The name didn't fade.
It echoed.
Kirevar. Kirevar. Kirevar.
Not aloud, but inside my mind—like a distant bell that refused to stop ringing. Serena noticed the way I faltered, my hand still hovering over the sigil scorched into stone.
"It's reaching for you," she said quietly.
"It shouldn't be able to," I muttered. "Not unless…"
I didn't finish the thought. The rune beneath my hand flared.
A surge of memory—not mine—crashed into me.
Smoke. Screaming. A tower burning from the inside. Voices—dozens—chanting in a language I couldn't understand, trying to seal something into the earth.
I stumbled back, heart pounding.
Serena caught me. "You connected with it."
I nodded slowly. "It's alive."
We stared at the sigil. Its glow had dimmed, but the presence remained—restless, watching.
Then a whisper—faint, almost breathless—rose between us.
"Undo… the silence…"
Serena's eyes narrowed. "It's not commanding. It's… begging."
I looked at her. "It remembers. What they did to it. What they made it forget."
"And now?"
"It wants out."
I should've been afraid.
But instead, I felt a strange certainty bloom in my chest—icy and resolute.
If this was the truth they buried, then uncovering it wasn't just rebellion.
It was reparation.