The stone mouth of the sanctuary yawned open, ancient and inert, as if the earth itself had forgotten what once slumbered within. It wasn't the grand cathedrals of old, nor the mechanical spires that pierced the sky in the Machinists' cities. This place was carved into memory—long-abandoned by time, reclaimed by silence.
Caleb's breath fogged the air as he stepped past the threshold. The descent into the Sanctum of Echoes had not been steep, but each footfall had felt heavier, as if something ancient pressed back against them. Behind him, Serenya clutched her lantern tighter, her eyes darting between the mosaics etched along the hallway walls—faded depictions of winged beings and strange sigils half-swallowed by shadow.
Avesari moved ahead, her presence dimmed since the confrontation. Her wings, though no longer bleeding openly, shimmered like the surface of still water after a storm—calm, but deceptive. Her form flickered at times, like the memory of light trying to cling to form.
"This place wasn't made by mortals," Serenya murmured, running her fingers along a groove in the wall. "The Chroniclers spoke of echoes in the deep, of sanctuaries carved by divine breath. I thought they were just myths..."
Avesari's voice, when it came, was low and unreadable. "They were myths. Until someone gave them reason to remember."
Their footsteps echoed faintly—strangely hollow. It wasn't just acoustics. Caleb felt it too: the sense of eyes unseen, memories coiled in the stone itself. The further they walked, the colder it became—not a biting frost, but the stillness of ancient tombs.
They passed archways woven with fading litanies. At their center stood a massive circular door etched with a glyph that pulsed faintly, reacting to their presence. Serenya held up her lantern, and the glyph responded with a quiet chime, then dissolved into soft motes of light, granting them entry.
Inside, the chamber opened into a rotunda with vaulted ceilings that soared beyond sight. Broken statues lay in solemn vigil around a dais where an altar had once stood. At its heart was a sunken basin, dry but scorched with remnants of ash. Caleb approached it slowly, sensing something familiar in its silent presence.
"This is the Place of Remembrance," Avesari whispered, more to herself than to them. "Where echoes become guidance."
"How will it guide us?" Caleb asked.
Serenya stepped closer, flipping through a weathered journal. "There should be a relic. A key made of starlight and crystal, left by the Harmonium—the original keepers of balance between Heaven and Earth."
"And you're sure it's here?" Caleb glanced at her.
"I'm sure enough that others would kill for what we might find," she said without irony.
As if on cue, the glyphs along the rotunda shimmered, awakening from dormancy. Patterns of light spread across the floor, reacting to Caleb's presence. The air trembled with residual energy—music, faint and ancient, leaking from the walls like a forgotten symphony. It wasn't his song. It was older.
"You hear it too," Avesari said, eyes narrowing.
Caleb nodded slowly. "It's calling something."
Serenya looked between them. "Or someone."
Avesari walked toward a broken statue with a reverent pace. It once resembled an angel, though time had erased its features. Her hand hovered just over the surface.
"When the Harmonium scattered, they left behind relics of remembrance—artifacts that could rekindle divine resonance. This is one of those places."
Then Caleb's fingertips brushed the altar's edge. Instantly, the chamber reacted. Light poured from the basin, rising like steam. In its glow, a crystalline shard floated upward—a relic shaped like a shard of heaven itself, refracting images of constellations that no longer existed.
The moment he touched it, pain lanced through his mind—flashes of memories that weren't his. A battlefield of broken halos. A song sung by thousands in despair.
The chamber sang.
Not with melody, but memory.
He saw flashes—visions blooming behind his eyes like fire blooming in dry grass. A field of white flowers turning to ash. A child's laughter swallowed by silence. A woman—his mother?—singing a tune that echoed with divine harmony. A star falling into the sea.
Then darkness. A scream cut short by silence.
He staggered back.
Avesari caught him, her grip firm. "It's a memory key. It's searching for your place in the greater harmony."
"I think it found it," he muttered, rubbing his temples, "I... I'm not sure. But it felt like something inside me knew this place—like it's part of me."
Serenya took the relic gently from him and placed it within a socket on the altar. The structure responded, parting to reveal a hidden staircase spiraling downward.
Avesari said nothing, but her gaze on him deepened with silent confirmation.
Before more could be spoken, a sound echoed from the stairway above.
A footstep.
Soft. Careful.
They turned toward the shadows—but nothing emerged.
Caleb strained his senses. "Did you hear—?"
"Someone's here," Serenya said, already drawing her dagger.
But the stairwell remained empty. The glyphs around the chamber dimmed slightly, as though something unseen had passed by, disturbing the air without disturbing the light.
Avesari narrowed her eyes. "We're not alone."
The trio held their ground, but no attack came. No form revealed itself.
"The path to the Sanctuary," Avesari said, her voice low with awe. "We're close."
But as they made to descend, something else stirred.
Unseen by the trio, high in the shadows above the rotunda, a figure watched.
Serethiel.
The agent's form was no longer whole—fractured lines of corrupted divine light shimmered along his silhouette. The wound Avesari had given him still burned beneath his ribs. But his eyes gleamed with malicious clarity as he took in the scene.
"They found it…" he whispered. "The boy awakened the key."
He crouched, gripping the stone edge of a column. The shadows obeyed him, cloaking his presence like a second skin.
He wouldn't strike yet.
Not until they led him to what lay beneath.
And below, the stairwell spiraled into unknown depths—toward chambers veiled in secrecy, toward the Sanctuary hidden beneath the battlefield where angels had once bled for the sins of both Heaven and Earth.