The wind howled across the barren highlands outside the Azure Spire, kicking dust and frost into Erik's path. The road ahead curved into the hills, winding toward nowhere in particular. No towns. No maps. No destination.
Just exile.
Veyrion hung at his back, pulsing faintly, quiet since the tribunal. The soul inside him hadn't spoken since the gates closed.
It felt like silence was the only thing left.
Until he saw her.
The girl from the wall.
She stood at the path's edge, her feet bare on cold stone, long black hair billowing in the wind like smoke. Her eyes were stitched shut—fine, silver thread crossing each lid. Not crudely. Precisely. As if done in ritual.
Blood dripped from her fingertips, tracing glyphs into the air that vanished before they could be read.
Erik slowed, hand near his blade. "Who are you?"
She smiled.
"I am someone who sees better with my eyes closed."
Erik frowned. "That's not an answer."
"No," she said, "it's a beginning."
She walked toward him. Her bare feet didn't touch the ground—they hovered just above it, a whisper of movement instead of a step. Runes shimmered around her ankles like chained spirits.
"You heard the Seer," Erik said. "You're one of hers."
"I was," the girl replied. "Long ago. Before she was sealed. Before the swords were forged. Before your world knew walls."
Erik stepped back. "Then you're not human."
"I was that, too. Once."
The girl stopped three paces from him.
"I came to give you something."
He narrowed his eyes. "What?"
"A choice."
Veyrion buzzed low, barely audible.
"She's not lying," the soul murmured. "But she's not entirely honest, either."
Erik crossed his arms. "I've had enough of riddles."
"Then choose," the girl said simply. "You can keep walking forward, away from the Order, into a world that will fear you. Or… follow me, and I'll take you somewhere that remembers what came before."
"Before the gods?"
She nodded. "Before the gods. Before the devils. Before Veyrion. Before the war."
Erik studied her for a long moment.
Then he asked, "What's your name?"
She tilted her head, as if no one had asked that in a long time.
"I used to be called Saline."
He glanced at the glyphs still bleeding from her fingertips. "You're hurting."
"It's the price of memory," she said. "The more I remember, the more it cuts."
Erik hesitated. Then nodded. "Show me."
Saline turned and began walking—not toward the hills, but away from them.
Toward the cliffs.
Hours passed, but time no longer felt linear. They crossed terrain Erik didn't recognize—rocky shores that didn't appear on maps, forests that weren't visible from the Spire. Each tree seemed older than the sky. The sun never moved, yet the shadows always shifted.
Finally, they reached a hollow beneath a hill. A stone arch stood there, half-buried, covered in runes that writhed when Erik looked too closely.
"This is a shrine," she said. "But not to a god. To a concept."
Erik raised an eyebrow. "What concept?"
"Balance," she replied. "Before gods demanded worship, before devils carved suffering, there were truths that simply… were. This is one of them."
She placed a hand on the stone.
The runes flared.
The arch opened—not physically, but like a wound in space. The air rippled. And beyond it… was sky.
But not his sky.
Endless darkness, layered with rings of molten gold, like the eye of a sleeping titan. Floating shards of stone drifted across it like broken ruins caught in time.
"A fragment of the First World," Saline whispered. "Preserved."
Erik didn't step in immediately.
"I don't understand what you want from me."
She turned to him.
"I want you to see what Veyrion really is. And what it's hiding from you."
The soul stirred.
"This place is dangerous."
"I've been through worse," Erik muttered.
"No," the soul said. "This isn't pain. It's clarity. And that may break you more than any blade."
Erik stepped forward anyway.
And crossed through.
Instantly, his senses shifted.
The air was heavy—not with pressure, but with history. Every breath tasted of old fire and forgotten oaths.
He stood on a shattered bridge, suspended in midair. Below him, a sea of glowing memories churned—faces, voices, screams, laughter—all flickering for seconds before fading.
Saline stood beside him. But now, her form was… clearer.
No longer ghostly.
She looked human. Young. Whole. Her eyes were still sealed, but no longer bleeding.
"This world doesn't obey your rules," she said. "Here, time is memory. Thought shapes space. Willpower is reality."
"Then what's this place made of?" Erik asked.
She looked at him.
"Regret."
He turned slowly, and there—etched across the sky—was a massive rune. Not floating. Not glowing.
Burning.
He knew that rune.
It matched the third glyph on his blade.
"I've seen this," he whispered.
"You've inherited it," Saline said.
He drew Veyrion.
The third glyph pulsed.
And suddenly—
He was no longer standing.
He was falling.
Not in body—in memory.
He stood in another life.
A field of glass. Towers fallen. Corpses of angels and demons alike.
He was someone else—taller, broader, his voice heavier, his heart colder.
Veyrion in hand.
At his feet knelt the First Seer.
"You promised me balance," she whispered.
"And I kept it," he replied.
"By ending everything?"
"No." He raised the blade. "By resetting it."
He brought the sword down.
Light swallowed all.
Erik gasped, falling backward into his body.
Saline stood over him, now weeping.
"You were one of them," she said. "One of the three who ended the First Realm. You sealed your own soul in Veyrion. But not to hide…"
She knelt beside him.
"To be reborn. To try again."
Erik sat up, trembling.
"I was the one who ended it all…"
"No," she said softly. "You were the one who tried to stop what was worse."
"What was worse?"
She looked toward the burning sky.
And the eyes opened.
Eyes that spanned the horizon.
Watching. Blinking. Awakened.
"The ones who made gods and devils," she whispered.
"They're coming back."