Chapter 6: The Girl Who Sealed the Rift
Darkness churned behind Sol's closed eyes.
Not the gentle void of sleep—but the kind that whispered. Voices dragged claws along his mind. Shapes without form slithered through impossible corridors of memory.
Then—light.
Sharp, white. He gasped.
He was lying in a cot inside a low stone chamber, walls laced with silencing runes. His hands were bandaged with silverweave. A single warded candle burned in the corner.
And sitting on the far side of the room…
…was her.
She sat with perfect stillness, her fingers folded. Those black-glow eyes watched Sol like one might watch an unstable ritual.
"You're awake," she said flatly. "Good. That means I don't have to kill you."
Sol blinked. "Charming."
She didn't smile.
Kael entered moments later, eyes red-rimmed and tired. He nodded at Sol, then at the girl.
"Sol, meet your unexpected savior—codename Nera. We don't know her real name. She won't share it."
"Names are dangerous," she said, not looking away from Sol. "Especially yours."
Sol sat up slowly. "You're like me. A Pactbearer?"
She nodded. "I walk a different path. My Pact isn't forged by ink or fire. Mine is Threaded in Silence—a pact with the Eye That Slept Beneath All. I bind things that should never be spoken. Like your power."
Sol clenched his fists. "What happened to me?"
Kael and Nera shared a glance.
Then Kael said:
"You triggered a memory lock—a hidden Echo buried in your soul. Whatever you saw… it wasn't a dream. It was a fragment of your true past."
Sol frowned. "So that boy in the cage…"
Nera stood, pacing now.
"You were a sacrifice once. Bound to an ancient rite older than even the Pact System. Something… cracked in the ritual, and instead of dying, you absorbed a shard of the Nameless Throne itself."
Sol felt his heartbeat skip.
"That's not possible. The Throne is sealed. The Ascended of the Upper Tiers—"
"—Lie," Nera interrupted. "They sealed it because they couldn't control it. And now it's bleeding into the lower Tiers. Through you."
Kael handed Sol a folded scrap of old parchment. On it was a sigil—one that moved when you blinked.
Sol's hands trembled. It felt… familiar.
"This was on the altar where they tried to bind you," Kael said. "The cult called it Vael'arh—'The Thorn Without Origin'. You were supposed to be its vessel."
Nera added quietly:
"They failed. You didn't die. But part of it stayed inside you."
Sol's Pact began to shimmer faintly. The room dimmed slightly—like even the candle feared the words being said.
Before Sol could process everything, a bell tolled far above.
Kael looked up. "Emergency signal from Tier Six. A rift has opened—an uncontained tear in reality."
Nera's expression darkened.
"That's where the cult went dark last year."
"We need to go," Kael said. "Sol, you're not ready. But if this is connected to you, we can't ignore it."
Sol stood, silent. His pact pulsed with silent hunger.
"I need answers. And I need to know if I'm even me anymore."
Nera nodded once.
"Then step carefully, Thornborn. The more you remember, the less human you'll stay."
As the trio prepared to leave, a single page drifted from Sol's satchel.
He didn't remember packing it.
It was blank… then inked itself without warning:
"You are not the first bearer.""You are merely the first to walk back.""The Throne remembers."
Sol looked up.
In the corner of the room, just for a blink, a figure sat on an invisible throne, its face scribbled out, body stitched from unwritten words.
Then it was gone.