Chapter 33: The Memory Oracle

The mountains sang.

Not in voice, but in resonance—stones humming beneath the surface, as if the world were tuning itself to an ancient chord.

Selene and Alina followed the sound through a pathless forest. Each step forward made their bones ache, not from fatigue, but from recognition. As though the land had once belonged to them.

They reached a lake with no reflection.

In its center stood a figure.

Not the child.

An old woman, eyes glowing white, surrounded by relics submerged in water—mirrors, bones, broken crowns, old letters sealed in wax and blood.

The woman spoke without opening her mouth.

"You've broken the curse."

Selene stepped forward. "Then why does it still feel like one?"

"Because you did not break the memory of it."

Alina frowned. "We weren't meant to?"

"No curse survives its breaking. But it can be rewritten."

She pointed to the sky.

The stars formed a pattern neither woman had seen before—an emblem, made of three overlapping circles.

"The child carries that mark," Selene whispered.

"She is not the first," said the Oracle. "But she may be the last."

Selene's heart dropped.

The Oracle stepped across the water, never rippling the surface.

"She is memory's vessel. And soon, she will become what you cannot: a bridge."

"To what?" Alina asked.

The Oracle's smile was bitter and wide.

"To the gods you forgot."

Lightning shattered the clouds above them.

The lake went black.

And the Oracle vanished.

But on the shore remained a single relic: a feather carved in obsidian, still warm to the touch.