The Vale wasn't a place.
It was a verdict.
A liminal stretch of reality, stitched together with gold and sorrow, where stars didn't shine—they remembered. They hung above like mournful witnesses, silent judges watching the marked descend into fate's courtroom.
Kael's boots hit the first thread bridge, and the world shifted.
He didn't fall.
He was falling.
Time buckled around him, flipping memories like pages in a torn book. Every step forward echoed like thunder in a place that had never known sound.
Behind him, the others followed. But not closely.
Each bridge chose its bearer.
And it judged them in silence.
Rin's bridge was burning.
A walkway of crimson flame, built from every oath she broke to survive.
Flashes of her past snapped into view with every footstep—
A sister's hand she didn't grab in time.
A mentor betrayed for bread.
A god she once knelt to, then spat on.
She didn't cry.
She laughed.
"You think this breaks me? I broke first."
And the flames let her pass.
Mace's bridge was steel and blood.
Heavy chains linked by the weight of every fight he never finished.
He walked like it was a punishment he'd earned.
Quiet. Steady. Resigned.
Halfway through, a figure stepped in front of him—
A brother. One he couldn't save.
Mace didn't flinch.
He bowed.
"I carry you now."
The figure smiled.
And vanished.
The chains turned to mist.
Juno's bridge was silence.
Utter, perfect, annihilating silence.
He couldn't hear his own heartbeat.
Couldn't hear his own thoughts.
Words spun around him, waiting for a command.
But his mouth refused to move.
Every failed ritual. Every spell that backfired. Every moment he relied on magic instead of faith in himself—it echoed here.
So he closed his eyes.
And walked blind.
Not with power.
With trust.
And when he opened them again—
He stood at the end.
Kael's bridge didn't appear.
Because the Vale knew.
He didn't need one.
He wasn't crossing a thread.
He was one.
They arrived together.
The final threshold stood before them—an altar of carved obsidian and stitched gold. Floating above it: four glowing symbols. Not written in any known language.
Each one pulsed as they approached.
And behind it—
A shadow.
Not malevolent.
Not kind.
Just… waiting.
The shadow didn't speak.
It remembered.
Their scars.
Their rebellions.
Their refusal to bow.
One by one, it acknowledged them.
Rin's symbol flared: a burning wing.
Mace's: a broken chain.
Juno's: a closed eye with a glowing tear.
Kael's: an open book, bleeding light.
Juno whispered, "These aren't marks."
"They're… titles."
Kael nodded slowly. "Marks chosen for how we break."
But before the shadow could fade—
A fifth symbol appeared.
Dark. Unformed.
Shaped like a spiral eating itself.
The thread beneath them trembled.
Kael spun around—
Only to find the others staring behind him.
Because someone was standing there.
Not summoned.
Not from the bridges.
They had been here all along.
Watching.
Listening.
Waiting for the others to arrive.
A girl.
Barefoot. Pale. Hair like starlight dipped in ink. Eyes blindfolded in silk.
But the moment Kael looked at her—
His mark burned.
Rin whispered, "Who is that?"
Mace gritted his teeth. "She doesn't have a tether."
Juno's voice cracked. "She doesn't need one."
The girl raised her head.
Smiled like a secret.
And said:
> "I remember you all.
But none of you remember me.
I'm what they erased."
The fifth marked one had arrived.
And fate?
Just tore its own page out.