The dawn was cold and gray when they reached the edge of Solrath Keep's forest. Mist clung to the trees, curling around the horses' legs like ghostly fingers. The keep itself loomed beyond a ravine, half-shattered towers rising like bones from the earth, remnants of a war long buried by silence.
Elara sat still in her saddle, staring at the ruins. Her magic pulsed faintly beneath her skin, restless, as if it could feel what waited inside.
Tarin stirred behind her, rubbing sleep from his eyes. "Is this it?"
Raphael dismounted first, scanning the treeline. "It is."
Elara slid down, landing softly beside him. Her boots sank slightly into the wet moss. "Looks dead."
"The most dangerous places often are," Raphael replied, his voice low.
They crossed the ravine carefully, using a narrow stone path that crumbled at the edges. Tarin clutched Elara's hand tightly, eyes darting. The silence was thick, unnatural. No birds. No wind. Just the distant creak of ancient stones.
Inside the keep, the air grew colder.
The great hall still stood, barely. Vines clawed through the shattered windows. The broken remains of banners hung like shrouds. Raphael moved ahead, his blade drawn, runes glowing faintly.
"This place is cursed," Tarin whispered.
Elara didn't disagree.
At the far end of the hall stood a dais. Upon it, a blackstone altar—cracked, yet humming with power. Raphael stepped toward it, but Elara grabbed his arm.
"Wait. Feel that?"
He nodded. "Magic. Old. Twisted."
Suddenly, the air snapped.
A figure appeared near the altar. Hooded. Masked. Just like the one from last night.
"You should not have come here," the figure said.
Elara pushed Tarin behind her. "You again. What do you want?"
The figure raised a hand. Dark energy swirled like smoke.
Raphael lunged.
The battle erupted. Steel against shadow. Flame against darkness. Elara unleashed her power, fire spiraling through the broken hall, lighting up the carvings on the walls—carvings of a serpent, an eye, and a girl with burning hands.
Her.
The magic recoiled.
Tarin screamed.
"The pendant!" he cried, pointing.
On the altar lay a twin to the blackstone pendant the masked enemy had held. Elara dove for it. Her fingers touched the stone and the world shifted.
Memories not her own flooded her mind—screams, chains, a tower made of bone. A voice, soft and familiar, whispering: "You are the flame. You are the key."
She fell to her knees, gasping.
Raphael was at her side instantly. "Elara!"
The masked figure shrieked. As if burned. Then vanished in a torrent of black smoke.
Elara clutched the pendant, heart racing. "They were protecting this. Whatever this is... they didn't want me to touch it."
Raphael looked grim. "Because it's not just power. It's a memory. A piece of something broken."
She met his eyes. "Then we find the rest."
Behind them, the carvings began to glow.
The carvings pulsed.
First a dull shimmer, then a searing light that spread through the moss-covered stones like veins awakening after centuries of sleep. Elara stumbled back as the air thickened again, magic crackling with tension.
Tarin whimpered behind her. "What's happening now?"
Raphael raised his blade, eyes narrowing at the carvings. "They're responding to the pendant. To you."
Elara's grip on the blackstone tightened. "They feel familiar. Like they're trying to speak."
One of the serpent carvings shimmered and shifted, moving as if alive. Its eye glowed red. A second carving—this one of the girl with burning hands—suddenly morphed. The flames in the stone curled inward, forming a sigil Elara recognized from her dreams.
The mark on her shoulder.
Her pulse hammered. "It's me."
Raphael stood at her side, voice low and measured. "This keep isn't just ruins. It's a vault."
She looked at him. "A vault for what?"
"For what they tried to bury. For what the Order fears."
The air shifted again. Cold, sharp, unnatural. Then—
A low creak echoed through the hall.
From the far left, behind a crumbling column, a doorway appeared—one that hadn't been there moments ago. Not stone. Not wood. But energy. Twisting and translucent, like woven threads of light and smoke.
Tarin moved closer to Elara, trembling. "I don't like this."
"Neither do I," she muttered. "But we're not leaving empty-handed."
Before Raphael could stop her, she stepped toward the glowing doorway. The pendant pulsed in her hand again, and the doorway responded—shifting, reshaping. A whisper rippled through the keep, too faint to understand.
She stepped through.
And fell.
Not through space—but through memory.
She was in a tower, chained, flames licking her skin but not burning.
She was on a battlefield, screaming a name—Raphael?
She was in a cradle, a voice singing a lullaby in a language no longer spoken.
She saw the Order's emblem. She saw fire devouring the world. She saw herself—older, wilder, broken—standing before a throne of ash.
"You were made for more," the voice whispered. "But you must choose who burns."
She gasped, tearing free from the vision. The hall had returned. Time hadn't passed. Tarin and Raphael stood where they'd been, but their eyes were wide.
"You disappeared," Raphael said. "Just for a second—but the air... it screamed."
Elara was shaking. "I saw things. Past lives, maybe. Possibilities. Me… destroying everything."
Tarin looked terrified. "You wouldn't."
Elara didn't answer.
Raphael stepped forward and brushed a lock of hair from her face. "Then let's make sure you don't have to face it alone."
She leaned into his touch. "I don't know who I am anymore."
"You're Elara. And you are not a weapon unless you choose to be."
But the pendant pulsed again.
A voice echoed faintly in the distance—one only she could hear.
"One piece reclaimed. Six remain."
She looked at the glowing carvings. "This was the first. The map's not just a map, is it? It's a key."
Raphael nodded. "Then we follow it. And we finish what they started."
Elara turned to the doorway, now sealed, the energy faded.
Somewhere, across the continent, six more pieces waited.
And the storm was only beginning.