Rain fell sideways.
Not the kind from clouds. The sky was clear. But somewhere above, reality had cracked again, and water poured through it—icy, unnatural, whispering names as it touched the ground. Each drop carried a fragment of memory, someone else's pain, someone else's end.
Kael walked through it.
His steps were slow, deliberate. The ruins around him were jagged spines of a forgotten city. Towering walls covered in ash, rusted scaffolding dangling like broken limbs. The concrete still bore the scars of old wars—missile impacts, godfire burns, and craters where Echoes had awakened and screamed themselves into extinction.
Nyxis hung quietly at his side, no longer pulsing.
"You feel hollow, don't you?" she said.
He nodded.
Since choosing to erase his name, something in him had fractured. The memories were still there, somewhere—but behind a wall. He remembered Lirin's face, but not the warmth. He remembered the Blind One's warnings, but not the weight.
He remembered pain, but not why it mattered.
The rain hissed against his shoulders.
"You bought us time," Nyxis continued. "The Choir won't know which path you're on. But now you're vulnerable. No name, no anchor. If something eats your Echo now, there's no you left to return to."
Kael signed: [Then we find the second lock.]
Nyxis pulsed once. "Yes. But the Pale Sisters are already hunting it."
Kael raised an eyebrow.
"They used to be gods. Once. Now they're... punishment," Nyxis said. "Each one guards a truth sealed by silence. The second lock lies within the Labyrinth of Ash, and they've made it their cathedral."
The Labyrinth was alive.
Kael realized it as soon as the first wall moved. Ash sculpted into doors, corridors, halls—every step reshaped the maze behind him. He dropped markings in the dust, only to watch them vanish the next moment.
The silence wasn't empty.
It was watchful.
He didn't panic.
He followed the hum.
Nyxis vibrated slightly as they passed a hallway choked with petrified roots. The dagger whispered: "They're close. Can you hear the hymn?"
He couldn't. Not yet. But the air vibrated with wrongness.
Then, ahead—light.
He stepped into a circular chamber where six statues stood in a circle, their eyes blindfolded, mouths sewn shut. In the center: an altar carved with the word TRUTH.
A voice echoed around him, smooth and bitter:
"Truth must be earned, not found."
The Pale Sisters appeared—not walking, not teleporting. One moment they weren't there, the next they were. Draped in veils that bled color from the world, their hands held empty mirrors.
Nyxis growled. "Don't speak. They reflect more than words."
Kael didn't.
Instead, he stepped toward the altar.
The tallest Sister turned her mirror toward him. His reflection stared back—only it was wrong. Not just older, but cruel. Smiling. Holding Nyxis like a trophy.
"This is what you become if you open the second lock," the Sister intoned.
Kael stood still.
Another mirror turned. A different reflection—Kael, broken, alone, surrounded by ash. Without Nyxis. Without voice.
"This is what you become if you don't."
He looked from one fate to the other.
Nyxis whispered: "No choice is clean. That's why they show you both. Truth is always a wound."
Another Sister stepped forward. Her hands cradled a shard of obsidian—shaped like a fang, humming with faint purple light. She extended it to him, silently.
Nyxis murmured: "That's it. The second lock. It's not an object. It's a choice. A belief. The fang is part of me—what was stolen during the Sundering. If you take it back, I become whole. But that means you tie yourself to me permanently."
Kael hesitated.
Then stepped forward. He took the fang.
The world shattered.
Light seared through him. The veils burned away. The Sisters screamed—silent, mouths bleeding dust. One by one, they turned their mirrors inward, and shattered into ash.
In the silence that followed, a voice spoke from deep within the altar:
"The second lock is broken. The path to the Solborn Throne begins."
Kael staggered back.
Nyxis, quiet for once, said: "You just painted a target on your soul. But you also earned the first truth: You're not alone in this war."
She pulsed warmly. "And neither am I."
Far above, the rain stopped.
But the world didn't go quiet.
From the ruins behind them, the ground began to quake. Cracks formed along the floor of the chamber. Kael stepped back, watching in silence as something began to emerge.
A figure, taller than any Sister, cloaked in woven ash and bone, rose from the earth. It didn't speak. It didn't need to. Kael felt its presence dig into his thoughts like hooks.
Nyxis went rigid.
"That's a Sentinel. They were created to defend the Labyrinth's heart. If we fight it now, you'll die."
Kael signed: [Then we run.]
The Sentinel moved slowly—its arms dragging blades made of fused teeth and metal—but its size was deceiving. When it lunged, the entire cathedral trembled.
Kael sprinted.
The exit behind them sealed itself.
Nyxis flared: "Left tunnel! Quick—before it seals too!"
They slipped through a narrowing gap, Kael's coat tearing on a jagged stone. Behind them, the Sentinel roared—not with sound, but with pressure, a crushing wave of gravity that folded the walls inward.
Stone screamed. Light bent. Time flickered.
But they escaped.
Kael collapsed on the other side, coughing. His lungs felt bruised. The dagger hummed weakly.
"You're changing," Nyxis said, almost gently. "That lock wasn't just mine. It was yours too. A part of you opened that can never be closed again."
Kael didn't reply. He stared up at the sky, where the crack in reality still glowed, a gash of starlight.
He wondered what it would cost to seal it.
End of Chapter 6