The forest beyond the Vale felt alive — but not in a good way.
Every leaf, every whisper of wind, carried a pulse that echoed faintly with Elian's heartbeat.
He walked ahead silently, his cloak dragging against the dirt path.
Lyra and Kael followed close, both too afraid to break the quiet.
Kael finally muttered, "You sure you're alright? You've been spacing out since we left the Vale."
Elian didn't look back. "It's just… noise. The seal feels different now. Louder."
Lyra frowned. "Louder?"
He tapped his chest. "Like it's trying to talk. Or maybe scream."
The trees around them rustled — though there was no wind. Shadows flickered between branches, almost in rhythm with the faint glow from his wrist.
The Eclipsera Seal pulsed — once white, once black, once crimson.
It hurt.
By nightfall, they found a ruined camp by an old stream. Kael set up firewood, and Lyra checked their path ahead.
Elian sat apart again, staring at the water's reflection — but it wasn't his face that looked back.
It was her's.
His mother — pale, smiling, but not alive.
Her eyes were soft but hollow, her voice like distant thunder.
> "Elian… why do you still fight the dark?"
He froze. "Mother?"
> "You sealed it away. But it remembers you."
The reflection shifted — her features twisted into something monstrous.
A grin with eyes of flame.
> "You can't hide from what you are, my son. Every seal breaks — and when yours does, the world will remember the Abyss."
Elian stumbled back, clutching his chest as pain lanced through his body.
The mark on his wrist flared, burning through the glove.
Kael rushed to him. "Elian!"
But as he reached, the flames burst out — half black, half white — and Kael was thrown backward.
Lyra raised her staff. "He's losing control! The seal's rejecting him!"
Elian screamed as two voices — light and dark — echoed inside his mind:
> "Let me out."
"Don't let me out."
Then everything went silent.
The fire flickered out.
When Elian woke, it was dawn. His body was cold and drenched in sweat.
Kael was beside him, bruised but alive. Lyra was asleep nearby, clutching her staff like a shield.
He looked down at his hand — the seal had dimmed, but it was cracked.
Tiny fractures of light ran across it like broken glass.
He whispered to himself, "It's starting to break…"
Lyra stirred. "You almost burned yourself alive. Whatever that thing inside you is, it's fighting back."
Elian stared at the rising sun. "It's not just fighting. It's waking."
Kael sighed. "Then we need a plan. You can't keep walking around with a bomb in your chest."
Elian nodded slowly. "There's one place that might help — the Ruins of Serenvale. My mother once called it the 'Edge of Memory.' If the seal's breaking, maybe it can tell me why."
But far behind them, hidden among the blackened trees, two cloaked figures watched.
Their eyes glowed faintly — one golden, one violet.
> "So it's true," said the taller one. "The seal is weakening."
> "Yes," the other replied. "When it breaks, heaven and hell will fall. And the Abyss will rise again — through him."
> "Shall we interfere?"
> "No," said the violet-eyed figure, smiling thinly. "Let it happen. The son of the cursed light will destroy himself soon enough."
They vanished into mist as the sun rose, leaving behind only the echo of their laughter.