The training chamber Ysel brought him to was unlike anything Kael had seen in Emberfall.
No stone. No torches. No visible doors.
Just a circle of mirror-like walls and a floor of white glass etched with overlapping sigils. Above, there was no ceiling—only a sky of fractured light that pulsed like a heartbeat.
"Memory-forge," Ysel said, her voice distant. "Built by a Pre-Sundering architect. It reflects intention… and reveals what you're not ready to face."
Kael swallowed. "So this is where I try to shape a second chain?"
"No," she replied. "This is where you earn the right to."
She motioned, and the sigils lit.
A pulse rang out, and the air around Kael shattered—not violently, but like ripples through a reflection. When the pieces settled, he stood in a completely different space.
He knew it instantly.
The orphanage.
His feet crunched snow beneath them. The scent of ash, burnt bread, and wet wood filled his lungs. The crumbling outer ring of Briar's Hollow. He could almost hear the quiet coughing from the beds inside. Could almost see—
"Why this?" he snapped.
Ysel's voice came from everywhere and nowhere. "The Chain only forms when your intent has weight. And weight comes from facing what you've locked away."
The door creaked open ahead of him.
A memory walked out.
She was small.
No older than ten, maybe. Frail arms, white bandages at the joints. Her breath curled in the cold. She looked up at him with eyes that didn't recognize him—and yet carried the same quiet pain he'd buried years ago.
"My brother never came back," she said softly.
Kael froze.
"She waited for you," the girl continued. "Right to the end. Even after the infection took her eyes. Said you'd find a way."
Aria.
He hadn't heard that name in years.
His younger sister's last words, twisted by memory into accusation. Into truth.
Kael clenched his fists. "This isn't real."
"No," Ysel's voice echoed, "but the weight is."
The girl reached out—and her fingers passed through him. Chains spiraled up from her arms. Pale. Weak. And breaking.
"You made a promise," she said. "You broke it."
Kael's Core flared with heat.
"I didn't mean to—"
The girl vanished in a blink of flame.
In her place stood the same beast from the Crucible. But larger. Its eyes burned like judgment. Its voice was his own.
"You run from guilt. That's why your chains break."
It struck.
Kael dodged, barely—heat slashing his side. He summoned a weapon—only for the energy to fizzle. He wasn't aligned. Not yet.
Truth.
That's what the forge demanded.
Not excuses.
Not regret.
But ownership.
Kael took a breath.
Then he stopped running.
"I did leave her behind," he said. The words cut more than any weapon. "I thought I'd come back in time. I didn't. She died waiting."
The world pulsed.
His Core shifted.
And a single link of chain—burnished bronze, not silver—formed in his hand.
Real. Solid. Earned.
Kael shaped it without force. Without will. Just truth.
The creature roared and lunged.
Kael threw the chain—not as a weapon, but a command.
Bind.
It struck the beast's chest.
And held.
It didn't shatter the construct.
It froze it in place. Reality agreed with Kael's intent: "This pain will not rule me."
And for the first time… the pain listened.
He collapsed to his knees as the world unmade itself again, returning him to the real chamber.
Ysel was already kneeling beside him. Not smiling. Not praising.
Just watching.
"You didn't shape a weapon this time," she said.
"I didn't need one," Kael replied. "I needed… to stop running."
She nodded once.
"That was a true chain."