The air grew colder as they descended.
Each step deeper into the Sanctum of Echoes felt like sinking through layers of forgotten time. The walls, once radiant with celestial inscriptions, now flickered with ghostly remnants of light—fractured glyphs, starlit runes, and quiet whispers etched into the stone itself. The silence was not absence, but presence restrained. A breath waiting to be exhaled.
Avesari walked ahead, her form swaying slightly, still weak from the clash with Serethiel. Despite her injuries, her expression remained composed, almost reverent, as though each step through the sanctum was a prayer she dared not speak aloud.
Behind her, Caleb kept close to Serenya. The chronicler's daughter moved cautiously, eyes sweeping the murals with silent awe. She held a soft glow crystal in her palm, illuminating stories carved across the corridors—accounts of the First Harmony, of celestials that walked among mortals, of a sanctuary forged beneath the battlefield of gods and rebels.
"This place is older than even the Chronicler's records admit," Serenya whispered.
Caleb nodded. "Then it must have been hidden for a reason."
Avesari paused, her voice quiet. "It was."
Serenya raised an eyebrow. "You've been here before?"
"Not in this age," the fallen angel murmured. "But once... long ago. When the Sanctum still sang with the breath of Heaven."
They entered a wide circular chamber, its ceiling domed and fractured, revealing veins of starlight filtering through ancient stone. At its center stood a dais—half-collapsed—upon which rested a pedestal. Upon it lay a fractured relic: a silver circlet wrapped in thorned vine, humming faintly with energy.
Avesari approached it slowly.
Caleb reached out instinctively. "Wait—"
But her hand had already touched the edge.
The chamber pulsed.
Walls trembled. Runes flared. And the circlet unraveled, floating briefly before dissolving into threads of light that streamed into the walls—awakening dormant glyphs.
Then came the voice.
"You are not what you were."
Caleb froze. The voice was not from any of them. It echoed from everywhere and nowhere—ancient, layered, and weary.
"You bear the mark of the fallen, yet you carry the breath of hope. Why return?"
Avesari did not flinch. "Because the song has begun again. And we must find what was buried before the end repeats itself."
A long pause followed.
Then the walls shimmered and shifted, revealing a hidden stairwell leading even deeper into the sanctum. The air grew denser, colder. Caleb's breath fogged before him.
They descended.
Torches along the wall lit one by one without touch, as if recognizing a presence they had once known. Murals along this new descent changed in tone. No longer stories of harmony, but of betrayal.
Serenya stopped before one. Her eyes widened.
"Caleb... look."
He turned to see what she pointed at: a depiction of a dark-winged angel standing before a burning star. Around him, mortals knelt in chains of gold, and beside him stood a man with shattered eyes and bloodied hands.
It was unmistakably the corrupted archangel.
But more shocking was the figure painted opposite him—a shadowed silhouette wielding a violin wreathed in light, facing the archangel in defiance.
It bore Caleb's likeness.
He stumbled back. "What is this?"
Serenya's voice trembled. "A prophecy... etched long before the rebellion. One we were taught to dismiss. But it exists."
Avesari's brow furrowed. "I had only heard whispers. So even here, the truth was buried beneath scripture."
Caleb looked between them, voice unsteady. "Are you saying this was about me?"
Avesari turned to him. "Not just you. The mockingbird and the dark star. Two melodies bound across time—one to renew, one to corrupt."
Serenya added quietly, "And the one who bridges them..."
They continued down the corridor until they reached another chamber—smaller, dimmer. At its center lay a pool of mirrored water. The surface was unnaturally still.
Avesari approached it first. "This is the Oracle Mirror. It shows not the future, but the truth you deny."
One by one, they looked into it.
Serenya's reflection shimmered—first as herself, then cloaked in robes of the Silent Chroniclers, standing between fire and ash, holding a scroll that burned but never turned to ash.
Caleb saw himself again with the violin—but in chains, playing as cities burned behind him.
He stepped back, breath shallow.
Then Avesari stepped forward—and her reflection showed her as she once was: radiant, full of grace... then splintered into the form she now wore. But behind her stood the Creator—faceless, hands extended.
She gasped.
The moment broke as the surface rippled violently—then froze again.
They turned away from the pool, silence clinging to them like a cloak.
And far above, in the cracks of the sanctum's upper halls, something stirred.
Unseen, Serethiel stood within a veil of shadow, leaning against a cracked archway, a sick grin tugging at his lips.
"Well now," he murmured, watching them from afar. "Secrets unveiled, and yet... not even close."
He melted back into darkness, his presence a whisper lost in the sanctum's deep breath.
They didn't know it yet—but the deeper they went, the closer they came to uncovering not just forgotten truth...
...but the reason why Heaven fell silent.
---
The Sanctum had long fallen into silence after the trio passed beyond the mirrored threshold. Only the soft hum of arcane resonance lingered, like a breath held eternally in the throat of the ruin. From the shadows of the upper archways, Serethiel descended, bootfalls ghost-like upon the ancient marble.
He hadn't interfered. Not yet. But he'd watched.
Watched how Serenya lingered behind the others—ever cautious. Watched how Caleb walked at the center, unsure yet determined, as though pulled by a song he didn't yet know how to play. Watched Avesari with that half-broken posture and flickering light, a disgrace of celestial purpose... and yet she moved with clarity he could never mimic.
He sneered, watching them disappear through a set of veiled runes.
Then he turned.
The Oracle Mirror—the pool at the heart of the chamber—still glimmered faintly. Not from their presence, but because he was near.
A curiosity, nothing more, he told himself.
Serethiel knelt by the obsidian pool, peering into its glass-like stillness. For a moment, it showed only his reflection: eyes still sharp with divine memory, form still cloaked in power—however twisted it had become. The sigils along his jaw pulsed gently, a reminder of the pact etched into his very being.
Then the image shifted.
Not by his will.
Darkness rippled across the surface like oil, and his reflection cracked down the middle. What stared back now wasn't a mirror of him, but a monstrous silhouette—his form warped by unseen chains, crawling with fractal shadows. His eyes glowed with emptiness, and from behind him loomed the one he served.
The corrupted archangel.
Wreathed in divine ruin, his face half-hidden by a fractured halo, he reached toward Serethiel's image. His mouth didn't move—but the words echoed.
"You are what I made you."
Serethiel recoiled—but his feet did not move. He was held.
"You didn't make me," he hissed through clenched teeth. "I chose this path. I chose purpose."
"You chose survival."
"And that makes you mine."
The mirror flared, images flooding forth—memories twisted by time and influence. Serethiel saw himself at the gates of the rebellion, offering forbidden knowledge to the Creed. He saw Avesari's defiance in the Celestial Hall. He saw Caleb's hands glowing faintly over strings that shimmered like strands of fate. And behind it all—guiding, poisoning—was his master.
Serethiel's composure cracked.
His breathing came ragged, the runes on his skin glowing erratic. "No... I am not some dog on a chain... I—"
The mirror gave one final flash. A voice, his own, echoed from its depths:
"Then why do you still follow his scent?"
Glass shattered.
Serethiel stumbled back, the illusion gone—but the echo clung to him like a second skin. The sanctum was silent again.
But something inside him was not.