The road to Vareth was paved in bones, though only Serelith could see them.
To the common eye, the ancient city looked like a ruin overrun by vines and fog, a forgotten place buried in the mouth of the valley. But through her sight — the cursed vision awakened by the First Tongue — she saw more: whispers in stone, memories clinging to broken walls, ghosts watching from the shadows.
Vareth had once been a stronghold of the gods.
Now it reeked of silence.
Serelith walked alone, save for the dagger at her side and the whisper of a spell at her lips. The Hollow Court had warned her that in Vareth, the Veil was thinest — and here, the Shadows of the Divided Court lingered.
These weren't spirits. They were echoes of fallen gods, fragments of divine will without bodies, clinging to the ruins like dust to breath.
She passed a broken archway where statues once stood proud — now melted like wax. In the distance, the crumbling tower of the Sanctum Bell loomed crooked, the very place where the gods had torn the First Tongue from their ranks in fear.
A voice slithered through the air.
"She walks the path of the unbound."
Another answered:
"She speaks the words they tried to forget."
The shadows took shape — tall, robed figures without faces, their hands outstretched in silent judgment. Serelith felt their cold knowledge pressing into her skull.
One of them stepped forward. Its presence distorted the world around it — the stones wept, plants withered, and time stuttered.
"I am Azariel," it said. "Once a god of stars, now only a shard. Why do you wake the old flame?"
Serelith stood her ground. "Because something worse is waking. And I'd rather burn than kneel."
The shadows stirred.
"You will," Azariel said. "All who speak the First Tongue must bow to its price."
He pointed a finger at her chest. "Your heart has already begun to break. Every time you use its power, a piece of you forgets its name. Who will you be when the words are all that remain?"
Serelith didn't answer. She turned away and stepped into the Sanctum.
Inside, the air thickened. Symbols older than the sky itself glowed faintly along the walls — broken sigils, forgotten names, the birth cries of gods. At the altar's heart lay the Stone of Echoes, humming softly with unspoken power.
She reached out — and her skin burned.
Visions exploded behind her eyes.
She saw the god of chaos — the Unmaker — chained in golden threads beneath a dying tree, whispering her name backwards, over and over. She saw the Codex of the First Tongue — bound in living leather, hidden in the Temple beyond the world's edge. She saw herself — or a version of her — eyes empty, speaking words that bent the sky.
Serelith stumbled back, gasping.
Azariel watched her. "Now you know."
She clenched her fists. "No. Now I choose."
And with that, she spoke a word in the First Tongue — a word that hadn't been heard since the fall of the stars.
The shadows screamed.
The tower cracked.
And Serelith, now bleeding light, walked out of the ruins with her eyes wide open — toward the Temple of Lost Echoes… and the gods waiting for her there.