Vault of Aerenmoor

The path to Aerenmoor was not marked by roads, but by absence.

No birdsong.

No wind.

No path that stayed the same when you looked away.

The land around it had been twisted—not by weather, but by memory severance. Whole trees bent inward, toward a center that no longer remembered being a center. Roads cracked in symbols that rewrote themselves when unspoken.

Even the sky looked away.

Keiran stepped through the outer threshold at dusk.

The moment his foot crossed the broken stone ring, his mark dimmed.

Not extinguished.

But muffled.

The world inside Aerenmoor did not tolerate memory.

It devoured it.

The ruins rose ahead—black stone and fractured glyphs, half-buried in ash and ivy.

This wasn't a vault in the conventional sense.

It was a grave.

One for an entire year.

And those who still remembered it.

He passed the first altar—split clean in two. On it, a weathered inscription:

"Here lies the price of knowing."

Then the second:

"The year was real. The guilt was heavier."

Then a name.

Not his.

But familiar.

Kale Orrell.

He froze.

A last name that matched the one they'd forced on him after the purge—Vayne Orrell.

"You weren't alone," Merin had said once.

Now Keiran understood.

Kale had been the Sentinel who helped forge the Seal.

But not out of malice.

Out of duty.

And now… he waited inside.

At the base of the ruin, Keiran found the door.

No lock. No handle.

Just a mirror of still water, suspended in a broken stone frame.

It shimmered slightly, not reflecting the world—but searching it.

Keiran stepped forward.

No password spoken.

Just a heartbeat.

And then—

A voice.

Low. Steady.

Cold.

"Say your true name."

He paused.

Then: "Auren."

The water shivered.

Then parted.

The moment he passed through, the world inverted.

Not metaphorically.

He felt the gravity shift.

Up became inward.

Down became silence.

And ahead—standing in the center of a vast black chamber, surrounded by glowing runes carved into obsidian—

Was Kale.

Tall. Silver-haired. Armor cracked and rusted with time.

His eyes glowed the same color as the sealed mark: ashen gold.

"It's taken you long enough," Kale said, not turning.

His voice held no warmth. Only tired clarity.

"I wondered which version of you would make it here."

Keiran stepped closer.

"You remember."

Kale nodded.

"Every second. Every name. Every lie."

"I held the Seal. I burned the parchment. I watched her vanish—and you forget."

He finally turned.

"And now you want it back."

Keiran said nothing.

Kale stepped down from the central dais.

"Why?"

"Why risk it? Why tear open a sealed wound?"

Keiran met his eyes.

"Because forgetting her was worse than dying."

"Because she burned so I could carry the flame—and I let the world turn to ash around it."

Kale studied him.

Then removed a pendant from around his neck.

Inside: a spiral shard.

Gray.

Not glowing.

Dormant.

"This is what's left of the year."

"Not the events. Not the names."

"Just the emotion. The cost."

"Take it, and you'll remember. But so will everything else."

Keiran stepped forward.

But Kale didn't offer it.

"There's a price."

"Memory isn't just pain. It's responsibility."

"You'll be hunted. Marked by factions older than the Dominion. The ones who demanded the seal."

"You will carry the screams of the forgotten—and their rage."

Keiran didn't flinch.

"I'll carry them."

"All of them."

Kale studied him one last time.

Then placed the shard into Keiran's hand.

It burned.

Not on the skin.

In the soul.

The moment it touched his palm, the world cracked—

And the sealed year began to pour back.

He remembered standing beside Lys as the twin moons aligned.

He remembered her giving him the name Auren, not as a title—but as a promise.

He remembered children in the ruined quarter chanting his name as he shielded them from the Watchers.

He remembered the oath Kale took when they were still brothers in the Concordium—and how that oath broke when the seal was ordered.

He remembered the fire.

The scream.

And the moment Lys was taken.

Not by death.

By something worse.

A spell that scraped her from history like rot from bone.

Keiran collapsed to his knees.

The shard dissolved in his hand, its truth embedded now in flesh and flame.

The candle on his wrist flared silver again.

Brighter.

Brighter.

Until—

A second candle burned beside it.

Lys's.

Not in his body.

But nearby.

Somewhere.

Still lit.

Kale helped him stand.

His hand was cold.

But solid.

"Now you carry the sealed year," he said.

"And everything that comes with it."

"Including them."

He gestured toward the shadowed corners of the vault.

And Keiran saw them.

Figures.

Names.

Memories once thought lost.

They didn't speak.

They watched.

Waiting for the name that would break the rest of the seal.

As Keiran turned to leave, Kale said—

"I'm sorry for what we did to her."

"But it was never about hate."

"It was about fear."

Keiran nodded once.

"Then let them be afraid again."