Chapter 38 – Beneath the Hollow
Raka came into silence. No sound. No breath. No light. Only pressure.
Stone pressing against his ribs like a second skin, and a heat at his chest that pulsed in place of his heart.
The Seed. It hadn't died.
He exhaled slowly. Dust stirred against his lips, fine as bone ash. His fingers twitched first, then his shoulders. Something cracked above him. Rock or memory. He wasn't sure.
He opened his eyes. Darkness.
Then... faintly, the dagger flared.
The serpent-and-moon glyph glowed dimly along the edge. Its light didn't reveal the space. It defined it, painting the contours of a small, stone chamber buried below the vault.
Old symbols lined the walls. Not Spiral, not modern Vel'Tharan glyphs. It's older. Cut deep with a hand that bled to make each stroke.
He pulled himself upright. His side screamed with bruises, but nothing broken. The Seed flared once, as if testing his body's limits. Then dimmed.
A whisper stirred beside his ear.
"Papa…"
But it wasn't the child's voice this time. It was hers.
The Chamber of Roots
The dagger's glow revealed more of the space. Roots jutted through cracks in the stone. Blackened, fossilized, but still pulsing faintly.
Some had Spiral residue clinging to them like barnacles. Others had been carved with mirror glyphs. Backwards spirals, open ended arcs. Glyphs shaped like answers with no questions.
Raka touched one root.
It recoiled. Not physically, but in energy. Drawing itself inward like a breath held too long. The glyph it bore shimmered and reshaped itself.
Raka narrowed his eyes. A fragment of a lock.
He'd seen this pattern before.
Not in this life. Not even in the last. But somewhere far older. A temple half-drowned in black water. A door carved into a mountainside that screamed when opened. A twin. Sereth.
The Memory Burn
As he stepped forward, the ground pulsed beneath him.
Stone didn't crack but remembered.
A symbol bloomed beneath his feet, coiled and shifting. And Raka staggered as a wave of memory not his own poured into him.
- A tower crumbling under green skies.
- Children screaming in languages no longer spoken.
- Sereth, half-covered in ash, her fingers dripping blood as she carved glyphs into a wall that bled when struck.
- A dagger, plunged into her own palm. "If I forget, let this remember."
Then... A flash of himself. Standing over her body. Whispering her name. Not as brother. Not as warrior. But as something else.
The Warning
He collapsed to his knees, the vision wrenching from his lungs like smoke.
The Seed in his chest burned white-hot for a heartbeat, then quieted. It had fed on the memory. Integrated it.
The dagger's glyphs rearranged again.
And on the far wall, one phrase ignited in silver fire. "She remembers what the Spiral forgot."
He rose, slowly, dragging in shallow breaths.
Then another phrase flickered beside it. "They're coming."
The room began to vibrate. Not crumble. It shift. As if a larger mechanism had been woken by his presence.
Somewhere deep below, a low chime rang. Not mechanical. Organic.
The back wall slid away. Not like stone, but like shadow peeling from skin.
A hallway opened beyond. Lined with roots and mirrored symbols.
Raka gripped the dagger and stepped forward. The glyphs along the walls whispered with each footfall, mirroring old voices, old promises.
Somewhere ahead, Sereth waited.
And behind him, far above, the Spiral trembled.
The Passage Below
Raka walked in silence.
The passage sloped gently downward, the air thickening with every step. Not with heat or dust, but weight. Like walking through thought. Each wall carried glyphs etched not with chisels, but with intent. Carvings made by memory, not hand.
Some glowed faintly when he passed.
Others pulsed. As if recognizing him.
He didn't speak. Couldn't. The silence wasn't hostile but reverent. Like walking through a tomb that hadn't decided whether he was mourned or intruding.
Half a dozen meters in, he passed a series of three stone pillars, each ringed with bands of mirrored sigils. The middle pillar bore a cracked circle. Burnt at the edge. Like something had tried to escape from within.
Or someone.
Raka reached out.
The glyphs reacted to his touch, spinning like clockwork in slow reversal.
And he heard her again.
Not just her voice. her breath.
"It's not the Spiral that made the world forget. It was us."
The Chamber of Threads
The passage ended in a circular room. Domed and wide. Thin strands of Ki, raw, untouched, golden-white, hung from the ceiling like threads of starlight. Some were frayed. Some cut.
At the center, a suspended lattice of crystal and root. Sereth's voice echoed before he even saw her shape.
"We locked it away to save them. You helped."
Raka stepped into the room, and the dagger at his side vibrated. Not violently, rhythmically. Like a heart syncing to another's beat.
He looked up.
Within the lattice, barely visible, a memory core pulsed. Half organic, halfnglyphstone. It radiated images in flickers:
A younger Sereth and Raka kneeling over a carved seal.
A glyph-dagger plunging into soil soaked with Ki.
Spiral corruption not yet red, but blue. Calm, fluid, undisturbed.
He staggered.
"You said it would be temporary," he whispered. "You said we'd come back."
Her answer came in the form of a flicker. A younger Sereth, pale and shaking, saying through bloodied lips
"I'm sorry. I made you forget first."
Breachpoint
As he approached the lattice, a tremor rippled beneath his feet.
This time not memory, but movement.
Something stirred beyond the far wall. Heavy. Breathing. Alive.
The memory core flared in warning. Its threads convulsed. One of the root pillars cracked, leaking red light.
The Spiral had found the path.
Too soon.
Raka clenched the dagger. The Seed in his chest pulsed in sync with the memory core. One more flicker echoed across the crystal's surface:
Sereth's hand in his. Her voice a whisper:
"Either remember who you were… or become something they'll never control."
He didn't have time to debate.
The far wall began to dissolve. Spiral glyphs leaking through like veins pressed against thin skin. Their patterns were no longer chaotic. They mirrored his glyphs.
Not mimicking. It's Matching.
Raka looked at the lattice, then at the approaching corruption. He pressed the dagger into the root.
The glyphs surged bright white. Spiraling out from the contact point.
The memory core shuddered. Then released a burst of light that raced up the threads and into his chest.
Everything burned. But it was not Spiral fire. It was hers.
Ascent
When the light dimmed, Raka stood alone in the chamber. The lattice was gone. So was the voice.
But his chest no longer pulsed alone. The Seed had changed. And now, so had he.
From behind, the wall crumbled. Spiral shadows poured in. Raka turned. Dagger humming. Eyes gold. Not with Ki. But with remembrance.