The gate swallowed them whole—not with violence, but with understanding.
For a moment, Ael felt nothing.
No wind. No ground. No heartbeat.
Then—light.
It wasn't blinding or holy. It was pure: the raw form of light before it became fire, sun, or spell. It hummed like music without sound, warm but unknowable.
They emerged into a realm that wasn't part of the world they'd known.
No sky, no stars.
Only a vast sea of mirrored stone stretching endlessly in all directions, each tile carved with a glowing rune—some familiar, most ancient. Floating above the horizon were drifting spheres of memory, like thought made solid.
Vel whispered, "This isn't a place. It's… a soul."
Nirra nodded, eyes wide. "Not a soul of a person. The soul of magic itself."
Ael stepped forward.
Each footfall echoed with centuries.
At the center of this impossible world stood a single tree—charred, leafless, yet very much alive. It pulsed slowly, like it breathed fire beneath blackened bark.
And beneath it sat a figure.
Cloaked in dark red. Barefoot. Ageless.
Their skin shimmered like embers beneath ash. Their eyes—closed.
Until Ael approached.
Then they opened.
And everything stopped.
Even thought.
Even fear.
—
The figure rose.
"Flame returned. Silence embraced. The bridge reforged."
Their voice was deep and layered, as if more than one person spoke through the same throat.
"You have walked beyond division," they said. "Few ever do. Fewer still return."
Ael inclined his head. "Who are you?"
The figure stepped forward.
"I am the first who touched soul.The first who broke.The first who burned."
They opened their palm.
From it danced a flicker of blue flame—gentle, ghostly, ancient.
"When the gods fled this world," they continued, "they left behind fragments. Their echoes became magic. Their regrets… became flame. I found one. I used it."
Vel stared at the flame. "That's soulfire."
The figure nodded. "In its truest form. Before men bound it to purpose or pain."
Nirra stepped closer. "You were the first Flamebearer."
"I was the first witness. And in time… the first lesson."
—
They turned to Ael.
"You severed love to rule. Then reclaimed it to understand. You are not the first to make that choice."
Ael held his gaze. "But I might be the first to survive it."
A ghost of a smile touched the figure's lips.
"And that is why you were called."
—
The tree behind them pulsed.
Its bark split, revealing a hollow core filled not with sap—but memories.
The figure gestured.
"Enter. Inside lies the origin of the Third Soul. The moment where silence was born not as a curse, but as protection."
Vel frowned. "Protection from what?"
"From a wound the world still doesn't remember."
Nirra hesitated. "What kind of wound?"
The Flamebearer's expression darkened.
"One so deep it made the gods abandon creation."
—
No more questions were needed.
Together, they stepped into the heart of the tree.
And what they saw inside wasn't a memory.
It was a fracture.
A hole in the weave of the world.
A battlefield with no sky—just shattered mirrors of a forgotten time. There were no corpses, no blades.
Only pain.
A field of it.
Endless.
It throbbed in every shard they passed—agony from ten thousand years ago, still bleeding, still alive.
At the center stood a single child, silent and alone.
Eyes empty.
Hands clutching the last ember of a broken star.
Ael reached toward the child.
The boy looked up—and spoke words that made the entire realm tremble:
"You left me here.You all did.And I made sure no one else would feel again."
—
They had found the first Third Soul.
Not a fragment.
A seed.
The one all others had grown from.
And it still waited in the wound of the world.
Still angry.
Still forgotten.
Still ready to silence everything.