They reached the city just after dawn.
Once called Varethin, the city had been the jewel of the western empire—its towers sculpted from bone-white stone, its markets humming with music and incense. But now it was a relic. Half-buried by desert winds, ruled not by kings or priests, but by memory and dust.
Eloryn and Maren passed under the crumbling gates in silence. The once-grand arch bore a faded inscription in High Tongue: Truth is the shape of the stars. The irony was not lost on either of them.
Varethin was not empty. It lived, in a way. Nomads camped in broken plazas. Children played beside shattered statues. But none dared dwell near the center—where the Archive of Echoes still stood.
"It was here," Eloryn whispered. "This is where they erased them."
Maren stared at the massive structure. Its roof had collapsed, but the walls remained upright like the ribs of a long-dead god. Black banners of the Inquisition fluttered along the perimeter, tattered but unmistakable. "You're sure?"
She nodded. "This is where the names were burned. The original Oracles—those who warned against binding the Book—were condemned here. Their memories sealed. Their graves unmarked."
He swallowed. "Then what are we hoping to find?"
"Something they missed."
They entered the Archive through a side entrance, one Maren remembered from ancient maps. The hallway inside was silent, coated in sand and soot. Shelves that once held scrolls now sat empty or collapsed. In the center chamber, a great pit yawned in the stone floor—where the sacred records had been burned by royal decree.
Eloryn walked to the edge and knelt.
"The fire still remembers," she murmured.
"What?"
She drew a curved shard of glass from her satchel. Maren recognized it: a piece of the shattered Mirror.
Holding it over the pit, she began to hum—a low, resonant note that seemed far too deep for her small frame. The air shimmered.
Maren stepped back as the shard began to glow. Slowly, faintly, ghostly letters appeared in its surface—names. Dozens of them. Then hundreds.
"I can't hold it long," she said through clenched teeth. "Look for one that still echoes—one that isn't fully erased."
He leaned in, scanning the drifting script.
Then he saw it. A name that pulsed instead of faded.
Kaelren of the Hollow Spire.
"This one," he said. "Kaelren."
Eloryn snapped the shard shut, the glow vanishing.
"Kaelren was the first to oppose the Book's creation," she said breathlessly. "If we find where he fell, we may find the first thread in the weave."
"But the Hollow Spire is a ruin," Maren said. "It's in the Frostmarch—far to the north. If the Inquisitors catch wind—"
"They already have," said a voice behind them.
They turned to see a tall figure in grey armor, his face half-covered by a bronze mask.
"Inquisitor Theron," Maren breathed.
Theron nodded once. "You were warned, High Priest. Now you stand beside the witch."
Eloryn stepped forward, eyes glowing faintly.
"I'm no witch," she said. "I'm your future—and your reckoning."
He raised his hand—and the ground beneath them cracked.
**************