The journey to the Hollow Oath had begun, but the path was unlike anything the group had faced before. No gates opened. No coordinates presented themselves. Only silence—dense, sacred silence that stretched through planes not defined by space, but by memory, resonance, and the truth a soul was willing to bear.
Rei stood at the head of the formation, his cloak caught in the low ethereal winds of the forgotten realm they now tread. The landscape around them pulsed in strange rhythms—trees that whispered in voices of the long-dead, skies with constellations that rewrote themselves every time one blinked.
They were no longer within the world.
They were within the weave between worlds.
Mireille, ever the scholar, paused to sketch a shifting rune that appeared beneath her feet. "This isn't a realm of transition. It's a library without walls. Every memory ever suppressed is etched into the ground."
Noira's eyes narrowed, hand resting on her blade. "Then we'll need to tread carefully. A single step might awaken something we weren't meant to remember."
Eirenne, silent but unwavering, kept close to Rei. She could sense it—the pull of the Veil growing thinner the deeper they went. And Rei... he had changed. Not merely in power, but in the way he moved, the way he looked at the world. He no longer carried the burden of flame alone; he carried memory, rewritten and redefined.
The first marker appeared as a tower formed from quills and parchment, spiraling into a sky without light. In its shadow stood a lone figure cloaked in silver threads, her eyes blindfolded, her hand resting on a staff that pulsed with truth.
"She is the First Witness," Mireille whispered. "The one who recorded the Sovereigns before they were Sovereigns."
Rei stepped forward, his presence steady.
The woman's voice broke the silence like a sword splitting still water.
"You walk as both fire and thread. You carry memory that does not belong to you. State your right to seek the Oath."
"I carry what I was given," Rei said calmly. "And what I reclaimed. My right isn't permission—it's consequence."
The Witness tilted her head.
"Then you must remember what you've forgotten. Speak the name of the thread you severed at birth."
The world froze. Even the stars halted their cycle.
Rei closed his eyes.
And from within the deep furnace of his soul, a name surfaced.
"Tsura."
A wind broke through the realm. The blindfolded Witness inhaled as if tasting fire. "You remember your original thread. Then let your test begin."
The tower behind her dissolved into light, revealing an infinite staircase descending into starlit shadow. Without waiting, Rei stepped forward, followed by his companions.
Each step rewrote a part of his past.
Each memory walked was both trial and truth.
In the first chamber, he stood in a version of his old world. A home, abandoned. A woman's voice echoed in the kitchen—a voice he had never recalled until now.
"Rei, are you still drawing stars?"
He turned to look, but the room blurred. Only the emotion remained. Yearning.
Eirenne walked beside him. "You had a mother in your past life."
"I had many things," Rei replied. "But none of them followed me into this life... except the questions."
In the second chamber, a burning classroom. Whispers. Laughter. Loneliness.
In the third, a boy being overlooked. A teacher praising another.
In the fourth, silence. A funeral. No one attending.
Mireille reached for his hand. "You were erased before you even lived."
Rei nodded. "And now I rewrite that erasure."
When they emerged from the trial stairway, the Witness stood once more, her blindfold gone. Her eyes were galaxies unraveling.
"You did not reject your pain. You faced it. That is the first key to the Hollow Oath."
She reached forward and touched Rei's forehead. A symbol branded itself into his flame—a living sigil.
"One witness remains in time. Two are bound beyond it. You must now seek the one who carries silence."
The world trembled as the Witness vanished into ink and starlight.
Rei turned to his companions. "We keep going. Until the silence speaks."
And the Sovereign Veil parted again.