There was no sun beneath the world.Only echoes.
Kael descended into the bowels of the earth, his torch flickering against walls older than stone, older than time. The stairwell spiraled endlessly, carved by hands that no longer remembered themselves.
"I thought the Deepfolk were extinct," Iris said, her voice barely a whisper.
"No," Vaerin replied. "Just forgotten."
Kael didn't speak.
He was listening.
To the breathing stone.To the distant hum of memories that refused to die.
The Descent
They walked for hours.
Then days.
The deeper they went, the more the world twisted. Gravity grew unsure of itself. Time seemed to slip sideways. Kael could swear he saw shadows that didn't match their bodies—echoes of versions of themselves that had made different choices, walking beside them in silence.
The path ended in a cavern that could've swallowed a mountain.
Before them rose Quthmar, the City of Screams.
It was not made of stone, but bone—giant rib-like towers stretching toward a ceiling of pulsing bioluminescent moss. The structures groaned as if alive, and wind passed through the hollow towers with a chorus of eternal mourning.
"Now I see why they call it that," Vaerin muttered.
"They don't," Iris replied. "That's just what surface-dwellers call it. The Deepfolk named it Vae'llun'thar… the City That Remembers Everything."
The Bone-Wise
They were met by beings tall and pale, their eyes glowing blue from beneath translucent skin. The Deepfolk had no mouths; they spoke directly into Kael's mind.
"You are Kael."
"You carry the Blood of the Banished."
"And the fire of forgotten gods."
"We have been waiting."
The Bone-Wise, as they called their elders, formed a circle around Kael. Iris and Vaerin were left behind at the edge of the chamber—powerless to interfere.
"Why me?" Kael asked aloud, though he knew they would hear his thoughts.
"Because you are a fracture in the pattern. You are not supposed to be. You are memory incarnate."
"I don't understand."
"You were erased from the world once, Kael. But something—someone—remembered you. And that memory brought you back. The Hollow Queen wants to undo that. She wants to unweave all things forgotten."
"Why?"
The Bone-Wise shivered. For the first time, they looked… afraid.
"Because she was once the world's first memory. And now she wants to be its last."
The Forbidden Memory
They offered Kael a gift: not a weapon, but a memory. One so ancient, no mortal mind could survive it unscathed.
"You must see the beginning. Or you cannot end her."
Kael stepped into the Pool of Echoes.
He fell.
He saw fire. Not of battle—but of birth.A star crying in a cradle of ice.A woman born of silence and sorrow.The Hollow Queen.
Not always a queen.Once, a girl. A guardian of stories.She was tasked to remember everything so the world would not forget itself.
But over centuries, as people abandoned old tales and erased their histories, they forgot her too.
Alone in a void of lost things, she went mad.Her grief became hunger.Her silence became screams.Her love for the world… turned to hate.
She vowed to erase what had abandoned her.
To become the last chapter in the world's story.
Kael screamed as he tore himself from the vision.
The Bone-Wise helped him stand. Blood leaked from his eyes. His soul shook.
"How… how do I stop something like her?"
"You must remember what she was… and remind her. That is the only way."
"And if I can't?"
"Then the stars will go out. And the scream will never end."
The Echo and the Flame
Kael emerged from Quthmar days later, changed.
He carried no new sword, no spell, no armor. But within him was a new fire—deeper than hate. Older than fate.
He now understood her.
And he pitied her.
"Where to now?" Vaerin asked, adjusting his gear.
"North," Kael said. "To the Temple of Silence."
"Why there?"
Kael turned, and for a moment, the fire in his eyes was not flame—but memory itself.
"Because that's where she died the first time."