---
Pain stitched its way up Riven's ribs as the cold settled into his bones.
They had left the battlefield behind, but the fire still lingered in his lungs—the afterburn of Lucen's corrupted flame. Every breath tasted like ash.
"Almost there," Kael muttered, helping him along a narrow trail flanked by wind-warped trees and cracked stone shrines.
The path led toward a remote cloister known only in myth: the Sanctuary of Whispers.
Riven had heard the name once, long ago—in a half-burned book beneath his father's library.
A monastery where voices were never raised, where wounds were healed not with potions, but memory.
He hoped it still existed.
---
By dusk, the trees parted—and the Sanctuary revealed itself.
A ring of stone towers stood at the heart of a sunken glade, half-overgrown by silver vines and hanging moss. Bells swayed silently in the wind. Pale-robed monks moved like ghosts between marble pillars.
They did not speak.
Only watched.
Kael shifted uneasily. "Creepy bunch."
Riven leaned on him, coughing hard enough to draw blood.
One of the monks stepped forward.
A woman—older, her eyes pale gold, blind yet piercing. She touched Riven's chest, then nodded.
Without a word, she gestured for him to follow.
---
The chamber they brought him to was round and quiet, lit by dozens of small candles. In the center lay a stone bed engraved with old runes—calming magic, ancient and simple.
Riven lay down.
And the world bled away.
---
He dreamed.
At first, it was memory.
The smell of his mother's hair as she embraced him on the balcony.
The sound of Vaelen's laughter chasing through the gardens.
But then… the dreams twisted.
Vaelen stood in front of a burning door.
"No matter how many Seals you unlock," he said, smiling, "you'll never undo what's coming."
Riven reached for him—but Veyron's voice stopped him cold.
> "Don't touch it."
Riven turned—
And saw Veyron for the first time.
A figure of smoke and armor, eyes burning blue, a chain wrapped around his throat.
> "I'm not just in your head," Veyron whispered. "I was put there. And now they're waking me up."
---
Riven jolted upright.
He was alone in the chamber. The candles had burned down to wax puddles.
His shirt was off, his wounds freshly wrapped in herbal cloth.
But something else was wrong.
The Seals on his body—four of them—were flickering dimly.
Weaker.
Muted.
And Veyron… said nothing.
"Veyron?" he whispered aloud. "You still there?"
No reply.
Just the rustle of wind.
Just silence.
---
Kael entered an hour later, holding a bowl of warm broth.
"You look like hell."
"I dreamed," Riven said, not touching the food. "Of him."
"Vaelen?"
Riven shook his head.
"Veyron. I saw him. Not as a voice. As a person. Or… something like one."
Kael frowned. "That's never happened before."
"No," Riven said. "And now he's gone quiet."
---
They spent two more days in the Sanctuary.
Riven walked the stone gardens in silence, listening to the bells ring in the wind. The monks taught him to feel the flow of magic again—not through brute will, but rhythm. Balance.
He meditated in the Hall of Echoes. He read fragments of ancient flame doctrine. He bled onto an altar and heard it whisper his name.
But Veyron did not return.
And his Seals remained dim.
---
On the third night, Riven stood beneath the starlight, shirtless, staring down at the river that ran beside the Sanctuary walls.
The moon shone pale across his scars.
Kael joined him. "You're getting quieter."
Riven sighed. "I think… I'm afraid."
Kael raised an eyebrow. "Of what?"
"Of being alone again."
He looked down at his hands.
"I thought I hated Veyron at first. The way he laughed, the way he spoke like he knew everything. But now that he's gone…"
He swallowed.
"I feel like I'm missing part of myself."
---
Kael didn't speak right away.
Then:
"You're not alone, Riven. You've got me. You've got the monks. You've got… whoever that Lucen idiot is."
Riven smiled faintly.
"It's not the same."
"I know. But it's something."
They stood in silence for a while longer.
Then Riven said, "I'm leaving tomorrow. The monks gave me what I needed."
"Which is?"
"A direction."
He turned to Kael.
"There's a lake, west of the Ashen Coast. They say it remembers everything that's ever touched it. If Veyron's soul is fragmenting… that's where the pieces will fall."
Kael nodded. "Then we head west."
---
As they departed the next morning, the elder monk—blind and silent—handed Riven a stone pendant.
A memory stone.
Empty.
Waiting to be filled.
Riven bowed his head in thanks.
She nodded in return.
And then they left the Sanctuary behind, fading once more into the unknown.
---