The whisper still echoed. You've been seen.
The black door yawned open, slow and deliberate, like a beast revealing its throat. No light welcomed them—only a darkness so complete it felt alive.
Marcel stepped through first. Tarin followed at his back, sword drawn and close. Veyla gave Emberjaw a low command to stay, and the beast did—though it rumbled disapproval like thunder in a cage.
The air on the other side was different. Thick. Cold. Scented faintly of old stone and burnt paper.
They descended a corridor that curved like a spine, walls etched with ancient glyphs glowing faint blue—barely enough to see by. Each step down muted the world above: the clamor of Ashveil, the stink of its people, the weight of the tavern.
Only silence followed them now.
Eventually, the tunnel opened into a wide chamber—circular, domed, and shadowed. No torches. No braziers. Just the glow of those quiet glyphs and the figure waiting at the center.
She stood with her hands clasped before her, unmoving. Tall, but not imposing. Lean, almost wiry, like someone who moved with purpose rather than power. Her face was partially obscured by a layered veil of sheer gray, and her cloak hung in folds like ash drifting through air. She looked to be in her early forties, though her voice—when it came—was ageless.
"You came," she said.
Her tone wasn't welcoming. Nor cold. Just... inevitable.
Tarin's eyes narrowed. "Who are you?"
"I am Seer," she replied. "Of the Ashveil Chapter. You were expected."
Marcel kept his gaze steady. "Why?"
"You survived where you should have died. That makes you interesting."
Lira shifted slightly. She'd said nothing since they entered, but now, the faintest shimmer danced at the edge of her palm—a sliver of blue light, pulsing like a hidden heartbeat. She tucked her hand into her cloak, eyes darting to the Seer, who didn't seem surprised.
"You sent the letter?" Marcel asked.
"Yes. We don't often extend invitations."
"Then why us?" Veyla's voice was calm but sharp. "We didn't ask for this."
"No. But you need it," the Seer said. "Ashveil is not kind to orphans of kingdoms and broken battlefields. It swallows those without anchors."
Marcel frowned. "You speak as if you know us."
"I know enough."
"How?" Lira asked. "Who told you where to find us? Who are you, really?"
The Seer tilted her head. "We are watchers. Judges. Recorders. Some call us a cult. Others, a whisper in the walls. We don't care what name the world gives us—only that when the Eye opens, it sees truth."
Marcel felt the weight of the shard in his hand, as though it responded to her words. His skin crawled.
"And what do you want from us?" Tarin asked. "Information? Blood? Loyalty?"
"None. Unless you offer it freely."
"Forgive us if that sounds like a trap," Veyla muttered.
The Seer gave the faintest curve of her lips—less a smile, more a permission. "Of course it does. You live in a city built on traps."
She moved then, gliding rather than stepping. Her feet made no sound on the stone.
"You are not bound. You may walk away. But if you seek power, purpose—or answers to the thing in your hand—then stay. We offer no promises. No comfort. Only the truth, when you are ready to see it."
Marcel exchanged glances with the others.
Tarin's jaw was set, unsure. Lira's eyes flicked down to her hand again. Veyla studied the Seer like a beast circling something too still to be safe.
"Why now?" Marcel asked, his voice low. "Why not wait until we were stronger—or until we'd proven ourselves more?"
"Because this land is already watching you," the Seer said. "Better to understand the gaze than be blinded by it."
"Are you going to train us? Recruit us? Use us?"
"If you ask questions like that," she said, "you are already wiser than most. But know this—the Eye does not force. It reveals. What you do afterward is yours alone."
Behind her, another door pulsed into view. No handle. No hinges. Just a perfect circle etched with a glowing sigil shaped like a slit pupil.
"You may enter," she said. "Or not. But once you do, the path ahead cannot be unwalked."
A beat of silence stretched long.
Marcel stepped forward. "If we go in, and we don't like what we find?"
She met his eyes, veil or no.
"Then you will finally understand why most people live in darkness by choice."
---
Elsewhere That Night
The room at The Maw was empty.
Moonlight filtered through the half-cracked window, casting thin silver shadows on the worn floorboards.
A second knock came, too late.
Another courier, this one older, sweat-drenched and wheezing, held a sealed envelope bearing a different mark—Mireholt's.
He knocked again, harder this time.
But no one answered.
Inside the room, a candle flickered once... then went out.
---
The door pulsed like a heartbeat—no hinges, no handle, just the carved slit of an eye glowing dimly.
Marcel stepped forward, his palm pressed against the mark. A surge of heat rushed through him—not warmth, but something deeper. A recognition.
And the world vanished.
He staggered through a shifting veil of darkness before solid ground found him again. But the others were gone.
He stood alone in a stone chamber, the walls spiraling like ribcages. Runes crawled across the ceiling like veins. In the center, cloaked in chains of glowing scripture, stood a woman.
She was tall, lithe, almost statuesque. Her form held a sharp, unsettling grace. Glowing scars ran like tributaries across her dark, runed skin. Her long hair spilled past her waist like shadows given form. Her eyes were hidden beneath a blindfold etched with glyphs too ancient to name.
She lifted one hand. Not in greeting.
In warning.
"You are too late," she said, her voice layered—as if a hundred versions of her spoke in unison.
"They shattered me. Not for what I did… but for what I knew."
Flames ignited along the perimeter—blue, silver, and white, licking toward the heavens.
Then they appeared—Nine silhouettes, standing above on a scorched dais. Faceless. Still. Watching. Their aura struck Marcel like gravity made flesh, bending his breath, squeezing his bones. But these were not present beings. No.
They were shadows of memory.
"Even broken, I remember," she whispered, her chains rattling like distant thunder. "I remember the truth the Nine buried in blood."
The fire vanished. She lowered her hand.
"But you came here for more than memory," she said, voice quieter now. "You came to grow. Then take it. If you can."
Chains cracked apart like lightning.
"This is my inheritance—Memory. To see what others conceal. To know what is not yours to know."
Her blindfold flared.
And it began.
The chamber quaked.
Glyphs exploded outward in spiraling patterns, swarming Marcel. He screamed as a sigil branded itself onto his chest with white-hot force.
> SYSTEM ALERT: Heritage Detected – [Memory]
Inheriting Skill: Soul-Etched Sight
Class Ascended: Echoborn Seer
Class Path: Sentinel Ascendant – Tier; unknown
His vision went white.
And then the deluge struck.
Images seared into his mind with the force of a meteor storm.
His mother, starving herself so he could eat.
Lira, sobbing alone in a church ruin.
Tarin, burying a bloodied blade while whispering a name he'd never told them.
Then—stranger visions. Not his.
A king laughing as he beheaded his own son.
A cloaked child walking into fire without fear.
A woman, her back broken, whispering the truth beneath a dying god's altar.
Blood ran from Marcel's ears. His muscles seized. The glyphs did not stop. The chamber spun.
> SYSTEM ALERT: Cognitive Overload Detected
Warning: Neural Threshold Approaching
Warning: Host Brain Capacity – 91%... 94%... 97%...
Auto-Stabilization Engaged
Marcel dropped to his knees, clutching his head as if to rip the pain out by force. The chamber screamed with energy. A thousand voices warred inside his skull.
"Endure," the chained woman whispered.
The glyphs on her body detached, one by one, slicing through the air and embedding in him.
Marcel howled. His veins felt as though magma ran through them. Every heartbeat was a thunderclap. His body lifted from the ground, levitating amidst the storm of symbols.
> SYSTEM UPDATE: Skill Awakening – [Echo Trace: Pastview]
Warning: Mental Fatigue Critical – Induce Stasis Soon
Then it all snapped—violently.
A pulse of silence crushed the sound.
The woman stood tall, every last chain gone. Her blindfold fell away. Her eyes—sightless pools of light and void—looked directly at him.
"You will see what you shouldn't," she said gently. "And you will not forget."
She smiled.
And then—
Shattered.
Her entire image fragmented like glass struck by a god's hammer, scattering across the chamber into vanishing slivers.
Marcel collapsed, gasping, steam pouring off his skin.
The chamber began to crumble.
And just before everything went black, the dais where the Nine once stood remained.
One of the faceless silhouettes…
…trembled.
> Deep beneath a forgotten crypt,
one of the Nine… blinked.