The road to the Cryptgrove was silent—not for lack of sound, but because the world itself *listened*.
Every creak of a cart wheel, every rustle of dried leaves, felt like it echoed too loud, like the land was waiting for something… or *someone*.
Liora tightened her grip on her staff. The soulfire that burned within her had quieted since the vision with Mother Ino, but it hadn't dulled. It waited too—curled at the edge of her senses like a wolf watching for the moment to pounce.
Elias walked ahead, bow slung casually across his back, eyes scanning the trees. Behind them, Sahria rode on the back of a scrappy hill pony, bundled in thick cloaks. Her recovery had been slow, but she was awake now—silent and sharper than before.
"You ever been to the Cryptgrove?" Liora asked Elias, breaking the long hush.
He scoffed. "Once. Didn't stay long. Too many corpses whispering secrets. You hear your name enough times from dead mouths, you start to question what part of you still belongs to the living."
Liora glanced toward the horizon. "Mother Ino said there's a relic of my parents buried there. Something of their soulprint."
"And we're just going to waltz in and dig it up?" he asked, tone half-sarcastic.
She smiled faintly. "I was thinking more of dancing. Subtle. Graceful."
He rolled his eyes. "You're terrible at graceful."
"I'm improving."
They walked on. Around midday, they crested a hill and saw it—just beyond the haze of ash drifting through the air like lazy snow.
The Cryptgrove.
It wasn't a forest. Not anymore. Whatever had once grown there had long since died, leaving only brittle husks of trees—petrified, twisted, blackened like coal. The ground was cracked and gray, spiderwebbed with lines of necrotic rot.
And something… pulsed beneath it.
"Gods," Sahria murmured. "This place feels like it's breathing."
Elias muttered, "That's not the worst part."
"What is?"
"It knows we're here."
As they stepped into the grove, a dull *thrum* echoed beneath their feet—like heartbeats in the soil. Liora closed her eyes briefly. She could feel it now. The tangled web of old soulprints. Residual magic. Memories too stubborn to fade.
They weren't alone.
And not everything buried here was dead.
She guided them toward the center of the grove, where the map from Mother Ino had marked a collapsed crypt—stone ruins swallowed by time and overgrowth. The closer they drew, the heavier the air became. It clung to their skin like sweat, despite the cold.
Liora dropped to her knees beside the cracked stone slab and pressed her palm to it.
Her magic answered.
The air shimmered. Runes that hadn't glowed in decades flickered to life—faint blue sigils that danced like fireflies.
"This is it," she whispered.
Sahria stepped back, hand already clutching her knife. "Should I be worried?"
"Yes," Elias and Liora said at the same time.
Then Liora pressed harder.
The stone pulsed—and *sank*, revealing a narrow stairwell spiraling downward into darkness.
Elias groaned. "Why is it always stairs?"
"Better than ladders," Liora muttered. "You go first."
He didn't argue.
---
The crypt smelled like dust and memory. A faint glow lit the stairwell—residual from the runes above. As they reached the bottom, Liora saw what remained of her family's burial sanctum.
Three sarcophagi. Two open. One sealed.
The open ones were empty, but the carvings were familiar. Her mother's name, spelled in old Highscript: **Elahraun of the Red Sigil**. Her father's: **Kaeron Vell, Keeper of Chains**.
The sealed one had no name.
But as Liora stepped toward it, something inside *responded*. Her soulfire flared—just a flicker, like a heartbeat matching its twin.
"This is the relic," she said quietly. "It's bound into this seal."
Elias scanned the room. "Then take it. Quick."
Liora reached out, placing both hands on the stone lid.
It burned.
A scream—not hers—ripped through the room. Ethereal. Ancient. The lid cracked, glowing from within.
And then, it opened.
No corpse. No bones.
Just a sphere of crystal, hovering above ancient wrappings. Inside the crystal, a swirling mist—red and gold, thrumming with power.
A fragment of a soul.
"My mother," Liora breathed.
The room *shuddered*.
And then the shadows spoke.
"You dare disturb the binding?"
A figure emerged from the far end of the crypt. It wore armor black as pitch, veins of gold pulsing along its limbs like lightning trapped in flesh. No face—only a helm shaped like a grieving mask.
Sahria gasped. "What is that?"
Elias didn't answer. He already had his bow raised.
Liora stepped between them and the figure.
"I came for what was mine. My birthright. My blood."
The figure's voice crackled like fire and frost. "Then take it. But the blood you claim will claim you back. And the seal… will weaken further."
Liora held its gaze—if it had eyes at all.
"I know."
She reached for the sphere.
And when her fingers closed around it, the soulfire in her chest *howled*.
Visions slammed into her. Memories that weren't hers. Battles. Rituals. Love. Betrayal. Her mother's last stand. Her father breaking his chains to shield her from a blade.
And then—
Her *name*, spoken from beyond death.
"Liora."
Her grip tightened.
When the vision cleared, she was still standing—but the crystal was gone. Absorbed. Her magic roared, barely restrained. And the sealed sarcophagus had turned to ash.
The armored figure vanished without a sound.
Elias stared at her, jaw tight. "You okay?"
"No," she said honestly. "But I'm more whole than I've ever been."
Sahria smiled faintly. "Then let's get out of here before more ghosts wake up."
They turned back toward the stairs—toward the surface, toward whatever came next.
And behind them, in the dust and stone, the nameless dead whispered…
"Welcome back."