his chest, echoing Aeloria's voice. It was real, divine, and very clever.
"What do I do?" he asked, voice breaking.
Iseult came closer, his staff tapping softly. "Follow the pull. The sanctum will then guide you to her. But beware-the Sovereign's curse is not a simple lock and key. It will test you, strip you bare, demand everything."
Mannn's eyes burned, not with tears but with the weight of it all. "I'm not enough," he said, the confession tearing free. "I've never been enough."
Iseult placed a hand on his shoulder, the touch surprisingly warm. "No one is, until they must be. The Sovereign chose you, Mannn. Not for your strength, but for your heart. Trust it."
Suddenly the flame on the altar flared, casting a golden glow across the sanctum. Mannn felt it-a pulse, a whisper, a name. Aeloria. His knees buckled, and he sank to the floor, the stone cold against his palms. The priest stood over him, a silent guardian, as the wind outside howled like a grieving god.