The first Soul Temple was buried beneath the city of Irael the capital of silence, built over the bones of gods who tried to name themselves immortal.
It smelled like scripture and regret.
They thought I wouldn't come here.
They thought I couldn't.
But I walk through the silver wards like mist untouchable, unrepentant and push open the obsidian doors with nothing but my name.
"Seraphina Vale," the high priest says when he sees me.
"I buried you."
"And yet," I whisper, "you're still kneeling."
He's aged. Not by time, but by fear. Wrinkles inked by guilt. Eyes clouded not with age but memory.
He remembers what he did.
In my first life, he was my mentor. My confessor. The one who taught me to wield divine energy as if it were silk in the hands of a queen.
And he sold me for a prophecy.
"You were meant to rise again," he says, trembling. "But not like this."
"I didn't rise," I reply, stepping onto the sacred altar. "I returned. There's a difference."
I press my palm to the rune circle etched into the marble. Light floods upward in a vertical scream. The walls of the temple bend. Statues crack.
From the center of the seal, a voice hums.
Not Seren.
Something older.
A memory of me.
"This piece remembers betrayal," it says. "Shall I show you who else turned against you?"
The light reveals names. Faces. Bloodlines.
The priest gasps.
"No! That magic was sealed"
"I unseal what I please," I say, and then I turn to him.
He falls to his knees, hands pressed in prayer.
"Mercy," he begs.
"Then be useful," I whisper.
I kiss his forehead with flame.
And bind his soul to the altar.
Not out of forgiveness.
But as a key.
He'll be the first. There are twelve more temples. Twelve more pieces of me.
And when I reclaim them all?
I will be more than reborn.
I will be divine.