The forest shifted as dawn spilled across the undergrowth in ribbons of gold. Dew clung to twisted roots and red-veined leaves, the color deepening with every hour they walked eastward. Ivyra led the group in silence, boots crunching soft moss and gravel, her hood drawn up to hide the tension brimming in her eyes.
Serren had been the first to speak that morning, her voice light as she scouted ahead. "Just beyond that ridge, there's a town tucked between two cliffs. Barely anyone outside the region knows it exists. Perfect place to lie low."
No one questioned how she knew.
Naia trailed behind Ivyra, her steps slower than usual. Her hands had started to tremble again sometime after sunrise, the tremors small but steady. She hadn't told the others about the fragments she saw in her dreams—images stitched from ruin and fire, voices she couldn't place whispering names she didn't remember knowing.
Something was waking inside her. Something that stretched far beyond the edges of her name.
And Ivyra… Ivyra could feel it too.
She didn't turn around, but her jaw clenched with every strange shift in the air, every subtle pulse that rippled from Naia's presence like a breath just beneath the wind.
"She is not who she thinks she is," the First Flame murmured in her mind again. Its voice always echoed with embers and slow-burning time.
Ivyra didn't answer it aloud.
"You walk beside a shard of what once was divine. You will have to choose what part of her to save."
She gritted her teeth. "She's still Naia."
"For now."
Beside her, Lyxra padded in his large celestial form, massive paws barely making a sound as he moved. His star-speckled mane shifted in the morning light. His gaze remained on Naia, unusually watchful.
"She hasn't told you everything," he said softly to Ivyra.
"She doesn't know everything."
"She's beginning to."
They crested a rise, and the forest suddenly gave way to a sloping pass. The town emerged like a memory—half-hidden in a valley between red-stone cliffs. Trees with scarlet leaves clung to the hillsides, and ancient wind chimes sang from their branches, whispering in forgotten tongues.
Naia paused, breathing in the scent of the wind. It smelled… familiar. Of ash and honey. Of something older than the soil itself.
"What is this place?" she asked.
Serren's smile was small. "It's called Veylir Hollow. A forgotten place built by those who refused the old gods. Their memory lingered in roots and bone."
Ivyra's eyes narrowed. "And yet you knew it existed."
Serren shrugged, too casual. "I've read many forbidden things."
That didn't settle Ivyra's unease. The First Flame's warnings stirred again, curling like smoke in her gut.
---
They reached the edge of the hollow by midday. The town wasn't large—just a scatter of timber houses built into the slope, wooden bridges arching over gentle streams, and stone lanterns flickering even in daylight. A smith worked metal beneath a canopy of vines. A child ran across a rope bridge, laughter echoing faintly.
But there was something still about the place.
As if time hadn't quite caught up to it.
The villagers didn't question their presence. They offered simple nods, curious glances, and warm bread in exchange for silver. No names were exchanged. No questions asked. It felt too easy.
Too still.
---
That night, while the others settled into a borrowed loft above an herbalist's shop, Ivyra stood on the balcony alone. Her hand rested lightly on the hilt of her blade—not drawn, but always within reach.
"You do not yet grasp the weight of her existence," the First Flame whispered. "But you will."
"Then show me," Ivyra murmured. "No more riddles. If you want me to protect her—if she's as important as you say—then tell me what's coming."
A flicker of warmth pressed against her chest—her mark glowing faintly beneath her tunic.
"In time, little flame. Even gods fear what sleeps beneath this town."
Her fingers curled tighter.
"Watch the stars."
---
Elsewhere, Naia sat near the hearth inside the loft, her fingers trailing over the rim of a chipped cup. The visions hadn't stopped since they arrived. She'd seen a garden of stone statues, each weeping blood. A door without hinges carved into a cliff. A girl who looked like her standing in front of a dying god, arms outstretched and weeping light.
She didn't tell Ivyra.
Instead, she whispered to Lyxra once Ivyra stepped away.
"I think something's buried here."
Lyxra tilted his head. "Do you feel it pulling you?"
"Yes. And… something feels like it remembers me." She paused. "Even though I've never been here."
Lyxra didn't smile. "Then it may not be the place you're remembering. But who you were."
Naia looked at him sharply. "You believe I've lived before?"
"I believe," he said carefully, "that you are more than one lifetime stitched into a single soul."
Naia's eyes burned. "What happens if they unravel?"
"We hold on," he said simply, "until you become whole again."
She leaned against him, eyes closing, heart heavy. "I don't want to lose who I am now."
"You won't," he whispered. "As long as someone remembers you."
---
Outside, Ivyra watched the horizon. A strange mist curled near the base of the cliffs.
The red trees rustled.
Something ancient had opened its eyes.
Absolutely, Nyx. Let's dive back in and finish Chapter 14 of The God Slayer Chronicles from where we left off — the group nearing the hidden town shrouded between crimson cliffs, while Ivyra quietly converses with the First Flame, Naia begins to unravel new visions, and Serren's presence grows more enigmatic.
----
The path narrowed as they moved between steep, red-leafed cliffs that caught the last rays of dusk like flame-kissed parchment. The wind howled low, as if ancient voices murmured warnings into the trees. Ivyra walked at the front, her cloak dragging along the gravel path, eyes forward but mind spiraling inward.
"Do you feel it now?"
The First Flame's voice ignited again in her thoughts — a deep, ancient tone, both soothing and terrifying, like a bonfire that crackles softly before it devours a forest.
"This land remembers. So must you."
Ivyra's grip tightened around the hilt of her sword. "What am I supposed to remember?"
"You were forged in loss, but shaped by defiance. Your power is not a gift. It is a reckoning—one the heavens tried to delay."
She frowned. The flame's riddles were as old as the ruins they walked. "And Naia? What does she carry?"
A pause. Then, low and distant: "A light hidden in shadow. She was not meant to awaken so soon."
"Then why did she?" Ivyra pressed.
"Because something else has stirred… something that feeds on forgotten things. It watches now, even as you draw near."
Suddenly, ahead of them, the path curved and broke into a ledge. A town emerged from the mist like a secret remembered—cradled in a hollow basin, its rooftops covered in red vines, and silver lanterns flickering softly beneath carved stone towers. It wasn't marked on any map Serren had shown them, yet the girl had known of it.
Teylan, who trailed behind with a hand on his bandaged ribs, let out a breath. "Didn't think this place actually existed."
"Neither did most," Serren replied, her smile calm but her gaze unreadable.
Naia stepped up beside Ivyra. Her face was pale, eyes shimmering faintly. "I've seen this place."
Ivyra turned. "When?"
"In my dreams. The stones spoke in light. They called this 'Velthren'—a cradle where truths were buried."
The group exchanged glances.
Lyxra, perched on a jut of rock in his smaller form, narrowed his glowing eyes. "You've never said that before."
Naia shook her head slowly. "I didn't remember… until now."
Serren stepped forward and touched the edge of the gateway, her fingers brushing ancient carvings. "This place was abandoned after the Collapse. Some say it holds one of the last celestial tombs. Others say something older sleeps beneath."
"That sounds reassuring," Teylan muttered.
They crossed into Velthren as night bloomed overhead. The air shifted the moment they passed the threshold—cooler, but charged, like breath held in anticipation. There were no villagers in sight, yet lanterns burned.
As they moved deeper, the ruins whispered. Ivyra felt it under her skin—a thrum, a pulsing thread of magic long asleep. It echoed faintly in her bones.
Inside what remained of an old temple, they set camp. The walls were lined with faded sigils, too broken to read. Naia sat alone again, tracing the grooves in the stone floor. Her hands trembled.
"I saw her again," she whispered as Ivyra approached. "The being inside me."
Ivyra knelt beside her. "What did she say?"
Naia's eyes shimmered gold. "That I must choose soon… between becoming the vessel or breaking it."
"And which do you want?"
"I don't know yet."
Before Ivyra could answer, Lyxra growled low in his throat. He leapt down from a high ledge and shifted mid-air into his true form—towering, starlit, otherworldly.
"What is it?" Ivyra asked, standing.
He didn't answer at first, only turned his glowing eyes toward the forest edge beyond the temple.
Then: "Something is coming. And it remembers this place."
In the shadows beyond Velthren's broken gate, the air split—not with sound, but light. A thin crack pulsed in the darkness, and from it, a figure began to emerge, robed in forgotten stars and cloaked in the scent of memory.
Naia stood slowly, her voice trembling.
"She's here."