The Words of the Dead
---
The Vault closed behind them like a mountain exhaling.
Its doors slid back into place, silent as death, and the stone returned to stillness—leaving only the weight of what had been learned behind. The canyon was colder now, the clouds lower. Even the wind seemed wary.
Riven stood at the edge of the drop, looking out over the fractured lands beyond.
Kael leaned against a jagged stone, arms crossed. "So. They're making a Seventh Seal. Using us. And you're apparently the key."
Riven didn't turn. "That about sums it up."
"And your parents were part of the original Council that created the Seals?"
"They tried to stop what it became," Riven said. "They sealed my memories, my powers, to keep me hidden. But even hiding has a cost."
Liora adjusted the bindings around Mira's arm. The girl had grown quieter, her energy subdued but no longer erratic. She listened to everything with sharp eyes, older than her years.
Lyssa sat nearby, legs crossed, flames dancing along her fingers.
"Seals, Vaults, Orders, corrupted Councils," she said quietly. "Everything we thought we understood is unraveling. We're not unlocking a system—we're reviving a war."
Riven nodded once. "And the other side's had a head start."
---
They traveled west by dawn.
The path led through the Bleeding Expanse—a dry, cracked plain where lightning frequently struck the earth for no visible reason. The terrain twisted, as if the land itself had convulsed during some magical cataclysm.
It was here that Riven felt it.
A thrum.
Subtle, buried beneath the wind, but unmistakable.
Like something buried was calling to him.
Not from below—but ahead.
---
They found the village by midday.
Or what remained of it.
Charred homes. Ash-covered corpses. The well poisoned. Runes scorched into the ground—fresh.
The Seal sigil.
Not his.
Not Lyssa's.
A new one.
Kael cursed. "We're too late."
Liora crouched beside a melted altar. "This wasn't an accident. They tested the ritual again. They burned the village to complete it."
Mira stood silently, eyes wide. "I can feel her…"
Riven turned. "Her?"
"The next girl," Mira said softly. "She survived. I don't know how… but she's running."
Riven knelt. "Can you sense where?"
Mira nodded slowly, raising a hand.
The air shimmered.
A map formed in light.
A broken trail through hills, leading toward the ruins of an old observatory perched on the cliffs. It was an abandoned research outpost from the age before the Seals—long forgotten, unguarded, and filled with arcane residue.
"She's hiding there," Mira said.
Lyssa stood. "Then we move now."
---
The climb was brutal.
Steep switchbacks carved through crumbling rock, with howling wind and unstable footing. But the higher they climbed, the stronger Riven's Seal pulsed—responding not to danger, but to presence.
The presence of another Seal.
Or rather, someone becoming one.
They reached the observatory just before sunset.
And found it already surrounded.
Hollowbound.
Dozens of them.
Silent, their faces masked in silver, their movements eerily calm.
Kael crouched. "They knew. They're waiting for us."
Lyssa hissed. "They don't plan to capture her. They plan to finish the ritual here."
Riven narrowed his eyes.
"No," he said. "Not if I get there first."
---
The battle began without warning.
Riven surged forward, cloak billowing, sword drawn. The first Hollowbound swung a jagged blade, but Riven flowed beneath it, slicing across the man's ribs and spinning toward the second.
Kael followed like a shadow, twin blades flashing.
Lyssa moved through the fray like a phantom, her fire carving arcs of flame that flared in sweeping waves.
Liora covered from above, raining barriers and sigil detonations with precision.
And Mira—small but steady—chanted quietly, empowering the group with stabilizing pulses of wild magic. It was raw, but real.
The girl had become something between a mirror and a compass.
---
Riven reached the tower steps first.
A Hollowbound stood at the entrance, this one different.
Taller.
Heavily armored.
And holding a staff wrapped in bone.
Its voice came slow and rasping. "Your blood sings too loudly, Valenhart."
Riven struck without pause.
The figure blocked with the staff—but it wasn't just a weapon. It absorbed the impact, glowing with ancient runes, and blasted Riven back with a wave of dark shock force.
He hit the stone wall and skidded down hard.
The Hollowbound raised the staff. "You are not yet ready for what lies within."
Riven wiped blood from his lip. "Then I'll have to get ready fast."
---
A pulse of energy exploded from within the tower.
A scream followed.
Not of pain.
Of resistance.
The girl was fighting.
Riven looked up—past the Hollowbound, past the war on the steps—and saw a flicker of light at the top window.
Seal-light.
And then—it changed.
It went black.
"NO!"
Riven surged forward with everything he had, wings of wind and fire erupting behind him. He slammed through the Hollowbound like a battering ram, launched upward with magic-infused speed, and smashed through the window.
Inside, the room was ablaze with dark energy.
The girl hovered above the floor—limbs limp, eyes glowing black.
A circle of runes spun around her chest.
Too far gone.
Almost.
But not yet.
Riven reached forward, heart hammering.
"You're not a Seal," he said. "You're a person. Take it back."
Her eyes flickered.
Black to brown.
Then black again.
And then—his hand touched hers.
He channeled everything into her.
Not just power. Not just will.
Memory.
And suddenly, she was no longer floating.
She was crying.
Collapsed in his arms.
---
The room went still.
Below, the Hollowbound scattered.
The light in the sky dimmed.
Riven stood, lifting the girl gently.
She whispered something into his chest.
"...They said you'd come. That you'd undo the chains."
Riven didn't answer.
Because for the first time, he understood:
He wasn't just fighting a war.
He was undoing a prophecy.
And the Order knew it.
------
She whispered something into his chest.
"...They said you'd come. That you'd undo the chains."
Riven didn't answer.
Because for the first time, he understood:
He wasn't just fighting a war.
He was undoing a prophecy.
And the Order knew it.
---
They descended the tower slowly, the sky a wash of deep crimson and ember-tinted clouds. The girl—her name was Serin—could barely stand. Her Seal had not fully awakened, but it had been twisted, coiled into her by force. What saved her, Liora said later, was that her magic had resisted synchronization.
"Her soul," Liora clarified. "Didn't want the Seal. That's rare. Most hosts break. She didn't."
"She fought until she couldn't," Lyssa murmured, carrying Serin's scorched cloak. "That's more strength than I had when mine awakened."
Kael kept to the edge of the group, unusually silent. Not brooding. Listening.
The ruins around them smoldered.
The Hollowbound were gone—vanished into the smoke like phantoms. No one saw where Vaskel had gone, or whether he'd even been nearby.
But one thing was left behind.
A prisoner.
---
He was barely conscious—bloodied, chained in crimson binding runes that shimmered with containment glyphs. Mira had stopped his escape with a whisper of gravity magic. He hadn't expected her to act.
Now he knelt in the center of a shield circle, breathing heavily, eyes like cold knives.
"Your Order tortures children," Riven said, voice low. "You don't get to look smug."
The man smiled through the blood. "And you still think this is about children."
Riven stepped forward. "Then what is it about?"
The Hollowbound laughed—a raw, jagged sound. "It's about inheritance. About the sins of your bloodline and the Gate that was never meant to be closed."
Liora stepped forward. "Where are they making the next Seal?"
The prisoner said nothing.
Kael crouched, drawing a rune into the dirt beside the man's hand. It began to glow—softly at first.
"Start talking," he said. "Because this one doesn't hurt the body. It scrambles the mind."
The Hollowbound twitched.
Then whispered, "South of the Serathian Wastes. Beneath the ruined temples. They call it the Hollow Forge."
Liora's breath caught. "That's a myth."
"Not anymore," the man said. "And they've almost perfected it. Seals born, not found. Crafted in chambers lit by soul fire. The Seventh Seal will not be awakened by lineage. It will be built."
Riven looked down at him.
"How many children are there?"
The man's smile faded.
He didn't answer.
Riven nodded at Kael.
The rune flared.
And the Hollowbound screamed.
---
They left the prisoner behind—unconscious, shackled to one of the fallen towers. He'd live, but he would not forget them.
Serin slept in one of the tents Kael pitched beneath the broken stars. Mira sat nearby, feeding a quiet flame into a lantern. Her eyes glimmered with quiet purpose.
Lyssa watched Riven from across the fire.
"You can't save them all," she said gently.
"I'm not trying to," Riven replied. "I'm trying to save enough to matter."
She didn't argue with that.
Instead, she leaned closer, her voice quieter.
"You've changed."
"So have you."
"I still have fire in my blood," she said. "But you? You're carrying ghosts."
Riven looked at the flames.
"I think they're starting to talk back."
---
Far to the south, in the depths of the Serathian Wastes…
A woman in silver robes stood in a room filled with mirrors.
Each one shimmered with distant light.
One showed Riven's face.
Another showed Mira's.
The third was blank.
Until now.
It rippled.
And in it—Serin's face appeared.
The woman smiled faintly.
"So… the Heir is interfering. Just as predicted."
She turned to a masked figure in the shadows.
"Send the Operatives. All of them. It's time the Crown of Shadows remembered who cast it."
---