The voice echoed softly through the dark chamber.
"One who watched. One who kept the oath… and one who regrets it."
Ryuji stayed still, his hand near the grip of his blade. But he did not draw it. The air inside the tower was warm, too warm. The floor hummed faintly beneath his boots, as if the stone itself remembered things no one had spoken of in years.
He stepped forward.
A low light flickered ahead, revealing the outline of an old man sitting beside a circular console, its surface cracked and rusted, but still glowing with faint Dominion script. The man's robes were gray, once white, marked with the faded crest of the Ninth Oath, a sigil Ryuji had only seen buried under ice and broken walls.
"You survived", Ryuji said.
The old man didn't look up. "A part of me did."
Silence stretched between them. Then Ryuji asked, "What happened here?"
The oath-keeper let out a breath like a sigh that had waited years to be spoken.
"You're the first to come through the breach in three decades. They said no one would. They said the seal would hold."
"I came looking for truth."
"Then you'll need to see it for yourself."
The oath-keeper stood slowly. His movements were careful, stiff with age. He walked toward the back wall of the chamber and pressed his palm against a dark panel. With a soft click, a hidden door slid open.
"Come", he said. "This place was not meant to be forgotten. Only buried."
The tunnel beyond was narrow and steep, carved from old stone and reinforced with Dominion steel. As they descended, Ryuji noticed walls lined with markings, symbols of the Dominion, yes, but also older ones. Marks he didn't recognize. Some looked like maps. Others, like warnings.
"What is this place?" he asked.
"A chamber of judgment. And memory", the oath-keeper replied. "We came here at the height of the war, when the first breaches opened. The Nine swore their pact in this very place. Not to conquer, but to contain."
"Contain what?"
The man paused. "A wound in the world. Not made by blade or army, but by grief. A sorrow too deep, too wide. It tore through the land. And when it did, it showed us things."
Ryuji frowned. "Things?"
"Visions. Regrets. Echoes. Not memories, but possibilities. Like the world remembering all its broken futures at once."
He stopped beside a sealed chamber door. Marked across it was the white sigil Ryuji had seen in the snow, but this one was untouched.
"It was here we built the first lock. Not of stone, but of sacrifice. The Ninth gave part of themselves to keep the breach quiet. To keep the echoes from spilling into the waking world."
Ryuji stepped closer. "But someone broke the pact."
The old man's face was heavy with sorrow. "Yes. One of us believed the breach could be used. That the sorrow within could be turned… into power."
Ryuji's chest tightened. "And the others?"
"They sealed the breach. Cast out the traitor. But it was too late. The wound never healed. It only froze."
He opened the final chamber door.
Inside was a hollow vault, wide and quiet. The air was colder here, untouched by time. At the center stood a tall mirror of blackened glass, ringed in Dominion metal. It pulsed faintly with a light that did not belong in the world.
Ryuji stepped closer.
The surface shimmered. His reflection stared back, but not his eyes. In the mirror, his gaze was darker. Hollow. His hands were red, though his real ones were clean.
He turned away.
"This is what lies beneath the breach", the oath-keeper said. "Not a creature. Not a weapon. A mirror of pain. Of failure. If you look too long, it shows you who you might become if your sorrow wins."
Ryuji said nothing. He stared at the vault, his thoughts heavy.
"This was never meant to be found", the oath-keeper continued. "Because truth without guidance becomes madness. And sorrow without healing becomes ruin."
"Why show me this?" Ryuji asked.
"Because something in the city is shifting. And you carry the same weight the Ninth once bore. You still believe in what was lost."
Ryuji looked down at his gloved hands.
Not shaking.
Not yet.
"I need to know who the traitor was", he said quietly.
"You will", the oath-keeper replied. "But truth walks slowly. It waits for the one who's ready."
Ryuji turned toward the steps. He didn't look at the mirror again.
As they rose back into the tower's warmth, the old man handed him something, a folded cloth with an insignia sewn into it, the true crest of the Ninth Oath, unbroken.
"Take it. When you wear it, they will know you've seen the breach. That you carry what we once did."
Ryuji took it in silence.
Outside, the snow still fell. The world was unchanged. But inside him, something had shifted. Not clarity, but direction.
And far to the west, in Valemire, another name stirred in secret.
Someone who had once sworn loyalty. And never meant it.