Chapter 38

The narrow passage Eleska had shown them sloped downward, winding in unnatural angles. The air changed as they moved, turning colder, thinner—carrying the scent of iron, ink, and stone too old to remember sunlight. With each step, Kye felt as if they were passing through a place even memory dared not tread.

No one spoke for the first ten minutes.

The silence wasn't awkward. It was reverent. Like the walls themselves were listening, and anything said too loudly might be carved into history without consent.

Kye clutched the scroll Eleska gave him. It wasn't sealed with magic, nor was it ornate. Just parchment wrapped in cloth, marked with a single line down the spine—one of those lines he had seen carved into the wall earlier.

A decision.

Renna finally broke the silence.

"Do you trust her?"

Kye glanced down at the scroll. "I trust that she didn't lie. That doesn't mean I trust her plan."

"Same difference," Veika muttered. "Honestly, she seemed like the kind of person who eats shadowfruit and stares at walls for days waiting for prophecy."

"She kept your name alive," Renna said. "Even after the council marked her. That's not easy."

Kye nodded. "She's not the one I'm worried about."

They reached a fork in the tunnel.

One path continued down into deeper dark.

The other turned sharply right—its walls lined with old bronze plates etched with glyphs. Memory markers. The kind used before written language was standardized. They were unreadable now to most, but to Kye, they hummed with something deeper.

Instinct.

"We go right," he said.

The boy spoke for the first time in an hour.

"You feel it too?"

Kye nodded. "Like the walls are remembering us."

They followed the right path.

---

Minutes later, they entered a small chamber with no doors. No torches. Just a floor tiled with symbols and a ceiling that opened up into an impossible void—black and vast, as if space itself had been peeled open.

In the center of the room sat a stone table. Carved with names.

Thousands of them.

No repetition. No clear order. Just name after name after name.

Some were full names. Others just fragments. Some were scratched out halfway, unfinished.

Veika stepped up beside Kye and frowned.

"Is this… a grave?"

"No," the boy said. "It's a record."

Renna circled the table slowly, her fingers hovering over each name.

"They feel… heavy."

"They are," Kye said. "These are names that were *meant* to be forgotten."

Veika turned to him. "You mean people they erased?"

"Not just erased," he said. "Rewritten. Hidden behind new names, new faces, new fates."

Renna glanced at the scroll still in his hand.

"Open it."

Kye took a breath and did.

Inside was a single line of script and a black seal.

**'Say your name.'**

Beneath that: a blank space. As if the scroll waited for a voice.

Kye looked up at the ceiling. At the endless dark.

He didn't raise his voice.

He just whispered it.

"Kye."

The chamber changed instantly.

A ripple passed across the stone table. The names on its surface twisted—some vanishing, others rearranging.

And then—

One name rose from the center.

Bright.

Sharp.

**Kaelion Vireon.**

The others stared in silence.

"Kye…" Renna said quietly. "That's your full name, isn't it?"

He didn't answer.

Because even *he* hadn't remembered it until now.

But the moment he saw it, something fell into place in his chest.

Kaelion Vireon.

The last of the Obsidian Line.

The child of memory and blade.

The one they feared not because of what he was, but because of what he would remember.

The scroll in his hand burned suddenly—hot, then cold—then crumbled to dust.

Veika jumped. "Did it just *die*?"

"It served its purpose," the boy said.

Kye stepped toward the table. The name in the center pulsed faintly, then projected a small glyph upward—a map.

But it wasn't of this world.

Not fully.

The image showed two overlapping cities. One was clear, modern, and familiar.

The other? Shadowed. Inverted. Like a ghost town built beneath the bones of the first.

Renna squinted. "Where is that?"

Kye didn't answer.

Because he knew exactly where it was.

"The Bastion," he said. "But not the one they show in public."

The boy stepped forward.

"It's called the Underbastion. Built beneath the real one. Only the Council and the Archivists knew about it."

"And him," Renna added. "The other you. He's heading there."

Kye nodded. "Then so are we."

Veika exhaled slowly. "Great. Another sealed, forbidden, totally-not-haunted ruin. You really know how to pick vacation spots."

Renna smiled faintly despite the tension. "Let's move."

They turned to leave the chamber—

—but the ceiling changed.

What had once been darkness suddenly shimmered.

And then *showed them something.*

A moving image.

Not of history.

But of *now.*

A battlefield. In the outskirts of a crumbling city. Fires. Screams. People running from something unseen.

And at the center—

The other Kye.

Kaelion Unbound.

Standing atop a tower of broken memory crystals. Arm outstretched. Vireon's Breath in his hand.

But it wasn't glowing.

It was *howling.*

The blade sang with voices. Dozens. Hundreds. All echoing with rage.

A council chamber in flames. Archives bursting apart.

Truth unleashed.

And beside him—

A second figure.

Masked.

But familiar.

Eleska.

Renna inhaled sharply.

"She's helping him."

Veika looked sick. "She lied to us."

"No," Kye whispered. "She helped *both* of us."

The image above cracked and faded.

And the ground beneath them trembled.

Hard.

The air changed again—thinner, sharper, colder.

Not metaphorically.

Literally.

They were no longer alone.

From the dark passage behind them, a sound echoed.

Not a footstep.

Not a voice.

But the *absence* of both.

A silence so deep it rang in their bones.

The boy turned.

"The Silence are here."

Renna drew her blade.

Veika pulled a pulse-stick from her belt.

Kye stepped forward, his fingers on the hilt of his sword.

Not Vireon.

Just steel.

Real.

Cold.

Uncertain.

But *his.*

From the shadows, they emerged.

Figures in white and gray. Faces hidden. No footsteps. No breath. Just motion.

Like memory given shape.

The Silence.

Agents of erasure.

One of them stepped forward.

Held out a hand.

And from its palm, a voice emerged.

Mechanical. Lifeless.

"Kaelion Vireon. Your designation has been reclassified."

Kye's fingers tightened on his hilt.

The voice continued.

"You are not authorized to exist."

Then they moved.

Fast.

Too fast.