Outside the vault, the old stone corridor felt colder.
Rai had picked up a letter.
The handwriting was shaky. Almost desperate.
"To those who enter after me—if you read this, then I have failed. I could not save them. The cities burned, the rivers turned black, and my remedies came too late. I leave behind not salvation, but knowledge. If you walk this path, may you do better than I did."
There was no name.
Rai folded the note slowly. "Guess the old man had his regrets too."
Eron glanced over. "Do you think he died here?"
"It doesn't really matter now. What matters is that we make good use of what he left behind."
The silence that followed wasn't uncomfortable. It was heavy, like the vault itself had remembered something painful.
