Ramiel
The Hall of Echoes had always been forbidden after sundown.
Too sacred, they said. Too ancient. A place where the veil between realms thinned, and the voices of the old ones still whispered through stone.
Ramiel walked its center like he belonged there.
His boots didn't echo. Not like they used to. Not like anyone's should.
Rows of relics lined the walls—each housed in glass or enchanted metal, sealed with protection wards older than the temple itself. Weapons no longer wielded. Scrolls too dangerous to read. Objects steeped in memory and magic.
He paused before a pedestal draped in crimson cloth.
A sphere rested there—opaline, faintly glowing. The Heart of Remembrance, they called it. Said to record the truest self of anyone who touched it.
Ramiel raised his hand.
The air shuddered.
A warning? Or a welcome?
His fingers brushed the sphere.
For half a second, nothing.
Then—cracks spidered across its surface.
The glow inside turned dark. Violet. Then black.
The pedestal shattered beneath it. Screams echoed—not from outside, but from within the chamber itself. Echoes of past voices, dislodged from time.
The sphere pulsed once, twice—
Then exploded.
Not loudly. Not violently. Just... final. Like something old had just died.
Ramiel didn't flinch.
The smoke cleared around him, curling along his shoulders like silk.
He stared at the spot where the relic had been.
Then turned.
And walked away.
---
Saryel
The spring had always been a place of peace.
Cradled deep beneath the mountain temple, past the gardens and through the winding passageways, it was a sacred place even the council rarely visited.
Tonight, it was hers alone.
Saryel knelt beside the water, palms open, robes soaked at the edges. Candles flickered behind her, casting long shadows on the stone walls.
She was shaking.
Not from cold—but from something deeper. A knowing she could no longer push away.
She whispered names.
Of the gods. The watchers. The protectors.
No answer.
She whispered Ramiel's name.
Only silence.
"Please," she murmured. "If anyone hears me… if any light still lingers in this place… tell me what to do."
She bowed low. Her forehead touched the edge of the spring.
For a moment, nothing happened.
Then—ripples.
The water darkened.
Not with blood, not with shadow. With memory.
She saw flashes. The garden. The courtyard. Ramiel's face. Not smiling. Not angry. Just empty.
She saw the sphere cracking, though she didn't know what it was.
She saw darkness curling from his hands—like smoke, like vines, like a promise.
Then the vision turned. Fast. Violent.
The temple burning.
A voice screaming her name.
Acolytes running, walls crumbling, the sky split open.
And standing in the center—him.
Not cloaked in black. Cloaked in stillness.
Ramiel.
Watching it all happen.
Not lifting a hand to stop it.
---
Saryel jerked backward, gasping. Her fingers clawed at the stone for balance. The spring returned to stillness—clear again. Silent.
The vision had faded.
But the horror remained.
"No," she whispered. "No, no, no…"
She scrambled to her feet.
The candles behind her had gone out.
---
Ramiel
He passed an acolyte in the lower corridor—one of the newer ones. Barely older than a child.
The boy froze when he saw Ramiel.
"P-Protector," he stammered, bowing too fast.
Ramiel didn't respond.
The boy looked up—eyes wide, caught between reverence and fear.
Then something shifted.
A flicker in the air.
A pulse beneath the floor.
Ramiel felt it move inside him—not of his own will. Like muscle memory, but older. Like instinct born of something else.
His fingers twitched.
The air around the boy bent.
The acolyte gasped, dropped to one knee.
Ramiel's gaze sharpened.
A line of dark energy slithered through the corridor wall, wrapping around the boy's shadow. It didn't touch his flesh—but his body went rigid. His mouth opened—but no sound came out.
It lasted seconds.
Then the force released him.
The boy collapsed, eyes open, breath shallow—but changed.
He wouldn't remember what happened. Not fully. Just the terror. The way his soul staggered.
Ramiel looked down at him, expression unreadable.
Then he murmured, almost tenderly:
"You should've looked away."
And kept walking.
---
Saryel
She ran her fingers through the ashes of a burnt offering. Her knuckles were scraped from the stone. Her knees bruised from kneeling.
She'd been in the shrine for hours.
And yet nothing had changed.
No answer. No comfort. No guidance.
Just a growing silence.
And her own screaming thoughts.
He's gone.
She hated the words.
She hated how true they felt.
But most of all, she hated that she couldn't stop trying.
She gripped the edge of the altar.
"I chose the world," she said aloud. "I know that."
Her voice cracked.
"I don't regret saving them."
Her eyes burned.
"But why does it feel like I damned him?"
There was no reply.
Not from the gods. Not from the stars. Not even from the wind.
Only the sound of her own shaking breath.