The ground trembled beneath Wrenmore.
Not with the force of an earthquake, but with something older—something sentient. The very roots of the earth shifted as though stirred by a presence awakening after centuries of sleep.
Clara Bennett emerged from the Forgotten City with her breath ragged, her body slick with ash and memory. The sigil on her chest still pulsed with heat, but now it had changed. It had grown. The Hollow Eye no longer marked her as a vessel.
It recognized her as a harbinger.
Beside her, Liam's face was pale. He had not seen what she had seen in the Pool of Echoes. But he could feel it in the way she moved—no longer burdened by fear, but charged with purpose. Clara wasn't just following a prophecy now.
She was becoming it.
"We have to get to the Temple of the Rootless Tree," Clara said as they emerged into the storm-lashed forest. "It's where the Second Seal was buried. And someone's already trying to unearth it."
"The Hollow Eye?" Liam asked.
"No," she said, shaking her head. "Someone worse. The Third."
They had no time to waste. The path to the temple was overgrown and choked with briars, and the sky above them roared with thunder that never ended. But Clara pressed forward, every step bringing her closer to something she could feelpulsing beneath her feet—deep magic, ancient and alive, seeping through the forest floor like blood through bandages.
Liam gripped her arm as they reached a ridge overlooking the valley below.
And there it was.
The Temple of the Rootless Tree.
Or what was left of it.
The temple had been half-swallowed by the earth—its spires crumbled, its once-proud arches broken into jagged ribs of stone. But at the heart of it, where the sacred tree once stood, a gaping crater had been torn into the ground.
Something was digging.
Figures in black surrounded the rim, chanting in guttural tongues, their hands raised toward the sky. Symbols burned across the earth, etched in blood and salt. A circle of bones had been placed at the center of the ritual—within it, a stone pedestal jutted from the earth like a broken fang.
And atop it…
The Second Seal.
It looked nothing like the first.
Where the First Seal had been a coin, the Second was a sphere of glass and shadow—constantly shifting, as though a storm raged within it. Lightning crackled inside the orb, and voices whispered faintly from its surface.
Clara's breath caught.
Liam whispered, "What the hell is that?"
Clara answered without thinking. "It's memory, bound in form. The Second Seal isn't just a relic. It's a prison."
"For what?"
Her eyes met his.
"For her."
Suddenly, the chanting stopped.
And from the far end of the crater, a figure stepped forward—tall, robed in white, her face obscured by a porcelain mask cracked down the center. Her presence silenced the wind. Even the rain ceased to fall around her.
The air warped in her wake.
Clara felt her knees buckle.
"That's her," she whispered. "The Third. The unborn one."
The woman turned.
And Clara saw her eyes.
Not eyes, exactly—holes. Voids. Empty sockets that revealed nothing but the swirling black of the seal within.
Clara stepped forward.
The sigil on her chest burned.
And the Third spoke.
"Vessel."
The voice was layered—childlike and ancient, soft and cruel.
"You are late."
Clara stood straighter. "I'm not here to serve you."
"You already have. You opened the gate. You bled into the pool. You remembered what should have stayed buried. You carry the sin of your line."
"I carry the truth," Clara said. "And I'm here to end this."
The Third smiled—or at least, the mask cracked wider.
"End it?" she echoed. "You think this is something that ends? Memory is not a flame to be snuffed out. It is the forest fire. It devours. It spreads. You are not the extinguisher. You are the spark."
Liam drew his blade, stepping in front of Clara.
But the Third barely moved.
With a single flick of her fingers, Liam was thrown back, his body crashing against a tree with a sickening thud.
"No!" Clara screamed, rushing to him.
He groaned, dazed but alive. "I'm fine… go."
Clara turned back toward the crater, where the seal pulsed violently atop its pedestal.
"I won't let you open it."
"You won't have to," the Third said.
She raised her hands.
And the earth obeyed.
The crater erupted.
Stone shattered. Roots twisted upward like tentacles. The pedestal rose higher, cradling the Second Seal like an egg about to hatch.
Clara reached for the coin—the First Seal. It burned against her palm, resonating violently with its sibling across the battlefield. The two relics screamed at each other in frequencies that cracked the air.
"You cannot hold both," the Third hissed. "The vessel must choose. One to keep. One to break."
Clara looked between them.
She felt memory pulling at her—one direction steeped in truth, the other in oblivion.
The First Seal had taught her pain. The Second would show her purpose.
But the Third…
She wasn't offering either.
She was offering dominion.
The wind howled.
Lightning surged across the sky, striking the seal with a roar that shook the temple's foundations.
Clara stepped into the circle of bones.
The Hollow Eye sigil flared.
The Third screamed.
And everything went white.
She was somewhere else.
A memory?
No.
The memory.
A garden. But not one of flowers. It bloomed with flesh and bone. Roots grew through corpses. Trees bore fruit that screamed when plucked.
Clara walked through it alone.
Until she saw her.
The original Clara.
The first vessel.
Clothed in black. Marked by all three sigils.
She turned slowly, meeting Clara's gaze.
"You made it," the first said.
Clara nodded. "What is this?"
"The garden of the Third. A memory she cannot destroy. The moment she was born. The moment I failed."
Clara stepped closer. "Tell me how to stop her."
The first Clara looked sad.
"You already know. Memory cannot be destroyed. But it can be rewritten."
"By who?"
The first vessel placed her hand on Clara's chest.
"By the one who remembers everything."
The sigil burned.
And the world snapped back.
The crater was collapsing.
Liam reached for her as the ground crumbled. The Third shrieked, her mask cracking fully, revealing not a face—but a swirling void of eyes, mouths, and unspoken histories.
Clara grabbed the Second Seal.
It bit into her skin—slicing thought, memory, and bone.
But she didn't let go.
She pressed it against her chest, right where the Hollow Eye burned.
And she remembered everything.
She saw the founding of Wrenmore.
The forming of the Hollow Eye.
The betrayal that created the Third.
She saw her bloodline—every ancestor who had tried and failed to contain the Seals.
And she saw her own death.
In a hundred possible futures.
All but one.
Clara screamed, "I refuse your fate!"
And the Seal shattered.
Light erupted from her body.
The Third shrieked, her form unraveling—splintering into dust and ash.
The seal was broken.
The vessel had rewritten the memory.
And for the first time in centuries, silence fell over Wrenmore.