Into the Deep Silence
The air above the Shattered Coast was heavy with unspoken dread. Clouds hung like stone in the sky, unmoving, brooding. Beneath them, the sea rolled with unnatural rhythm—waves surging in silence, crashing without sound.
Mira stood at the edge of the cliffs, the orb in her hands trembling with light. It wasn't fear—it was recognition. The storm on the sea echoed something buried deep within the Tree's oldest memories. Something even the First Keepers had only glimpsed in fragments.
The others joined her on the high ridge: Lena, staff braced in both hands, eyes narrowed in concentration. Bram, hood drawn low, murmuring to the Between. Elric and Valien stood back-to-back, blades drawn, senses sharp.
They descended the cliff path in silence, their boots pressing into jagged stone until the beach unfurled before them like a wound. There, etched in spirals upon the sand, were symbols that pulsed faintly with a dull blue light.
"They're invitations," Lena said softly, kneeling. "They're calling something forth."
Valien drew in a sharp breath. "Or warning us away."
Mira stepped forward, letting the orb hover over the symbols. A tremor passed through the earth, and then the sea split.
A trench, black as night and impossibly wide, opened in the waves. Down it led, not into water, but into airless dark—a submerged temple of stone, carved in angles that hurt to look at. Above the trench, the storm began to churn.
"We go together," Mira said.
And so they entered the trench.
The descent was slow, lit only by the orb and Lena's whispering light. The silence grew thicker the deeper they went, until it pressed against their thoughts. The temple's entrance gaped before them—a door of living stone, opening as they neared.
Inside, the air was dense and hot. The halls were lined with mirrors—some cracked, some whole—each showing twisted images of themselves. Mira saw her own face shifting through time: old, young, broken, divine.
In the central chamber, a throne waited. Upon it sat no figure, only a crown of woven voidlight and shadow, flickering like flame.
And a voice—deep, slow, and terrible—spoke from nowhere and everywhere:
"You woke the Balance. You healed the wound. But healing is not reversal. It is change. You must choose: become what you were... or become what comes next."
Mira stepped forward. "We came to face you. To understand what we locked away."
The voice whispered:
"You came to remember. You will leave as more."
The orb rose from her hands, glowing brighter than it ever had. The chamber shook. The mirrors shattered one by one. The crown lifted from the throne and drifted toward her.
Mira closed her eyes.
And took the crown.