Not all gods whisper in dreams—some carve their screams into the bones of the earth.
Far to the north of Aurorium, beneath the hollowed mountain city of Draumvahl, seismic tremors awaken ancient glyphs carved deep into the bedrock.
The glyphs glow with sentient flame—the Stonescript, forbidden runes older than the gods themselves.
Kael, now returned to the Academy with the bound Crown Fragment Thorne sealed beneath Thornsreach, is summoned by The Obsidian Convocation, a circle of scholars tasked with interpreting primal languages. They've decrypted only two words from the glyphs:
"ASH THRONE""COME LISTEN"
The Flameguard prepare for war.
Kael prepares to listen.
Draumvahl is no ordinary city. It was built around the Core Stone, a massive crystal-veined monument that pulses in sync with the planet's lifeblood—called the Everspire Vein.
Legends say it is where the first god died, struck down by its own thoughts, which turned to stone upon death.
Kael arrives to find the city in disarray. The Stonecallers—dwarven-born sages who guard the ancient tongue—are in mourning. One of their own, Eldruun Senvahr, has been turned to living obsidian, eyes wide, mouth frozen in a scream.
On his stone lips: the etched phrase—
"The Flame Remembers. The Stone Demands."
Guided by the youngest Stonecaller, a girl named Vahla, Kael enters the Heart Hall, a chamber that amplifies residual memory from the rock itself.
Using the Ash Lens and his bond with Thorne, Kael activates the God-echo trapped inside the stone.
The walls weep dust. The ground sings with pressure. Then a voice, vast and grinding, speaks:
"I was called Khyren—Stone-Mind, Flame-Eater, God of Foundation. I remember the betrayal of the gods."
"I remember Vaelorian. I remember you."
Kael sees visions carved into time:
A younger Kael, lifetimes ago, standing at the Ash Throne, casting judgment on the gods.
Khyren kneeling, his mountains crumbling.
Lia's soul trapped in a stone blade, weeping sparks.
The god-echo offers a bargain.
"Stone forgets nothing. You seek truth—but can you carry all of it?"
Kael must face a Trial of Remembrance inside the Everspire Vein—a memory-maze that manifests every sin he has forgotten to protect himself.
Inside, Kael faces illusions:
His mother burning in a rebellion he accidentally sparked.
Lia, older, standing over his corpse, whispering: "You should've let the world forget."
A future Kael, wearing all seven fragments of the Bone Crown, wiping the skies clean with fire.
Each memory threatens to fracture his mind.
But Kael holds firm—anchored by Thorne's whispered guidance and a vision of his friends, waiting for him to return.
He survives.
The god-echo bestows its fragment of divine memory into Kael's body. A rune of living stone burns into his back, giving him the power to anchor memory into reality.
Now, he can cast memory not just as visions—but as unbreakable truth that reshapes the world.
But not all are pleased.
As Kael awakens, Vahla reveals a hidden prophecy: should any mortal bind more than two god-echoes, the Stonebreakers—ancient titans who once cracked the spine of the world—will rise again to reset memory itself.
And now Kael has two:
Flame (Thorne).
Stone (Khyren).
In the city's depths, a distant tremor echoes like a footstep.
The first Stonebreaker has awakened.
Back in Aurorium, word spreads.
The High Chancellor declares Kael an uncontainable anomaly.
House Vaeldra petitions to crown him as a King of Memory.
The Crownless raise a new standard, bearing the emblem of the Stoneburning Eye—a warning to all who seek to rewrite truth.
Lia returns to Kael's side, her eyes changed. She saw something in the Ash Throne vision she hasn't told him yet.
"We're no longer unearthing the past," she says. "We're waking it up."
"And it remembers us… far too well."