Chapter 18: The Hollow Spire and the Shattered Past

The sky above them was whole again — but only on the surface.

As the light of dawn brushed the edge of the floating city Kael'Varn, Ren stood at the balcony of their temporary sanctuary, his eyes fixed on the east. The wind was wrong. Time itself had been warped. He could feel it pulsing through the ley-lines beneath his feet.

Inside, Rael slept — but it wasn't peaceful. His skin shimmered faintly with fragments of temporal sigils, and every so often, his breath would catch as if he were falling through different moments of his own life.

Aika watched over him, her gaze distant.

"He's losing his chronology," said a voice behind her.

Ren entered the room, arms crossed. "You saw it too?"

She nodded. "He didn't just anchor the Dragon Soul. It anchored him, too. To futures that haven't happened yet. To things he was never supposed to be."

Ren's grip on the Emberkey Blade tightened. "If Vaerion returns—"

"He won't," she whispered, brushing Rael's silver hair from his eyes. "I won't let him."

Just then, a rune flared on the ceiling.

Mira entered the chamber, her cloak soaked from etheric rain. "It's time. The Hollow Spire's awakening. If we don't get there first, someone else will."

The Hollow Spire

Three days' flight away on wind-carved drakes, the group descended into a chasm known only in legend — a place called The Hollow Spire, said to be the origin point of time's first fracture. There, beneath layers of dead skies and stone trees, rose a tower shaped like an hourglass twisted in half.

They dismounted near the mouth of the ruins. No birds. No wind. Just silence... like a clock that had forgotten how to tick.

Rael stirred uneasily. His breath hitched.

"Where… are we?" he murmured.

Ren frowned. "He doesn't remember?"

Aika stepped closer, her hand gripping Rael's. "We're somewhere safe. Somewhere important."

But Rael didn't answer.

He looked past her — and recoiled.

"Who are you?" he asked.

Aika's heart stopped.

The Broken Reflection

Inside the Spire, the walls glowed with reversed memory. The group walked through chambers where time bled backward — stone crumbled into columns, footsteps echoed before they were made.

At the center stood a spiraling pool of memoryglass.

Mira stepped forward and drew a line on the surface. Images burst forth:

Rael as a child, crying out in a burning temple.

Aika's mother kneeling before the Sealed Flame.

Ren's father, a blade through his chest, whispering: "The Phoenix Cycle must end with you."

The pool darkened… then turned black.

And from it emerged a woman with hair like starlight and eyes full of storms.

"I am Zerya, Seer of the Timeless Court," she said. "The last one who remembers what the world was before it fractured."

Mira stepped back. "I thought you were dead."

Zerya's smile was tired. "In every timeline but this one, I am."

She turned her eyes to Rael — who now stood silently, unsure of himself.

"You've touched the edge of Vaerion. I felt it ripple through the Spire."

Rael flinched. "I don't know who I am anymore."

Zerya extended her hand. "Then let me show you who you were. And what you must become."

A Journey into Memory

Zerya led them deep into the Spire's heart, into a chamber where the walls were made of mirrored echoes — not just of sight, but of choice. Each surface showed what could have happened, what nearly did.

Rael stood before a mirror where he watched himself burn down the world as Vaerion.

Another showed him walking away — abandoning the Dragon Soul, living a life as a healer.

A third showed him dead — sacrificed to close the first Worldscar.

"I… was all of these?" he whispered.

"No," Zerya said gently. "You could be all of these. But you are only what you choose — right now."

She placed her hand on his chest — and in a burst of light, Rael collapsed.

The Vault of Flameborn Blood

While Aika tended to Rael, Ren was led into a different chamber.

"Why am I here?" he asked.

Zerya's voice echoed. "To face your inheritance."

Flames erupted — not to burn him, but to speak. In the smoke danced scenes of ancient Flameborn — his ancestors, mighty warriors of fire, betraying their own to gain immortality through Phoenix Binding.

"You are their heir," Zerya said. "But you don't have to be their shadow."

The Emberkey Blade pulsed in Ren's grip.

"You were never meant to inherit just power," she continued. "You were meant to inherit choice. And to end the cycle."

Ren looked at the flames of his family's betrayal — and drew his sword.

"I'll burn the legacy if I have to."

When Rael Woke

Aika sat beside him, clutching his hand.

He blinked.

And this time, he whispered her name.

"Aika…"

Tears fell down her cheek. "You remember me."

"I don't remember everything. But I remember you."

Zerya smiled from the shadows. "Then there's hope."

She raised a hand, and an ancient map unfolded in flame and frost. The second Worldscar had begun to open — not on land… but beneath the sea.

A kingdom long-lost was waking.

And so was something older than even time.