The sky had darkened to a violet hue by the time Kiel and Myra arrived at the outskirts of Garridan Hollow, a ghost-town carved into the sides of a dead mountain. The silence here wasn't oppressive—it was watchful. The wind didn't howl; it listened.
"This place wasn't on any map," Myra muttered, glancing around the ruins. "You sure the second Chime is here?"
"I'm sure it's not the kind of thing that wants to be found," Kiel replied. His eyes scanned the broken archways, crumbled statues, and symbols scrawled in invisible ink only his Seeker mark could reveal. "But the Chimes are drawn to unresolved truths. Garridan is full of them."
They entered the center of the hollow—a stone amphitheater. At its core was an obsidian pedestal with a massive tome floating above it: The Spectral Ledger.
"It records all debts… not of gold, but of guilt," Kiel whispered. "And it decides if you're worthy."
As they approached, the tome cracked open. A thousand voices spilled from its pages in a crescendo of accusations, confessions, and cries for forgiveness. Myra fell back, eyes wide, hearing her own name whispered by voices from her past.
"This thing… it knows me," she breathed, trembling.
"It knows everyone," Kiel said. "It's the second trial."
Suddenly, the ground quaked, and a figure emerged from the amphitheater's shadowy rim. Draped in robes woven from unpaid regrets, it bore a mask made from shattered oaths.
"The Ledger demands a confession," the masked guardian said, voice both male and female, child and elder. "Speak, or be unmade."
Kiel stepped forward. "What kind of confession?"
"Not what you've done," the guardian replied, its mask twisting. "But what you've refused to admit."
The Ledger flipped its own pages violently—scenes from Kiel's past flashing in the air like cursed memories:
A battlefield where he walked away instead of saving his comrades.
A woman in chains begging him to defy the Council, whom he abandoned.
His own reflection, whispering, "You chose vengeance over truth."
Kiel clenched his fists.
"I've done terrible things," he said. "But what I regret most… was letting the world decide who I was. I believed the lie they told me—that I was born to destroy. So I did."
The guardian paused. The wind stilled.
"And now?"
"I don't know what I am," he admitted, voice low. "But I'm choosing to remember. Even if it kills me."
The guardian raised a hand. The Ledger snapped shut.
"You may take the second Chime."
From the tome's spine, a sliver of radiant blue energy emerged—cold, trembling, ancient. Kiel reached for it and felt a surge of understanding ripple through him.
This Chime wasn't a bell. It was a truth. A sharp, inescapable note that demanded to be faced.
The moment his fingers touched it, the amphitheater vanished.
---
They stood again in the real world. Garridan Hollow now lay still. The second Chime pulsed within Kiel's palm, its frequency syncing with the first.
"You confessed," Myra said softly. "That… couldn't have been easy."
"It wasn't," he replied. "But now I know what's next."
"What?"
"We're not just ringing the Chimes," he said, eyes blazing. "We're unsealing the Vault of Names. And inside that vault… is mine."
---
A new tremor echoed across the continent. Far away, in a fortress of silence, a cloaked figure stirred and whispered, "He remembers too much."