The moon hung like a cracked mirror above the forest canopy, bleeding pale light across the ruins below. Clouds passed like silent ghosts, and the air felt thinner here—drier, as though the wind itself refused to breathe in this place.
We stood at the edge of a cliff overlooking a collapsed basin. A ruin, partially buried by time and roots. Crumbled stone arches and broken pillars jutted from the earth like bones, half-consumed by ivy and lichen.
This wasn't marked on any path. There were no roads here. Just memory—and silence.
Lira stood at my side, arms crossed tightly over her chest. The faint light of the Soulkindled Flame shimmered inside her veins now, just visible under her skin when she was afraid. She tried to hide it.
"This is where they brought me before the altar," she murmured, barely audible. "They said… this was the Hollow Sky. The place where the veil between breath and silence is thinnest."
'Hollow Sky… that name feels older than this forest.'
A whisper of pain flitted across my memory, not mine—hers. I still didn't know how our soul-links worked, only that they did. When her mind trembled, something echoed in mine.
We descended the basin trail. The soil grew darker as we went, the grass sparse, replaced by layers of gray ash and shattered gravel. The path wound between crooked spires of rock and fossilized roots—more grave markers than natural formations.
At the bottom lay a broken circle of stone, half-collapsed into the earth. In its center: a massive slab carved with a spiral and a faint, weathered crescent moon—nearly erased.
[System Notice: Echo Node Detected – Moonbound Sigil (Sealed Fragment)]
I stepped forward, my hand trembling as I touched the stone.
The moment my skin made contact, the air buckled. Like the moment before lightning splits the sky. A whisper, delicate but ancient, flowed into my skull—not spoken, not heard. Remembered.
"The spiral devours because it does not create.The flame binds because it remembers.One forgotten, the other fed.Who now carries the weight?"
Light exploded behind my eyes.
Visions poured into me:
A woman in white with silver eyes, arms outstretched over an altar of kneeling followers.
A circle of spirals, burning red.
Screams echoing through the void.
Her name torn from her lips and cast into the dark.
I gasped, stumbling backward. My hands clenched soil to keep from collapsing.
Lira grabbed my arm. "Isaac! What happened?"
"I saw… her," I said slowly, still reeling. "The one who's been watching. She was here… She died here. But not completely."
[System Update: Moonbound Flame — Resonance Increased 12%][New Objective: Locate Remaining Echo Nodes – 0 / 3]
I looked again at the stone. This wasn't just a ruin. It was a memory shard—anchored to something bigger than the Spiral cult. Bigger than this valley.
"She was trying to protect this place," I whispered. "And they turned her into… something else."
Lira's eyes widened. "Who?"
"I don't know her name yet. But she's reaching out. Through the Flame."
The ground beneath us pulsed once—softly, like a heartbeat. The Spiral mark on the stone hissed, burning itself away until only the faded crescent remained.
'She's guiding me. Or warning me.'
Either way, this story wasn't just mine anymore.
It was hers, too.
And I had a feeling I was just beginning to remember the part I was meant to play.