Ashes of the Forgotten Pact – Part 5

Blackhollow stood like a wound upon the world.

Dark towers climbed the sky, skeletal trees curling toward them like supplicants. The manor, built upon the jagged cliffs of the Riven Vale, groaned beneath centuries of storm and silence. Time had peeled away its grandeur; ivy choked its stones, and the great windows stared blankly, their glass long since shattered. But beneath it—deep within the cliffside—lay the vault. The first Spiral. The birthplace of the curse.

Snow swirled as Aric stepped onto the cracked threshold, flanked by Liora, Raelyn, and Verin, who moved with a limp but whose voice had steadied since Hollowmere. His color was returning. His purpose, however, grew darker with each step closer.

“You remember the way?” Aric asked.

Verin didn’t look back. “I never forgot.”

They passed through rotted doors and dust-cloaked corridors, where portraits of their ancestors stared down with oil-dark eyes. Liora touched one with gloved fingers.

“They all knew,” she muttered. “What they left for you to fix.”

“They didn’t just know,” Raelyn said softly. “They made the pact knowing someone would pay the price. And they bred heirs like us to do it.”

Thunder rolled across the cliffs as they descended the hidden stair beneath the chapel. Aric’s boots echoed against stone slick with moss and damp. His hand never left the hilt of his sword.

The vault opened like a mouth—an arch of carved bone and obsidian, lined with sigils that pulsed faintly as they passed. The Spiral within pulsed slowly in the floor, massive and complete now. The Choir’s song—low and layered—rose with each step closer.

And in the center stood a stone dais, and on it, a bowl carved of black salt.

“This is where they sealed it,” Verin said. “They bled themselves willingly. One from each line. A ritual offering… bound in music.”

Aric exhaled. “The Sundering. We offer ourselves again.”

“No,” Verin replied. “One of us does.”

“I’m not letting you do this alone,” Aric said.

“You’re not letting me,” Verin said, voice rising. “You don’t get to. This was always my weight.”

“You think that makes it easier for me to let you die?” Aric snapped.

Raelyn cleared her throat softly. “I could offer—”

“No,” both men said at once.

Liora stepped forward, planting herself between them.

“We don’t have time for a martyr’s standoff,” she said. “What exactly happens during the Sundering?”

Verin moved to the dais, reaching for the salt bowl. The Spiral beneath them throbbed with light—red, purple, deep indigo. “One bloodline sings the curse’s name. The other sheds the final offering. The sound must carry until the Choir above is silenced.”

Aric stepped to the bowl and drew his blade. He held out his hand.

“No,” Verin said. “I sing. You bleed.”

Aric didn’t move. “Why?”

“Because my voice is tied to the Choir. I am the vessel. If I die before the final note, the spell fails. And I’ll die either way.”

Their eyes met in the flickering Spiral-light.

Liora turned away. “You’re both idiots.”

“I know,” Aric said.

They stood on the dais together, side by side. Verin closed his eyes, inhaled once… and began to sing.

The sound was not a melody. It was memory. A resonance of pain and promise, of guilt stretched over generations. The Choir Below howled in response—bone figures rising from the Spiral’s edge, screeching in counter-harmony.

Aric sliced his palm and bled into the bowl.

The vault shook.

Raelyn threw barriers into place. Liora met the bone-singers with spinning daggers and radiant steel. The song warred with itself. Verin’s voice faltered.

“Louder!” Aric shouted.

“I can’t—”

Aric grabbed his shoulder. “You have to. Sing for all of us.”

Verin’s voice cracked—then surged. It rose not just in tone but in purpose, carrying with it the weight of centuries. The Choir began to fall back, their limbs twitching, unraveling. The Spiral cracked.

And then Verin screamed—not in fear, but in finality.

The note struck like a hammer.

The Spiral exploded into light. The bowl shattered. Bone and dust blew outward like a wind of ash and silence.

And Verin collapsed.

Aric was beside him in an instant, cradling him, gripping his shoulder.

Verin smiled. “You were… always the better brother.”

Aric shook his head. “Don’t do this. Don’t—”

But Verin was already gone.

Silence. Not dead silence—but peaceful.

The Spiral had stopped pulsing.

Raelyn approached, face streaked with tears and soot. Liora stood beside her, blades sheathed.

“He did it,” Raelyn whispered.

Aric laid Verin down gently. “We did it.”

They buried him beneath the chapel ruins. No hymns. No rites. Just a stone, etched with the Spiral—and broken in two.

Later, Aric stood at the cliff’s edge, wind biting his face. Liora joined him.

“He saved more than just us,” she said.

“He was more than just his bloodline,” Aric replied.

They stood in silence. Then, after a long pause, Liora nudged him lightly.

“You cry more than I expected for a church captain.”

Aric gave a breathless chuckle. “And you care more than you pretend.”

Behind them, Raelyn lit a lantern. Its light burned steady, unflickering.

The pact was broken.

The Choir silenced.

But the echoes of the song would live on—carried not by blood, but by memory. And by those who chose to remember the cost of peace.

___________________________________________________

All Parts of the Series

Ashes of the Forgotten Pact Part 1

Ashes of the Forgotten Pact Part 2

Ashes of the Forgotten Pact Part 3

Ashes of the Forgotten Pact Part 4

Ashes of the Forgotten Pact Part 5