The Hollow Peaks rose like the ribs of a dying god.
Their jagged silhouettes sliced the blood-colored sky, and each gust of wind carried whispers too faint to be speech — memories from a time before the Pantheon fell. Rael led his companions through the narrow pass, the pull of the seventh seed growing stronger with every step.
Eventually, the cliff wall opened into a clearing. Set into the rock was a half-buried archway, vines crawling across ancient runes that pulsed faintly with golden light. The wind stopped the moment they stepped before it.
Selene unsheathed her sword. "Another ruin?"
Laria frowned, laying a hand on the stone. "No. A seal."
"A wombvault," Nyssira murmured, voice strained. "I've only heard it mentioned in ancient hymns. This was a burial chamber… not for flesh, but for souls."
Kessai cracked her knuckles. "So it's haunted."
"It's worse," Hel whispered, her voice trailing from the shadows behind them. "It remembers being sealed. And it wants to be opened."
Rael stepped forward and pressed his palm to the runes.
The stone glowed — then cracked.
Inside, the Wombvault was blinding.
The walls bled light: golden, violet, then bloodred, shifting between hues too unnatural to belong to mortal eyes. The corridor twisted impossibly, with gravity skewed and perspective constantly warping — like walking through a dream half-remembered.
Laria faltered. "This… this is not architecture. It's memory."
Selene's breath hitched. "It's trying to show us something."
Rael moved forward, but the seed inside his chest began pulsing erratically.
And then came the voices.
"You are nothing but the son of failure.""You will lose them. Just like the last one.""They follow you because they are broken, not because you are whole."
The air thickened. The light bent. Each step pressed into the mind more than the body.
Kessai let out a hiss. "Something's inside me. Digging. Gods—"
Selene dropped to her knees, blade clattering from her hand.
Rael caught her.
"It's the trial," he said. "Mental. Emotional. It's not a fight of strength."
"But it feels real," Selene whispered, shaking. "I saw you die. Saw you leave me. I felt it."
Rael looked back.
Nyssira was standing still… but shaking violently.
He ran to her side just before she collapsed.
Nyssira's eyes were wide, unblinking — lost in something only she could see.
"No… no, not again…"
Rael knelt and gripped her shoulders.
She didn't react.
"I couldn't save them," she whispered. "My sisters… my people… I ran. I left them to burn."
Her breathing was ragged. Tears streamed down her face, but she didn't blink. "I watched it happen. I watched them scream. I couldn't even look away."
"You were a child," Rael said softly.
"I was trained. I should have fought."
Rael leaned closer, pressing his forehead against hers.
"You lived. You survived so their memory wouldn't vanish. You didn't run — you endured."
She blinked, trembling.
Then her hands reached up and clutched his arms.
"I didn't want to love you," she said, voice barely audible. "Because I thought if I gave you my heart, you'd forget it came from someone broken."
Rael smiled, gently brushing a tear from her cheek.
"I don't love perfect things."
She leaned forward and kissed him.
It was soft. Timid. Her body still trembled, but her lips were warm, open. Her arms wrapped around his neck as if terrified he'd vanish.
And Rael held her — not to claim her, but to remind her she was seen.
When they parted, Nyssira's eyes burned violet.
"When this is over," she said, "you'll have me. Fully."
He nodded. "I already do."
The Wombvault's inner sanctum opened with a groan.
The final chamber was a vast, open atrium with a ceiling that stretched into nothingness. At its center floated a crystal sphere, glowing with a golden core — the seventh seed.
Rael stepped forward.
The moment his boot crossed the threshold, a figure blurred from the shadows and attacked.
Steel met steel.
Rael's blade came up just in time to catch the strike — a dagger aimed for his throat. He spun, deflecting another strike from the side, but the attacker was fast — inhumanly fast.
Selene reached for her weapon.
"Don't," Rael called.
He faced the figure alone.
The woman landed silently, crouched, twin daggers held in reverse grip. Her hair was black as night mist, her silver eyes glowing faintly in the chamber's radiance.
Shaevari Umbros.
"Most don't even see me until it's too late," she said calmly.
"I'm not most," Rael replied.
They circled each other.
"Why now?" he asked. "You've been following me since Azeruun."
She didn't deny it. "I wanted to see what you were made of. And what they saw in you."
"Do you have your answer?"
Shaevari vanished again.
Rael felt her behind him and ducked. Her blade skimmed his shoulder.
"Not yet."
She flipped backward, landed gracefully.
"You don't lead like a conqueror," she murmured. "You don't chain them. And yet they kneel."
Rael stepped forward. "Maybe they see something you're afraid to."
Shaevari smirked. "I'm afraid of nothing."
"Then why are you still testing me?"
The pause was brief.
But it was there.
Then sheathing her daggers, she straightened. "Because if I'm going to fall for another god… I want to know he's worth it."
Rael arched a brow.
Shaevari stepped aside, gesturing to the seed.
"I'll be watching."
The crystal sphere pulsed as he approached.
Rael reached out.
But this time, the seed didn't surrender.
Visions exploded in his mind.
Selene dead — burned at the stake.Nyssira impaled by a blade of void.Laria crumbling into ash.Hel turning her back, smiling coldly.Rael on a throne of bones, alone — hated, feared, forgotten.
He dropped to one knee, clutching his head.
"No," he growled.
The seed's voice whispered.
"You will destroy them. One by one."
Rael roared, forcing himself forward.
"They're not chains. They're my strength."
He reached for the sphere.
It cracked.
Then shattered.
The seventh seed surged into his chest, golden light flooding through his body.
A new balance emerged — flame and void, light and shadow, will.
He collapsed.
But rose.
Changed.
Back at camp, the silence was sacred.
Rael sat beneath a twisted pine, Nyssira beside him. She didn't speak, but her hand found his, fingers lacing together.
Selene sat across the fire, polishing her blade with uncharacteristic gentleness. Her gaze flicked to Rael often — not possessive, but fierce. A silent vow.
Laria braided her hair slowly, humming a hymn once sung in the Ember Temples.
Kessai slept by the flames, snoring faintly.
And high above, crouched atop a stone spire, Shaevari watched them all.
She traced her blade idly along her palm.
"I've killed gods before," she whispered.
"But I've never wanted one to live."
She turned her eyes toward Rael.
And her heart — long silent — stirred.