They traveled without rest.
No campfires. No trails.
Each step north took them deeper into the fractured highlands, where broken glaciers leaned against charred stone, and skyfall left shards of glass embedded in the cliffs.
The land itself rejected memory here.
Dhera marked it with black thread—charms braided with ghostbone and sigil-wax—but even those faded by dusk.
Valen led with sword in hand.
Not out of paranoia.
But instinct.
He could feel it now, like a second heartbeat:
They were being hunted.
"Tell me about Lazarin," Valen said on the third night.
Lyra didn't stop walking.
Her voice came quiet. Measured. Almost too calm.
"I was nine when he found me. In a blood-village near the Verdant Hollows. He said I wasn't born—I was harvested. A failed clone. Meant for something greater."
Dhera's breath hitched. "That's not possible. The blood-villages were wiped out in the Siphoning War."
Lyra nodded. "Because he burned them."
"He didn't need anyone else remembering where I came from."
Valen frowned. "What did he want from you?"
"Not power," she whispered. "Obedience."
They camped at the lip of the Kharvek Chasm, where a glacier had split the earth like a sword wound. Cold light shimmered across the edges, turning their breath to frost.
Dhera read from the Chronicle.
"There's no mention of Lazarin past the Fifth King's fall," she said. "Nothing until now. He's been erased."
"No," Lyra replied. "He erased himself. He was the Court's memory-binder. He chose what truths were allowed to survive."
Valen rubbed his temple. "So this whole history we're carrying?"
"Was written by him."
And the Chronicle pulsed in his hands.
As if it heard its creator's name for the first time in centuries.
They crossed the Skycleft Range by midday, using the broken spires of Ghal'Sevrin as markers.
The ruins emerged like ribs from ice—old frost-temples that once housed flame-glyphs, now shattered by time and silence. Statues of blind angels lay buried beneath centuries of snowfall.
But Lyra walked with purpose.
She knew where to go.
"To the Hall of Stilled Time," she said.
"The warlock left something for me there."
Dhera hesitated. "A gift?"
"A chain," Lyra answered.
The entrance lay beneath a fallen tower, half-consumed by permafrost.
They carved a path inside, their torches barely cutting the gloom. Strange glyphs flickered on the walls—not with light, but heat. Each symbol burned cold against their vision, making Valen's head pound.
The hall beneath was vast.
A spiral-shaped vault made of mirrored stone.
Time didn't move inside.
Footsteps echoed after they were taken.
Breath turned to frost mid-air and hung still.
At the center of the chamber stood a pedestal.
Upon it—a crown.
Or rather, the idea of one.
It shimmered like memory.
And chained to it…
A black ring.
Lyra approached first.
She didn't flinch.
She held out her hand—and the ring leapt to her palm like a curse returning home.
Dhera's eyes widened. "That's a binding artifact. A dominion sigil."
Valen stepped forward. "It still links you to him?"
Lyra nodded. "That's why he let me live. He's always known where I was."
"Then destroy it."
She clenched her fist.
The ring didn't break.
Instead, it hissed—and a voice emerged.
Not from it.
But from within her.
"You found it, pet."
"You always were predictable."
"Now come home."
Valen raised his blade.
But Lyra staggered, eyes wide, jaw clenched.
The voice possessed her body like water into stone.
Her hand raised of its own accord.
And she struck.
Valen caught her wrist—but barely.
She moved with his strength.
With Lazarin's technique.
She snarled through gritted teeth. "I'm not yours!"
But the voice ignored her.
"You were made to hold me. And now the world remembers me again."
"So I'll take what's mine."
The pedestal exploded in black flame.
The ground trembled.
And from the ice beneath them, a hand rose.
It was not a man's hand.
It had no skin.
No flesh.
Only black veins writhing in the shape of fingers.
It grabbed the pedestal and pulled.
And from the floor of time-stilled ice rose a creature made of thoughts—
A Memory Wraith.
Born from Lazarin's regret.
It shrieked without sound, its body flickering between forms—man, serpent, crown, city, star.
Valen didn't hesitate.
He leapt forward, blade arcing down in a clean slash.
But the Wraith caught it.
And spoke without speaking:
"You are the one who remembers death."
"Let me take that burden from you."
Valen screamed as the Wraith reached into his mind.
Into his memory.
It began pulling.
First, childhood.
Then his oath.
Then the girl with red eyes who had once kissed him beneath a broken moon.
Each memory flickered.
Faded.
Gone.
"NO!" Lyra cried.
She reached into her coat—and drew out the Crimson Mark's shard, a splinter of memory-bound steel.
She plunged it into her chest.
And the world snapped.
A pulse tore through the chamber.
Not light.
Not heat.
But remembrance.
Suddenly, all the stolen memories flooded back.
Valen collapsed, gasping.
And the Wraith reeled.
Lyra stood above it.
Eyes silver.
Hair aflame with memory-sparks.
She spoke not in voice.
But in truth.
"Lazarin, I return your chain."
"Let it bind only the dead."
She slammed her fist into the Wraith's chest.
And the ring on her palm cracked.
The chain broke.
The Wraith collapsed into dust.
And the hall shuddered.
Glyphs faded.
Time resumed.
For the first time in centuries… the vault aged.
Snow fell inside.
Valen caught Lyra before she hit the ground.
Her breathing was shallow.
Dhera checked the ring.
Gone.
Shattered.
But the damage lingered.
"Part of her soul was bound to him," Dhera said. "She severed it. That kind of break… leaves a hole."
Valen held her close.
"I'll fill it with better things."
Outside, dawn returned.
And far in the east, a flame lit the sky.
Black.
Cold.
And shaped like a crown.
The Eighth Throne had been found.
And Lazarin no longer needed her to reach it.