THE CORE OF THE SEALED MEMORIES AND THE FLAMES THAT DO NOT BELONG TO THIS WORLD (Part 4)
The underground chamber where the Core of the Eternal Fire rested seemed to be trapped in a perpetual twilight. The natural obsidian walls breathed with a faint pulse, as if the very heart of Darakthar beat within them. The echoes of latent energy still vibrated in the air, and the atmosphere pressed down like an invisible weight upon the shoulders of everyone present.
Zyrion walked forward with slow steps, his silhouette outlined by the dim reddish glow emanating from the sealed source. His body had calmed… but something different pulsed inside him.
Velkran stepped forward, observing him with narrowed eyes.
"Are you sure you're alright, Zyrion? Ever since you touched the Core… you haven't said a word."
Zyrion didn't reply immediately. His pupils looked darker—deeper. When he spoke, his voice was lower than usual.
"It wasn't just fire… what I saw in there. It was… something older. Something that wasn't supposed to be mixed with this."
Quindarion, whose eyes still glimmered from the recent energy, approached as well. "You saw something in your mind? A vision, maybe? The Core reacted differently to you than to any of us."
Zyrion frowned, his fingers trembling—but not from weakness.
"I saw a name… but when I tried to remember it, it vanished. As if something inside the Core erased it before I could understand it."
"A name?" Caelithra asked, folding her arms. "Whose?"
"I don't know," Zyrion murmured. "But it was mine. Or… it used to be."
The group exchanged glances. Silence. Except for Karion, who attempted to lighten the atmosphere with a crooked smile.
"Well, at least it wasn't 'Lord of the Incandescent Abyss' or 'Great Zyrion, Destroyer of Ants,' right?"
Zyrion almost smiled. Almost.
Ysmera stepped forward, her expression grave. Her long silver hair floated under a faint ethereal glow. "There's something else. When the Core reacted to you, a residual energy was trapped in the crystal matrix. I felt it. Cilera did too."
Cilera nodded. "It wasn't part of the eternal fire. It was something… corrupted. As if someone had infused their will into the Core centuries ago."
Maerisse, who had remained silent until then, pulled out an ancient tome from her travel bag. Bound in black leather, with symbols carved in a dead language.
"This book was sealed in Darakthar's secret archives. It's not from our era. It mentions a 'Bond not chosen by the gods.' An artificial union with the primordial crystal."
Zyrion took a step back.
"You think that I… that this bond… isn't the real one?"
"What you saw inside the Core may have been a reflection," Maerisse explained. "Or an implanted memory. The true bond… might have been altered."
Tzarelle clenched her fist, her eyes glowing with contained fury. "Then it wasn't destiny. It was interference. Someone—or something—altered the course of the bearer."
"But who would have the power to do that?" Taliena asked, her voice soft but tense.
Ryvak, the most stoic of the newcomers, spoke for the first time. "Centuries ago, there was a sect seeking to control the Primordial Crystal without undergoing the judgment of the fragments. They used 'living anchors'… bodies prepared to host foreign wills. Zyrion may have been one of them."
Silence fell—absolute.
Zyrion lifted his head. "Then if my bond isn't real… I need to find who altered it. I need to know who I was before all this."
Caelithra, visibly affected, stepped forward. "It doesn't matter if it was chosen or not. You are who you are now, and no one else could have come this far, Zyrion."
"And besides," Valric added with a crooked smile as he carved into a stone, "no artificial bearer would've done what you did with that wall the other day. You can't fake real pain."
Karion snapped his fingers. "So what now? Founding the Club of Falsified Bonds? Or do we hunt down the bastards who put this on our path?"
Zyrion raised his gaze.
"We start with the Great Archive of Darakthar. If someone hid the truth, it'll be there."
Ysmera nodded. "It's sealed. But I have the key. My mother… was the last Custodian before she died."
Velkran growled, activating his ring. "Then we'd better find answers before another vision decides to blow up Zyrion's head."
Suddenly, the ground trembled. Very subtly, but everyone felt it.
Maerisse's face paled.
"That… wasn't natural."
Zyrion closed his eyes.
"A new threat… won't give us time for answers."
From the distance, an ancient roar echoed through the underground tunnels. Like a beast that had waited centuries to be awakened.
Quindarion turned sharply.
"What the hell was that?"
Caelithra activated her fragment without hesitation.
"Prepare yourselves. Whatever was hidden… woke up when it felt the Core's energy."
Zyrion stepped to the front of the group, his gaze determined—though somewhere deep inside, it trembled.
"I don't know who I was before. But who I am now… won't take a single step back."
The murmur of living stone resonated through the underground corridors of Darakthar. The echo vibrated like a distant song trapped between ancient roots and chambers sealed with forgotten magic. They had descended through a corridor lined with twisted pillars, covered in soft green-glowing lichens, as if the earth itself tried to guide them toward an uncertain fate.
An oval hall opened before them, wider than the previous ones, with a ceiling decorated by ancient stained glass made of fiery crystal. Broken beams of red light descended, casting dancing shadows across the walls and their faces.
For the first time, the group gathered without rush, without interruption. A stolen moment amidst tension.
Zyrion stopped in the hall's center, observing the vault that bore old Kyrethron runes inscribed from within. The others followed little by little—some sitting on the stone steps circling the chamber, others pacing nervously.
Karion was the first to break the silence.
"Well, well… I don't want to sound paranoid, but this place reeks of 'we're going to die,' and not in the epic way."
Velkran smiled while leaning against a column. "You'll say that until Zyrion blows up the floor again with those shiny new eyes."
Zyrion tilted his head with a slight smile. "Only if you're standing on the floor when I do."
"Oh, how sweet!" Karion said, crossing his arms. "See that? That's progress! Before, he would've just thrown a dagger at me or ignored me."
Tzarelle laughed softly, brushing her long silver hair behind her ear. "At least you're not alone, Karion. Ryvak still thinks this is a dream."
"Because it is," Ryvak replied in his deep tone. "We're in the heart of a dead land, chasing myths and fighting living fire. Yes, I'm definitely asleep."
Maerisse watched Zyrion from across the room, her piercing eyes searching for something beneath the surface. Ysmera, beside her, whispered with Cilera, while Valric continued carving.
"Zyrion," Ysmera suddenly said loud enough for all to hear, "do you remember anything more from what you saw inside the Core?"
Everyone fell silent.
Zyrion looked up at her. For an instant, his hardened expression wavered. Then he walked into the circle of light.
"It wasn't a vision. It was… like I'd already been there. I didn't just see it… I recognized it. I felt like I knew it before I was born."
Caelithra narrowed her eyes. Her voice was direct. "So the fragment you carry… was always destined to find you?"
"I don't know," Zyrion answered honestly. "But someone altered something inside that Core. Something doesn't fit. I felt it. It was like a part… had been erased."
"And what part was that?" Taliena asked, sitting cross-legged in meditation.
"The part that speaks of the true bond between the bearer and the Crystal. Someone… rewrote history."
Kyrahna stood, face serious. "Are you saying you aren't the true bond? Or that you are—but someone doesn't want you to know?"
Zyrion lowered his gaze. "Both. And that concerns me more than any threat we can see coming."
A heavy silence fell.
Cilera, who had been quiet all along, finally spoke. Her voice, musical yet firm, cut through the tension. "If what Zyrion says is true… then what's coming won't follow the rules we know."
"And maybe," Valric added from his corner, still carving, "that new threat is already here."
A distant roar shook the ground.
The flickering light above trembled, as if something moved in the upper tunnels. A cold draft rolled down the stone steps, making the crystals emit a faint, sharp hum.
Zyrion straightened, hand already on his weapon.
"They're close. And so are we."
Karion turned slowly, whispering, "How close is 'close'?"
Caelithra unsheathed her blade. "Close enough that there will be no rest tonight."
"Then we move together," Velkran said, rising. "No one gets left behind."
Quindarion nodded calmly. "Whatever awaits us… we'll face it as fragments of the same crystal."
Zyrion cast one last look at the red-lit ceiling and whispered mostly to himself:
"Then… let the end of this calm begin."
At that exact moment, as if on cue, a scream tore through the air.
Not human.
But something… that should have never been able to speak.
TO BE CONTINUED…