The Path Takes Them

Ayola turned to guide Thalia toward the volcanic horizon, her mouth opening to speak—

But the earth screamed first.

A ring of fire burst from the ground, circling Thalia in a perfect blaze. It rose like a crown, then swallowed her whole in a pillar of flame. She didn't scream. She didn't run.

She stood still… and vanished.

Ayola spun—just as a coffin, old and covered in glass and ash, materialized out of nowhere.

It opened without touch.

Elis didn't resist. A single tear slid down her cheek, and then her body folded into the coffin like water being poured into memory. It sealed shut and sank into the earth.

"Wait—!" Sael shouted.

But she had no time.

The air around her shattered into mist. A wave, suspended in mid-air, curled like a serpent from the clouds above. It struck her, not violently, but completely, lifting her into a spiral of floating liquid.

She gasped once, eyes glowing pink—then she too was gone, carried upward into the sky.

Ayomi tried to run to her—

But the ground beneath her split, revealing a grave made of polished stone. The soil wasn't dirt—it was ink-black memory, and it knew her name.

She cried out, reaching for Ayola.

Ayola reached back.

"AYOMI!"

But it was too late. The grave closed, silent and final.

Then… came the vines.

Zion had only begun to move when they erupted—vines of flame, stone, wind, water, and something else—something unnameable. They coiled around his arms, chest, legs—then his throat.

"Ayola—!"

She ran to him.

The vines didn't care.

They dragged him downward, beneath the stone floor of the Crossroad, into a realm beneath realms, where breath itself twisted and time folded inwards.

And then…

Silence.

Ayola stood alone once more.

Her chest heaved.

Ginen pulsed around her, not with malice—but with a kind of divine inevitability.

It had chosen.

Not who enters.

But when.

And how.

The trials had begun.

She was not their guide anymore.

Now, she was witness