Far below the stone floor, a hollow groan moved through the reef — the sound of water shifting in slow, ancient chambers. It wasn’t loud, and Kaelin looked toward the hall’s exit. The ripple in the stone underfoot had barely stilled when the next chamber stirred with quiet motion.

  Two elder acolytes emerged from the inner sanctum, their arms full of scrolls and rune-etched lantern frames. Their voices were soft.

  “They’ve reinstated the Haelion verse,” one murmured.

  “The redacted one?” the other asked.

  “It begins on Day One. Just after the Heartsong.”

  “Still risky.”

  Then they saw Kaelin.

  Their words faltered mid-step as they passed the two young initiates. One glanced sideways with a barely stifled grin.

  “Is that her? The Bard from last year’s Founder’s Cycle?”

  “The one with the cracked mask and the robes that looked borrowed from three different shrines?”

  “Didn’t someone say she lip-synced the Drift Psalm?”

  “Didn’t need to. The lute string snapped halfway through the chant. Everyone thought it was part of the act.”

  “Except the part where she tripped twice.”

  “No, that was the best part. Half the front row thought it was an interpretation of the Demon King Malakar’s Misstep.”

  They both chuckled and moved on, lantern frames clinking faintly in their arms. Esthel kept her eyes forward, shoulders stiff, but Kaelin saw the tips of her ears flush.

  I knew that look. The sting of old shame left too long to dry. And of course they’d bring up the mask, the fall, even the damn lute string. I hated that she still carried that. All I can do is just be here for her.

  He hesitated, then reached out — just enough to brush his hand against her shoulder. She didn’t look back, but her posture eased a fraction.

  Their robes vanished around the next curve, the faint echo of their steps lost in the coral hush.

  As they descended the coral steps toward the grotto, reeflight caught the ridges in Esthel’s braid.

  The Memory Grotto glistened with tidewater along its walls. Offerings from past years lay nestled in Reef-shelves carved with names, and waterworn tokens.

  Should I say something? Maybe she’d brush it off — or finally let me carry part of it.

  Kaelin worked up the nerve. Warmth pooled low in his chest — not from memory, but from some deeper alignment. His breath didn’t catch this time. The low hum at the base of his spine steadied, the usual static behind his eyes easing just enough to speak.

  The druids called it the Field—some invisible net tied to the soul. He only noticed it when it wobbled. But now… it held with confidence.

  “You still going to deny you were in the play last year?” he asked.Esthel’s ears twitched. “ No, and it's a sacred reenactment.”

  “Right, with the Malakar’s Misstep cracking the mask and revealing who you were.”

  “It was one trip. One”

  “Twice.” Kaelin corrects her.

  She side-eyed him. “Didn’t you claim you missed it entirely”

  Kaelin hesitated. “Didn’t. Just… heard things. I was... busy, remember."

  Esthel didn’t answer for a moment with a deathly glare. “I wasn’t supposed to be there. Sorrel got sick.”

  “I mean… it still counts,” Kaelin answered with a quip.

  “I’ll remember that when I’m stuck Warden-ing your spiral again with no training and your charm that barely works,” she said, flatly, not quite joking.

  Kaelin gulped. I need her help.

  “He wouldn’t have lost his lunch if he hadn’t stolen a gulp of Rob’Til’s mead between acts. It was supposed to be sacred wine,” Esthel explained. She looked ahead, her voice softer. “How many do you think have forgotten, by now?”

  Kaelin rubbed the back of his neck. “Honestly? I think everyone still remembers. You held the room, even through the broken string.”

  Esthel’s eyes lingered on the water as they walked. “You know, there’s a version of the Founder’s Cycle, where there is a seventh hero. Where their story gets picked up by someone else, years later.

  Kaelin tilted his head. “Someone else always picks it up. Same story, new voice — even if everyone pretends it’s new."

  "Someone always rewrites it, gives it a twist. There’ll be an eighth.

  “No, but that would be funny,” she said with a chuckle.

  Kaelin raised an eyebrow, half-playing along. “So who’s the seventh hero, then?”

  Esthel shrugged, but there was a glint of mischief in her eye. “I heard it was a witch.”

  They walked deeper into the Grotto, toward the statues — one of Nytheris, the goddess of death and renewal, and one of Sereth’Kael, the moon deity of fate, each with open palms as if ready to receive. Nytheris’ butterfly wings fanned behind her, the stone veined with shimmer-thread that caught even the low lantern light. Sereth’Kael’s four elongated limbs arched outward like legs of a spider. Silver-etched threads spiraled from clawed fingertips to the base of her pedestal, web-like and deliberate. Her head was tilted slightly as if listening to threads of fate itself. The air around them seemed quieter with sacred silence.

  Esthel stepped up onto the base of each statue, lifting the two bowls she had prepared earlier. With careful precision, she placed the first into the upturned palms of Nytheris, and the second into those of Sereth’Kael. Kaelin stepped back instinctively, the stone underfoot humming faintly.

  Silver moonlight filtered down from the cracked arch above, touching Esthel’s shoulders first — then sliding across the bowls. Slowly, the lids of each offering bowl trembled, then opened of their own accord. A quiet chime rang out, as if the air itself recognized the offerings.

  From within, the linen and the coin-shaped medallion rose ever so slightly. Threads of Essentia lifted from them — one warm, one cool — drawn upward into the beam of moonlight. The offerings shimmered briefly, their color fading just slightly, then gently returned to their bowls — changed, but intact.

  Esthel stepped forward and gently removed both bowls from the statues' hands, lowering them with care. Then, without pause, she took the third bowl — its rim bound inside laid diced bark-thread ribbon, the fibers fraying like a prayer too long held — and turned toward the basin beyond.

  She made her way toward the far basin at the edge of the grotto — where the stone descended into a long, low hollow lined with ash-colored silt. Thousands of fragments rested there: cracked driftstones, broken medallions, faded cloth, unspoken prayers sealed in bone, and paper moths with broken wings.

  The bane basin. A place where pain was surrendered, not remembered.

  She found a stretch of softer soil near the coral roots — enough to shape.

  Esthel crouched low and began to dig — not deep, just enough to cup a bowl's space with her hands.

  From a small pouch, she took a seed — pale, smooth, and etched faintly with Essentia thread. It pulsed once in her hand, dim and unsure.

  She placed the bowl into the hollowed soil, then gently pressed the seed just above it. It pulsed once in her palm before she lowered it to the ground, covering it with soil.

  Then, a whisper:

  “This one’s not for the gods.” “This is for her — the one who listens beneath the root.”

  She didn’t say who “her” was. Didn’t have to. The air changed the moment she spoke — like something old had turned its gaze. I felt it too. Just... awareness of a false move waiting to be made. Mistress Velmora

  “Take this piece, and leave the rest untouched.”

  The silt pulsed. Faintly at first, then again — deeper, slower, like something was breathing beneath the grotto.

  A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

  A vine spiraled upward. Thin. Slow. Then too fast.

  In moments, it unfurled — a flower with mirrored petals, their edges wet with light that reflected nothing. The bloom faced downward, its center curling inward toward the buried offering.

  Esthel turned slightly, glancing back over her shoulder toward Kaelin. Her expression was calm, but her eyes glinted with something quiet and questioning.

  "How do you think I did?" she asked, her voice low, her smile faint but real.

  Kaelin gave a quiet nod, the corner of his mouth twitching. “You always make it look easy.”

  Esthel’s smile widened just slightly, then she stepped back toward him.

  “Are you ready?” she asked, her voice soft but steady, like she already knew the answer.

  Kaelin glanced at Esthel, then down at the bowls. He shrugged lightly. "I only have one for now," he said.

  Esthel gave a small nod, still standing beside the blooming flower. "That’s okay," she said, stepping toward him. "Let’s go do it, then."

  Kaelin hesitated, then gave a grudging nod, shoulders tight. “Yeah. Whatever,” he muttered. “Let’s just get it over with.”

  They climbed the steps from the grotto. Above, moonlight flickered through the cracked arch as they returned to the statue chamber.

  Esthel didn’t speak. She walked always two steps ahead, calm and composed, like she was still carrying the weight of her offering — but lighter for having set it down.

  Kaelin, however, felt every step drag behind him, as he remembered an earlier failure.

  Kaelin unwrapped a small cloth from his belt pouch and stepped toward Sereth’Kael’s statue, placing the compass into her upturned hands. Inside lay a compass — pale, weatherworn, and shaped like an eight-pointed bloom. A faint sigil had been etched in its underside: a spiraling dragon curled around itself, tail in mouth — the symbol his father once described as a path that devours itself to remember.

  Drawing a slow breath, he cupped it between his palms, eyes closing. Let the breath center. Let the Field thread. Let memory anchor intent.

  I lost my father while camping in the winter... you glowed green and pointed me east to guide me home.

  He whispered a soft mantra and channeled his Essentia into the object, a flow uncertain but sincere — the offering to carry forward. He stepped back as the compass settled into Sereth'Kael’s hands.

  What if the goddess says nothing because she’s already decided?

  The orb shimmered faintly at first — the light curving toward it like breath drawn in.

  Then, overhead, the light of Noz’Ruun, the red moon, broke through the cracked arch. It narrowed into a beam and struck Kaelin first — then angled toward the compass.

  It had picked up the compass slowly. The beam had intensified. A fracture spread across it like hairline webbing.

  With an audible crack. A single pulse of moonlight washed over the compass.

  Then the light faded. and dropped the compass onto the tide-washed floors. Kaelin’s Field thinned in his chest, curling tight. She didn’t take it. The compass… me… any of it.

  The weight of it hit hard. Like being lifted for a moment... then dropped. I didn’t move. Couldn’t. This silence — it wasn’t peace. It was judgment.

  Heat flashed beneath my collar — a pulse, sharp and inward, like something inside my chest braced to rupture.

  The necklace flared. Just once. A warning surge — Essentia lashing back against the collapse in his Field.

  I gritted my teeth. That should’ve been the end of it. But I felt another current pressing in — not mine.

  Esthel was already halfway through a grounding weave, her fingers hovering near her belt, charm-thread looped through her knuckles.

  She felt it too and was already on the move.

  Just in case mine didn’t hold.

  He stared at it. The compass remained where it had landed, silently on the floor.

  Esthel stepped up beside him, her expression unreadable. She looked down at the compass, then gently touched Kaelin's shoulder.

  "I’m sorry," she said softly. "Maybe the memory faded. Sereth'Kael might’ve seen it as… already spent."

  Kaelin didn’t answer. He didn’t have to. The way his hand hovered above the compass said enough.

  Esthel hesitated, then nodded. “I’ve got to check in with Llyrian. Reflection wards. I’ll come back.”

  Kaelin gave a small nod, eyes still on the compass. “Yeah. Okay.”

  Later, in the Tide-Cleft Archive, Kaelin paced the coral shelves, dragging his fingers across the spines of salt-hardened scrolls. The place smelled of wet vellum and old ink — safe, unread, and silent. Easier to get lost in books than face whatever the Drift might show. It was easier than trying to spiral again.

  “Good evening, Kaelin.”

  He turned. Vasalith stood near the far arch, robes drawn close around her, gaze calm but unreadable. One hand rested on the spine of a thick, water-worn tome that she'd been reshelving. The other idly adjusted a scroll already aligned, as if to suggest nothing was ever quite in order — especially not students.

  “Evening, Master.”

  He had seen Dyunn on his way in — halfway down the side aisle, lingering too long near the restricted section. Kaelin had thought nothing of it until now. But as Vasalith approached, Dyunn shifted closer to the shelf near them — too casual, too curious. He wasn’t looking at scrolls. He was listening.

  Her voice didn’t shift tone. “Shouldn’t you be spiraling by now? Your turn in the Heartsong will be soon.”

  Kaelin looked down. “Yes, Master. I… was just clearing my Field.”

  Vasalith’s eyes lingered on him — not unkind, but sharp in their quiet knowing. “This isn’t where you go to feel better. It's a place of study, not where you come to escape your problems."

  He didn’t answer. They had let the silence sit.

  “You’re afraid of what the spiral might show you. That’s all,” she said softly. “But not spiraling will only delay it and not erase it.”

  “I tried,” Kaelin said, voice tight. Centered my breath. I threaded Essentia through my Driftroot, Spiraled for hours, and said the mantra like I was supposed to. And still… nothing came."

  "To tell the truth, Master..." he said, voice low but steady. "I thought I had something this year… but maybe I didn’t. I tried giving it to Sereth'Kael."

  He opened his palm just slightly, then hesitated. He pulled out the compass — weatherworn and etched with his father's symbol. Vasalith raised an eyebrow.

  "Oh," she said dryly. "You haven’t found a path forward. And this... this is what you offered?"

  She took the compass from his hand and inspected it with care, turning it once in her palm. For a moment, Kaelin thought she might say something kind.

  Then she tossed it—not hard, but without reverence—into the trash bin. She didn’t look smug. Just… certain. The compass landed with a soft clink, but something subtle pulsed from within it — a ripple too faint for either of them to feel. The etched lines on its face shimmered briefly, curling outward like something had burst from within, then dimmed again, unnoticed.

  "The Pantheons will never accept that."

  You didn’t even ask,” Kaelin muttered. What was the point, then? His jaw locked, but he didn’t take his eyes off the bin. “It helped me. Once. When I needed it."

  Vasalith’s gaze held her steady as stone. "Then did you offer it that year when the memories were fresh? And do you still honor why Sereth'Kael took as an offering in the first place?"

  Vasalith paused for a moment to organize her thoughts. She reached to adjust the flame on a nearby lantern as if that were the more pressing task.

  Then, in that slow, unfurling tone she used when something mattered more than she’d admit, she said, “The gods want more than objects. They want the pain behind them. That’s the curse of the Oni. Your power comes through pain — not progress."

  Kaelin furrowed his brow. I spiraled out of control that day, and I was able to kill my enemy. But I was still too slow. Too weak. And unable to save them.

  “Go to the grotto again,” she continued, without looking at him. “Go up to where the waterfall begins. "

  He hesitated. “And then?”

  “There is a Driftview alcove, I like to use it from time to time. Speak nothing. Wait until you feel your Field pull against your breath. That’s where the thread wants to spiral.” She had flicked her hand as if to tell him to leave.

  Kaelin nodded slowly, not sure if it was acceptance or just submission to another riddle. His jaw tightened for a heartbeat, a flash of resistance before he forced himself to move. Spiraling without guidance felt less like a challenge and more like stumbling into a test no one had been allowed to study for.

  Vasalith lingered a moment longer, then added, “There’s also a book in the archive I meant to suggest — someone wrote a thesis on cursed soul-states and breakthroughs. I was going to let you find your path, but it seems this has been weighing on you more than most.”

  She gestured toward one of the older coral shelves. “It’s in the fourth row. Look for a bone-colored spine with a cracked seal. I think you’ll know it when you see it.”

  Vasalith turned to go, then paused in the archway. "Do you need any more help, Kaelin?"

  With that, she gathered a few thick books from the reshelving bench, cradled them in one arm, and walked away without another word — her robes trailing like seafoam in the tide.

  He shook his head. "No, Master." I blinked, still a little stunned. Master Vasalith, offering me a book? A real path through the fog instead of another riddle? Part of me waited for the catch, the lesson hidden in the folds. But there was none. Only the quiet, unsettling weight of unexpected help.

  She gave a quiet hum of acknowledgment. Then, turning slightly, she added, "I intend to check on Sarn. He also needs help spiraling."

  Kaelin waited until her footsteps had faded down the corridor.

  But Vasalith did not go far.

  Around the next arch, just out of his line of sight, she paused at the edge of the exit. From beneath her robe, she drew a crest — a flattened oval, its edges worn smooth. At its center, a narrow spiral curved inward, framed by faint etchings: a root on one side, a thorn on the other. The sigils were weathered but clear — Cradle and Thorn, intertwined.

  Vasalith turned it in her hand.

  “This one carries forward,” she states.

  Every year, it had. The same altar. The same bowl. Not out of laziness but because it still bore her need.

  “This Crest,” she said aloud, though no one listened, “is the same one I received the day I was named stewardtress of this shrine.”

  Her fingers curled around it gently, as if remembering the weight of that moment. “It is the crest of my station — the emblem of my bond with the Cradle and Thorn.”

  She held it reverently, not for its power but its meaning. “This is how I remind Sereth'Kael, I still carry the weight of this place. Not by what’s offered once, but by what endures — year after year.”

  She pressed her Essentia gently into the spiral. Not to offer — but to affirm. “They don’t want sacred relics,” she said quietly. “Not really. They want the part of you that still remembers why you came here in the first place.”

  She glanced once more toward the corridor Kaelin had taken.“They’ll never accept a blessed object just because it glows,” she whispered. “Only if it still hurts.”

  She rewrapped the crest with practiced reverence, placing it back within her robes.

  Then she turned and walked on.

  He stood alone in the archive’s hush, staring at the bin. Not moving. Just watching...

  That had been it, then. The compass was discarded like nothing. Just… tossed. Quietly, like someone sweeping away broken glass.

  His fingers twitched at his side.

  He stepped forward.

  The bin was shallow — a frame lined with old cloth and scraps of paper. It lay near the top, half-wrapped in the cloth he’d brought it in, face turned down like it was hiding. He reached in, hesitated, then pulled it free.

  The metal was colder now.

  He turned it over. And frowned.

  The center etching — the spiral his father said represented “a path that devours itself to remember” — wasn’t the same. There was something underneath. The bloom-point shape hadn’t changed, not exactly. One of the eight directional arms now had a faint green shimmer. And a mirror inlay at the center? It didn't reflect the archive shelves behind him.

  It only showed his face.

  Not the face he wore now — the one from before everything changed.

  Kaelin swallowed hard and tucked the compass back into his pouch.

  He didn’t say a word. But he didn’t throw it away either. Should I show this to Master Vasalith? Probably not, she might destroy it next time. This is the last thing I have of my father.

  Instead, Kaelin moved toward the section Vasalith had pointed out — the fourth row, older coral shelves worn thin from generations of study. He scanned the spines slowly, fingers brushing along hardened reef-bindings and cracked leather. Some scrolls bore no titles. Others had sigils he couldn’t decipher.

  Then, midway down, an empty space. A faint outline of dust suggested where a book had recently been. Kaelin blinked, his chest tightening. Dyunn had been near the archive earlier — too near. Had he taken it? Either way, it wasn’t here now.

  Kaelin sighed and kept scanning. Near the base of the shelf, something else caught his eye — a spine nearly the same color. Just beside it, tucked between the supports, something small had slipped loose.

  He bent down and retrieved it — a coin. One side bore the faint outline of a moth, its wings cracked as if fractured.

  A cracked-wing moth — unmistakable to anyone who studied forbidden rites. Most thought it was just an inverted butterfly. Easy to mistake. But Kaelin knew better now.

  Dyunn had been here earlier. Had he dropped it? This might be his bane — or worse, a gift given to him. Velmora’s mark wasn’t a mistake.

  Kaelin turned the coin over. The other side was a cocoon.

  He pocketed it without thinking, a strange itch rising in his throat. Bone-white, cracked along the edge, but older than the others around it. He pulled it free.

  The cover read: Festival of the Wings: Haelion and the Mirrored Path.

  Kaelin blinked again. Maybe someone had picked this up cheap, thinking it was just another temple myth. That happened sometimes — dusty scrolls resold from flooded vaults or mislabeled fables passed off at coastal stalls. Whoever handled it clearly hadn’t recognized the ink. Duskfire was rare, expensive, and never used for fiction. Contracts, yes. Oaths, yes. Not bedtime stories. And yet here it was, quiet on a public shelf.

  He flipped through a few brittle pages. The text mentioned Soul Mirrors, an old

  rite sequence, and something called the Haelion’s Verse.

  He hesitated. This wasn’t what he was looking for.

  At first glance, the text looked like the standard myth — the rise of Malakar, the gods summoning six heroes, each chosen for their strength, wisdom, or sacrifice. Kaelin flipped through slowly, expecting the same half-remembered verses every initiate was taught.

  But further in, the phrasing shifted. There was an infernal who had helped the gods summon the heroes. The sword hero didn’t slay Malakar. The sword held the line with the others.

  And the seventh? A witch was a part of their journey? It said the witch sacrificed herself. She helps bloom the soul mirrors. not the sword.

  Kaelin narrowed his eyes with confusion. Who wrote this?

  He flipped back to the title. On the front cover, just faint enough to miss if you weren’t looking, was the sigil of the Cradle and the Thorn — a spiral flanked by root and thorn etchings. Kaelin blinked. He reached for the small bronze pin clipped to his belt — the same symbol etched into it, worn but unmistakable. His training crest. His order.

  Festival of the Wings: Haelion and the Mirrored Path.

  He traced the spiral on the inside cover one more time.

  He ran his thumb along the brittle edge. This part had been annotated—maybe by a druid scholar, a name he couldn't make out — but the shimmer confirmed it was Duskfire ink. The same scent that had filled his nose for days after he spilled it in the archive — Esthel had joked it nested in his sinuses. Since then, every time he was around Duskfire ink, it itched.

  This person must have really believed in the story, or maybe Esthel’s joke wasn’t a joke at all. Kaelin rubbed the bottom of his nose. Still itched. Every time. That smell wouldn’t leave.

  He tucked the book carefully into his bag, thinking this might be worth showing Esthel later.

  He stared toward the Driftview, not knowing if the gods had rejected him — or if maybe they’d seen something in the compass he hadn’t.

  Maybe Vasalith wasn’t wrong. Still, he couldn’t let it go. Not yet.

  Far beneath the archive’s coral floor, another low tremor passed through — softer than before, almost like a held breath. The scrolls didn’t shake. The lamps didn’t flicker. But Kaelin felt it behind his ribs — like something vast had stirred again, still watching him.