When the Sky Cracks, the Dead Remember
Selene
The sky didn't heal.
Even days later, the red scar remained—like a wound in the heavens that refused to close.
Selene couldn't sleep. Couldn't breathe without feeling the pulse of something massive watching her. She dreamt in voices not her own. Saw cities on fire. Thrones of bone. A sea made of screaming blood.
And always—a hand, reaching from darkness.
Not to take her.
To free her.
---
Kael kept her close now.
He said little, only watched with those unreadable eyes of his. But Selene noticed the runes carved into his gloves—fresh ones. Fearful ones.
"Is it Vel'Kharin?" she asked.
Kael shook his head. "Vel'Kharin is the first. But not the worst."
"Then what's worse than a god?"
He hesitated.
Then said: "The one that made you."
---
The Forgotten City
Far across the continent, beyond ash plains and ruined temples, the knight reached the gates of Dovar'Fall—a city that hadn't been spoken of in five hundred years.
The dead lined its streets.
Not skeletons. Not ghouls.
But memories made flesh.
Each citizen moved like a puppet, eyes glowing silver, whispering words no living soul could bear. The knight walked between them unbothered.
He reached the palace at the heart.
The throne was empty.
The god inside the throne was not.
---
Selene
The storm broke on the fifth night.
Winds lashed the tower. The red sky pulsed with power. And something in Selene's chest snapped. Not in pain—but in recognition.
She knew where to go.
She dressed in silence, ignoring Kael's warnings.
To the edge of the valley.
To the graveyard older than maps.
The Well of Hollow Names.
The wind there spoke her name. But not her current name.
Not Selene.
It called her by her first name.
Her true name.
"Valeria."
She fell to her knees.
And the earth split beneath her.
---
Kael
By the time he found her, it was too late.
Selene knelt at the center of a glowing circle of runes—ones even he couldn't read. Her eyes were bleeding silver. Her mouth murmuring in the tongue of the old gods.
He tried to pull her away.
But the earth rejected him.
Selene rose, levitating now—her hair like a crown of night, her skin glowing with fire-veins.
"I remember," she said, her voice layered with something ancient.
"Who are you?" Kael whispered.
She turned to him.
"I was their queen before I was their curse."
And then the world screamed.
---
Final Scene – The Awakening
In the ruins of Dovar'Fall, the second god opened its thousand mouths.
It laughed in soundless thunder.
Its first words in centuries:
"She speaks again. Let the chains break."
And the sky shattered.