Chapter 97: The Pulse Beneath Still Waters
—She Remembers Him—
Night fell over Soul Island, but the Spirit Sanctum did not sleep.
Its chambers were empty now, save for one.
Kamharida stood alone in the central alcove, where the Soulstream pulsed just beneath the marble—soft blue light rising through the translucent floor, alive with whispers only those born of the Progenitor could hear.
She wasn't meditating.
Nor reflecting.
She was waiting.
And then—it came.
A shift.
Not a tremor.
Not a quake.
Just a pulse—
A delicate pressure against the edge of her senses, like breath brushing the nape of her neck from a memory she thought she'd buried centuries ago.
Her eyes narrowed.
Her fingers curled slightly at her side.
She didn't look startled.
She looked… still.
Utterly still.
Because she knew what it was.
Even after seven centuries, she remembered that echo.
She had watched him fall.
Watched the Tribunal bind him—seal him.
Watched N`ythrll—the Progenitor—look away as they did.
And now…
"They released him."
The words didn't carry fear.
Just certainty.
And regret.
Kamharida stepped away from the Soulstream. Her boots made no sound on the polished stone. Her cloak whispered faintly, kissed by a breeze that didn't exist.
She made no announcement.
Did not summon guards.
Did not activate protocols.
She simply walked.
Down the passage.
Past the veiled doors.
Beyond the tributes and the icons built long after her time.
Into the inner sanctum.
Where no one followed.
She sat there, alone.
Hands on her knees.
Eyes closed.
And for the first time since she returned to this realm—
Kamharida whispered a name.
A name long erased from records.
A name she had once defended.
A name she had once feared.
"T'halem."
It passed through her lips like a breath of dust.
And when she opened her eyes—
there was a flicker.
Not rage.
Not sorrow.
Just preparation.
Because Kamharida did not believe in destiny.
But she believed in consequences.
And tonight, she felt one walking.
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