Aela stared at the pendant in her hand. It felt heavier than it looked, the metal cold but pulsing softly—like it had a heartbeat of its own. Half silver, half black, the circle glowed faintly at the seam, where day met night.
"Why does it hum?" she whispered.
Kael didn't answer right away. He was watching the murals shift across the walls, his face unreadable.
"Because it remembers," he said finally.
"Remembers what?"
"Everything the world chose to forget."
Aela turned the pendant over. The edges were etched with symbols too fine to read, but they moved—sliding across the surface like liquid ink. She felt a pressure behind her eyes, like a memory trying to surface, one she had never lived.
Kael stepped closer. "The Pendant of Severance," he said. "It's the last key to the Dawn."
She looked up sharply. "You keep saying that. The Dawn. What is it?"
He hesitated. "The Dawn was… the beginning. Of time. Of memory. Of everything. But when the world began unraveling, someone shattered it. Now it sleeps, scattered across what's left of the timeline."
Aela frowned. "Why shatter something that important?"
"To survive." His voice was low. "When the first war ended, time didn't just break—it bled. The Council erased the truth to stop the spread of collapse. The Dawn was too powerful, too dangerous to leave intact."
"So they hid it," she guessed.
Kael nodded. "In pieces. Scattered through vaults like this one. Only someone who hears the echoes can find them again."
"And now… that's me."
He looked at her then, truly looked at her—not with awe, not with pity, but with a strange kind of resignation. "You didn't choose this. But neither did I."
Aela turned back to the murals. One of them had changed. The silver-eyed girl was gone. In her place stood a child with her face—Aela, younger, staring at a cracked mirror.
"That's me," she whispered. "But I've never seen that place before."
"You will," Kael said.
The pendant in her hand flared with warmth, and the chamber's lights dimmed. The murals froze. In the center of the room, a new platform rose from the ground—a flat obsidian disc etched with the same moving symbols as the pendant.
"It's reacting to you," Kael said. "Step on it."
Aela's legs felt unsteady, but she obeyed. As soon as her foot touched the platform, a ring of light spun up around her. Kael moved beside her just in time as the floor dropped away—and they were falling.
No wind. No movement. Just stillness, as if the world held its breath.
Then—
They landed with a soft thud on moss-covered stone.
Above them, the ceiling was gone, replaced by an open sky painted with swirling galaxies. The trees were tall and metallic, their branches humming like chimes. A river ran backward along the horizon.
Aela's mouth fell open. "Where are we now?"
Kael looked grim. "Another vault. But this one's corrupted."
"Corrupted how?"
He didn't answer.
The trees around them began to bend—toward them.
A shape emerged from the forest. Tall, gaunt, faceless. Cloaked in shadow, it flickered like a poor memory trying to remain whole.
Kael stepped in front of her. "Stay behind me."
"What is that?" Aela asked, backing up.
"A Wraith of the Forgotten," Kael muttered. "A memory unanchored. They hunt anyone who disturbs the vaults."
The Wraith moved without sound, gliding forward with unsettling grace. Where it passed, the moss turned gray and brittle. The trees recoiled.
Kael raised his hand, and a pulse of white light surged from his palm—but it bounced off the creature like glass.
"It's not attacking," Aela whispered.
"Not yet," Kael said. "It's waiting."
"For what?"
"For you."
Aela's breath caught in her throat. The pendant burned hot against her chest now, its halves spinning slowly.
Suddenly, the Wraith spoke.
Not in words. In memories.
A child crying in a war-torn street.
A tower burning in silence.
A girl, alone, watching someone walk away and never return.
The images struck Aela like a wave. Her knees buckled. She clutched her head as voices poured into her mind—her own thoughts, twisted and multiplied.
"She's not ready," Kael growled, reaching for her. "Stop!"
The Wraith's form shuddered, flickered, and vanished into a cloud of mist.
Aela gasped. Her vision swam. "It… it showed me things I've never lived."
Kael caught her before she fell. "That's what they do. Feed on what might've been. Forgotten futures."
She tried to steady herself. "Why would it come for me?"
"Because you're a piece of the Dawn," he said quietly. "You don't just hear echoes—you carry them. That's why the vaults react to you. Why the pendant chose you."
"But I don't know anything. I'm just—"
"A listener," Kael finished. "The last one."
They stood in silence for a moment. The mist cleared, revealing a stone pedestal in the middle of a shallow pond. A single object rested there—a shard of crystal, shaped like a flame.
Kael nodded toward it. "That's why we're here. The first fragment."
Aela approached slowly. The pendant around her neck glowed brighter with each step. As she reached out to touch the crystal, she felt something click inside her—like a door opening.
The world tilted.
A flash of memory—not hers—slammed into her mind.
A blade of fire.
A scream in a language she didn't know.
The sound of time ripping apart.
Then—silence.
She collapsed, gripping the shard.
When she opened her eyes, Kael was kneeling beside her.
"You saw something," he said.
"I think… I saw the beginning."
Kael helped her to her feet. "Then we need to find the rest. Before the Wraiths do."
Aela looked up at the star-streaked sky, the weight of the shard in her hand.
Something inside her had changed.
Not broken.
Awakened.