The wind changed.
Kael noticed it first—not by sight or sound, but by memory. A strange warmth in the air, carrying a scent not of rot or ruin, but something older.
Ash.
But not from burning wood.
Ash like words—forgotten, scattered, and carried through centuries on a silent breeze.
They climbed the final ridge in silence, mud caking their boots, breath frosting despite the warmth. Above them, a sliver of pale sky cut through the fractured ceiling of the Undervale, casting ghostlight on broken stone and vines that pulsed with faint luminescence.
They had reached it.
The Whispering Vale.
Once, it had been a city of scholars and seekers—where Thornbearers gathered to pass on their knowledge before the rot took hold. Now it was little more than a cracked amphitheater of stone steps, moss-cloaked pillars, and half-submerged towers leaning like drunks toward the abyss.
Bryn exhaled. "Doesn't look like much."
"That's how the Vale protects itself," Thorne said. "This place doesn't need walls. It guards with what's already inside."
"What do you mean?" Elen asked.
Thorne didn't answer immediately. He knelt and ran a hand across the stone. It shimmered faintly, then darkened—like it had swallowed the light.
Kael took a cautious step forward.
His mark pulsed. The Codex rustled.
He heard whispers.
Not voices. Not language.
But fragments—names, ideas, memories—tumbling like leaves caught in wind. They weren't his.
And yet… they could've been.
He dropped to one knee and touched the stone with his palm.
A voice bloomed.
Not from without—from within.
"You were Kael of the Hollowrise."
A girl's voice. Young. Familiar.
Kael's vision blurred. He saw a courtyard. Candles. A name spoken in laughter. A woman's hand in his. Gone.
"You left them behind."
He tried to pull away, but the voice held him.
"You chose the Thorn. You let the Hollow burn."
His mark flared white-hot.
He jerked back—eyes wide, breath ragged.
Bryn steadied him. "Kael?"
He shook his head, jaw tight. "This place… it doesn't just whisper. It remembers."
Thorne stood, face grim. "You've touched the Gate."
"The what?"
"The Veil doesn't protect knowledge. It tests it. Only those who can walk memory without being lost may find what lies deeper."
"So we walk through it?" Elen asked. "What, memories? Illusions?"
"No illusions," Thorne said. "Only what you've hidden from yourself."
They moved deeper into the ruins.
The layout bent oddly—like the space warped around them. Sometimes a corridor led them in a circle. Other times, a single step took them a hundred feet further. Kael realized quickly: direction didn't matter here.
Only memory did.
They came to a shattered courtyard.
At the center stood a well of dark stone, surrounded by six broken pillars. Each bore a sigil—some Thorn-like, some older. One pillar still glowed with faint, pulsing fire.
Kael approached.
The moment he crossed the edge of the courtyard, everything changed.
The world vanished.
He stood now in a field of sun-baked grass, under a sky streaked with blood-orange clouds. His armor was gone. No Codex. No mark. Just bare hands—and a distant memory tugging at his ribs like a buried thorn.
A child sat nearby. Brown hair. A wooden sword.
Kael knew him.
"Bran," he whispered.
His brother.
Before the Hollowrise burned.
Before he died.
Kael stepped closer. "Bran—"
The boy looked up.
But there were no eyes in his face.
Only fire. Coiling, writhing, twisting like ink in water.
"You left me," Bran said. "You always leave. You always burn."
"No," Kael whispered. "I didn't choose—"
"You chose the Codex. You chose Thorne. You let the flames take me."
The sky cracked.
From it descended wings. Not whole—fragmented, ash-swept, vast. A creature like shadow and fire wrapped in scales older than stone. Its roar shook the earth.
Bran pointed at Kael.
"Burner."
Kael screamed.
He staggered back into the real world, gasping, clutching his chest.
Elen was beside him, chanting something soft. Bryn gripped his shoulder. Thorne only watched.
Kael choked. "I saw him. My brother."
Thorne nodded. "You passed the first trial."
"Trial?"
"The Gate shows you the memory you fear most. It strips away the layers. If you survive, you move deeper."
Bryn glanced around. "And if you don't?"
Thorne didn't answer.
The air thickened.
Kael felt it again—that presence. Not the Vale. Not the Thorn.
Something deeper. Watching. Waiting.
The Codex opened in his hands of its own accord.
A new page had written itself.
Only one phrase, scrawled in burning ink:
"Speak the name you buried."
Kael's mouth went dry.
"I can't," he whispered. "Not yet."
The page didn't burn. Didn't vanish.
It just waited.
Like something else was waiting too.
They reached the Veilheart at dusk.
It wasn't a chamber. Not exactly.
It was a hollow ring of broken spires, built around a single obsidian altar. Around it, a dozen Thornbearer blades had been driven into the earth. Each one bore a name.
Not carved.
Burned.
Thorne knelt. He whispered something too soft to hear. Then he turned to Kael.
"You've come far."
Kael nodded. "Farther than I thought."
"This is the place where your Thorn roots. Where the fire takes hold—or is cast out."
"What do I do?"
"You stand in the center. And you remember."
Kael stepped forward.
The Codex trembled.
His mark flared.
The Thorn inside him awoke.
Light and shadow warped.
He was alone in a space made of flame and memory.
The altar pulsed beneath his feet.
In the air above it, a shape formed—not quite solid, not quite smoke.
A dragon.
Eyes of searing white. Wings folded inward. Not attacking. Not breathing fire.
Watching.
Kael knelt.
The dragon leaned closer.
It spoke—but not aloud.
Its voice was made of every name Kael had forgotten. Every truth he had run from. Every fire he had smothered.
"You are not yet flame."
Kael looked up. "Then make me so."
"You would burn."
"Then I'll burn."
The dragon opened its jaws.
And from within, not fire—
—but a name.
Kael felt it rip through him. A name that was his, but older. Not Kael the orphan. Not Kael the Hollowed. But Kael-the-Unnamed.
It lodged in his soul like a seed of flame.
He collapsed.
When he awoke, Thorne stood over him.
"You remembered."
Kael nodded.
Elen helped him to his feet.
Bryn handed him the Codex.
He took it—and this time, the Codex didn't resist.
It opened to a new page.
At the top, written in fire, was one word.
Not yet readable.
But waiting.
The first letter?
V.
Kael smiled.
"Vaelarith," he whispered.
And the wind, ever so faintly, whispered back.