Aryan awoke with a gasp, the echo of Elanora's voice still clinging to his senses like smoke from a dying fire. The dream had been too vivid to be fantasy. Her touch, her eyes, her voice it had been her, as real as the ache in his chest. As real as the warmth that lingered on his skin where her forehead had pressed to his.
The cavern around him groaned, ancient and restless. Shadows gathered in the crevices, stirred by more than wind. The pendant against his chest was cold again, but something had shifted. He could feel it in the marrow of his bones: the fifth seal was close. And with it, the storm.
He sat up slowly, the pain in his ribs reminding him of the fall he'd taken crossing the obsidian chasm. The mountain was relentless. Every step forward cost blood. But he welcomed it now. He needed the pain. It grounded him, tethered him to this path the one that led to her.
Aryan touched the wall. It pulsed faintly. The mountain was no longer just stone and silence. It was memory. It was witness. And it was watching.
"I'm coming," he murmured. "Even if I have to carve my way through the past to reach you."
The Descent
The path ahead was narrow, carved by hands that had long since turned to dust. Symbols lit up faintly as Aryan passed sigils of protection, of sealing, of judgment. Each one whispered in a forgotten tongue, curling into his ears like warnings.
He descended into a spiral chamber. The air changed. Thicker. Older. It hummed with an energy that made his skin crawl. At its center stood a massive door made not of stone, but obsidian glass, swirling with faint shapes inside.
Aryan approached and placed his palm against it. The glass shimmered. His reflection stared back at him and then, behind it, a second face emerged. Older. Hardened. Eyes burning with ruin.
Himself. From before.
The past-life version he remembered only in fragments. The one who had betrayed everything in pursuit of salvation. The one who had shattered the seals.
"You failed her," Aryan whispered to the reflection.
The reflection smirked.
"No," it said. "I loved her so much I destroyed fate. Would you do any less?"
Aryan backed away. The door pulsed. It was more than a barrier it was a mirror. A trial.
Trial of the Fifth
A circle of flame erupted around him, and the world twisted. Stone became ash, sky turned to fire. He stood in the ruins of the village by the river.
Elanora knelt beside a lifeless child.
The shadow of Aryan that darker self stood nearby, blade dripping red.
"You said we'd save them," she whispered. "You said we had time."
Aryan stepped forward. "Elanora, no this isn't real. It's memory. It's punishment."
The shadow turned.
"But it's also truth," it said. "You made the same choices. Over and over. To control fate. To play the hero. And every time, you lost her."
Aryan clenched his fists. "I'm not him."
"Aren't you?"
He turned to Elanora, her form blurred with grief.
"This is my burden," he said. "But it doesn't define me."
He stepped into the fire, let it consume him. Pain tore through every nerve. Flames licked at his skin, but he didn't stop. He walked to the shadow, meeting its eyes.
"You are not me. Not anymore."
He reached forward and touched the shadow's chest.
The flame exploded outward. When the smoke cleared, Aryan was alone.
The Seal Cracks
The obsidian door cracked open. No explosion. No fury. Just silence. And the sound of wind.
Beyond it lay a small room, shaped like a star. In the center, a floating shard of white crystal the fifth anchor.
Aryan approached and took it in his hands. It pulsed.
Visions hit him all at once:
Elanora, kneeling in fire, holding the child.
Himself, bathed in shadow, reaching for her.
A golden temple crumbling into the sea.
A kiss under moonlight that never came.
The shard dissolved.
His mark glowed. The fifth seal had broken.
The Whisper
A voice, soft as smoke, curled around him.
"She remembers. Now so must you."
Aryan turned, but there was no one.
Still, he smiled.
"I'm almost there," he whispered. "Wait for me, Elanora. Just a little longer."
And the mountain shifted once more, opening the path ahead.