Shadows Over Soravin - Part 3

The deeper they pressed into the ruins beneath Soravin, the more the vault abandoned all pretense of architecture. Passageways twisted like veins, breathing faint heat through the stone. Glyphwork on the walls shimmered when touched, alive, reactive, growing. The vault was no longer just a site of research. It had become a living archive of the broken, a body built on fractured oaths and stolen memories.

And it was remembering itself.

Vaelin moved first, as always, navigating the shifting halls with a hunter’s instinct sharpened by guilt. His shadows flickered against the walls, absorbing stray Remnant flickers that tried to manifest near Elira. He didn’t say it, but she felt it: the closer they drew to the vault’s heart, the more the buried magic responded to her. Her fire ran hotter. Her control faltered in moments of distraction. Worse, the memory-double, the Bondburnt, had begun whispering to her in half-dreams and reflections.

“You left me beneath the flame,” she had whispered last night, voice coming from the mirror instead of her own throat.

Tovi tried to keep spirits high. He spun daggers between his fingers, pretended not to flinch when phantom masks peeked from the walls, and flirted with death just enough to keep his swagger believable.

But even he was shaken when the Labyrinth began shifting while they walked.

At first, it was a flicker, hallways redirecting subtly. Then more overt. Doors that led to different rooms seconds after opening. Ceilings turning into floors. Runes flipping perspective. Gravity becoming an opinion.

“This isn’t defensive magic,” Elira muttered, examining a corridor that had inverted while they spoke. “It’s a sentient binding net. The vault’s trapping its own creators.”

“Not quite,” came a voice behind them.

They turned. A woman stepped out of the wall, not through it, from it. Her skin bore the same shimmering signature as the wards, inked with layers of embedded glyphs and luminous circuits that pulsed with memory threads.

Tovi drew his knives instantly. Vaelin didn’t move, but the shadow behind him swelled.

The woman raised both hands. “I’m not an enemy. My name is Lareth Voss. And I’m Elira’s past.”

Elira froze.

Lareth stepped forward, movements graceful but distant, like someone unused to a body. “Or more accurately, I’m the imprint Elira cast into the vault when she bound herself to the Phoenix Convergence Protocol. A failsafe fragment. A shadow-memory. One the vault preserved, even after her conscious mind rejected the bond.”

“I didn’t choose to reject it,” Elira whispered. “It was torn from me.”

Lareth nodded. “And now the pieces want to reunite.”

She reached toward a nearby wall. Glyphs blossomed at her touch, layers of encoded flames and fractal sigils.

“The Labyrinth houses the Ember Archive,” Lareth explained. “The vault’s heart. It’s where the Nightblade Circle stored the original oathbound relics forged by phoenixblood wielders, memory-blades, fire-etched pacts, even relics designed to rewrite emotional history. It was experimental. Illegal. Abandoned after too many researchers went mad.”

Elira studied the glyphs. “You mean it’s where they tried to edit memory through trauma.”

“Yes,” Lareth said quietly. “They learned that fire and memory are twin paths to power—but only if wielded through a bonded pair. Shadow to temper flame. Flame to drive the shadow. You and your bonded Nightblade were the last successful trial before the vault sealed itself.”

Vaelin finally spoke. “You mean me.”

Lareth turned. Her eyes, Elira’s eyes, but ancient, narrowed.

“No,” she said softly. “Not you. Your predecessor. The one whose oath you unknowingly inherited when you defected. His death unraveled the protocol. But your blood still carries his binding echo. That’s why you’re drawn here. Why the Remnants haven’t consumed you.”

Vaelin stepped forward, voice low. “You’re saying I carry the shadows of someone else’s bond. That my blood is cursed with his oath.”

Lareth’s smile was sad. “Not cursed. Chosen. But his flame was extinguished. And the vault wants balance.”

The temperature spiked. A low, keening scream echoed through the stone. The Labyrinth began to melt and reform again, angrily. Lareth turned toward the distortion and frowned.

“She’s coming,” she whispered. “The Bondburnt. The true flame-bearer. She’s trying to reclaim what Elira lost.”

Tovi cursed under his breath. “We’re in a love triangle with a magical time-locked echo of Elira’s former self who wants to burn down reality to reclaim a metaphysical marriage vow?”

“I don’t remember making that vow,” Elira snapped.

“That doesn’t mean it wasn’t real,” Vaelin said quietly.

The labyrinth pulsed again, walls collapsing, reforming into open steps that spiraled downward. Firelight flickered from below. Dozens of masks now floated along the hallway’s edge, masks of dead Nightblades, each one bearing their insignia, each one silently watching.

Lareth’s image flickered. “She’s drawing from the Archive now. If you go deeper, you’ll find the Binding Altar. You can reclaim what was lost. But you may have to choose which bond survives.”

Her projection shattered like ash in wind.

They descended without speaking.

The stairwell ended at a chamber carved like a sunburst, firelight gleaming across mirrored obsidian walls. At its center stood the Altar: a slab of emberglass, etched with a spiraling ring of runes. Atop it sat two relics, an ashsteel blade with Vaelin’s shadow sigil burned into the hilt, and a feathered circlet humming with phoenixfire.

The Bondburnt waited beside them.

She no longer looked fully human.

Her body was flame-incarnate now, arms veined in burning sigils, hair a corona of living fire. But her eyes, Elira’s eyes, were mournful.

“You came,” she said, almost tender.

Elira stepped forward. “I need answers. Not a binding. Not a war.”

“You need truth,” the Bondburnt whispered. “And truth always costs.”

She turned to Vaelin. “Will you give her the memory back? If it kills you?”

He didn’t hesitate. “Yes.”

The flame surged.

And the Altar began to burn.

___________________________________________________

All Parts of the Series

Shadows Over Soravin Part 1

Shadows Over Soravin Part 2

Shadows Over Soravin Part 3

Shadows Over Soravin Part 4

Shadows Over Soravin Part 5