The heart of the Vale wasn't a place.
It was a question.
One the throne never wanted asked.
One only the marked could hear.
Azerai led them to it in silence, the Spiral Unwritten flickering behind her like an echo that never ends.
The terrain twisted the deeper they went—threads writhing in the sky like serpents, memories frozen in shattered glass hanging midair, whispering truths as they passed.
They reached a platform that didn't float—it hung, suspended by anchors of emotion too old to name.
Below them: a spiraling abyss of light and ink.
The Well of Origins.
Azerai turned.
"This is where the threads begin."
Kael's voice was low. "And end?"
Her blindfold fluttered back down over her eyes.
"No. The threads don't end. They just forget."
They jumped.
One by one, tethered not by rope or magic—
but by memory.
The fall wasn't fast.
It was slow, deliberate—each second a stretch of timelessness.
And then—
Each of them vanished into their own stream.
Split.
Separated.
Swallowed by the Well.
Kael.
He landed in fire.
Not the burning kind.
The kind that remembers burning.
A flickering hall of torn pages and unfinished books surrounded him. In the center stood a man cloaked in torn light—his eyes molten, his voice flickering like static.
"You were not meant to survive the forge," the man said.
Kael stepped forward.
"Who are you?"
"I'm the one who created you."
Kael's heart stopped.
"You're the one who gave me the mark?"
"No," the figure replied. "I gave you choices. The mark came after."
Images surged—Kael kneeling as a child before twin altars, one of light, one of shadow. A hand forcing his choice. Fire consuming both.
"You chose neither," the figure said. "And so you became something else. That is why the throne fears you."
Kael clenched his fists. "Who burned you?"
The man smiled—tragic, soft, tired.
"I did."
And vanished into pages that bled gold.
Rin.
She awoke in a temple made of ash.
Petals of flame floated through the air. The scent was sweet—too sweet.
At the center, a woman knelt in prayer.
Rin knew her face.
Because it was hers.
But older. Regal. Dying.
The woman turned.
"You don't know what you are."
"I know enough," Rin snapped.
"No," the woman whispered, rising. "You were never just a survivor. You are the last flame of a bloodline that should have ruled the sky."
The walls trembled. An altar collapsed. Stars flickered into view.
"Celestials?" Rin asked, stunned.
The woman touched her cheek. "The throne slaughtered your kind. Called it balance. But it was fear."
Rin's mark ignited. Her wing blazed anew.
And the woman smiled.
"Rule nothing. Burn everything."
Then the temple exploded into crimson light.
Juno.
He was underwater.
But not drowning.
The water was memory. It whispered in forgotten tongues.
Shapes swam past—ritual circles, spell matrices, half-formed prayers.
He reached out.
And touched her.
A girl.
Golden eyes. Laughing. Reaching for him with a book clutched in her arms.
Then—
a flash of light.
A forbidden incantation.
A scream.
She was gone.
Juno collapsed. His chest cracked open—not physically, but soul-deep.
He whispered, "I forgot her. To gain power…"
And the water wept with him.
"You didn't forget," a voice said. "You chose to erase."
A mirror floated past.
Juno saw himself, younger, clutching the spell that would unlock the mark.
Behind him—her silhouette, reaching.
He never looked back.
Juno sank to his knees.
"I was supposed to protect her."
The water answered gently:
> "Then do it now."
And he rose.
Mace.
He stood before a crib.
Empty.
A woman sobbed behind him. A man screamed. Doctors ran through flickering corridors.
"Mace."
He turned.
A boy stood there.
Small. Wide-eyed. Terrified.
"You're not supposed to be here," the boy said.
"I know."
"You were supposed to die."
"I know."
Lightning shattered the sky. The building collapsed into shadow.
"I wasn't meant to survive," Mace whispered.
The boy—his younger self—nodded.
"But you did. So now what?"
Mace knelt. Took the boy's hand.
"I carry the weight."
And the boy smiled.
Azerai.
She returned to the moment she was erased.
A throne of spirals.
A figure wrapped in broken law.
Chains made of memory.
"You remember too much," it said.
"I am memory."
The chains wrapped around her eyes, her voice, her soul.
"You were not written to rebel."
"No," she said. "I was written to remind them why they're afraid of rebellion."
The chains cracked.
And Azerai woke.
They returned.
All five.
Rising from the Well.
Changed.
Kael's mark now bled not light, but truth.
Rin's wing no longer burned. It raged.
Juno's eye glowed with sorrow and resolve.
Mace's chain had a second loop—wrapped gently, not broken.
And Azerai's spiral? It pulsed with new clarity.
They stood at the center of the Vale, the world around them groaning.
The sky screamed.
Because they were whole now.
And the throne had never faced them like this.