CHAPTER 9: STAIRWELL OF LOST NAMES
The Sanctuary of Binding loomed like a scar on the sky, jagged and ancient, cradled by cliffs that whispered the names of forgotten gods. The wind here didn't whistle—it chanted. Echoes of guilt. Promises unkept. Sins never fully buried.
Eris stood at the threshold once again.
A Seeker's robes fluttered around her legs, the fabric worn thin by pilgrimage, by penance, by time. Her hands trembled, not from cold but anticipation. She had returned—though no one ever did. The Sanctuary wasn't a place one visited twice.
Unless you were never truly allowed to leave.
The pillars rose before her like fingers of a dying titan, carved with runes that had no spoken form. Between them hung The Witness—body crucified across time, face hidden by a veil that pulsed with unvoiced agony.
"I've come with a question," Eris whispered, the same as before.
But the air did not stir. No voice answered. Only the ever-present silence that bled into the bones.
She took a step forward. Then another. And another.
Each movement tore at the shadows clinging to her back—fragments of lives she barely remembered. A young soldier she once killed in mercy. A child she left behind when seeking truth. A lover she forgot to mourn. They hissed and pulled, but she pressed on.
"You told me once: 'You are not here to remember. You are here to choose who will forget.'"
The Witness said nothing.
"But now I ask again—who am I, if I am all of them? And none?"
A tremor ran through the sanctuary. Dust fell from the ceiling like ancient snow. The Witness shifted. Not much. Just enough.
One eye opened.
It was not a human eye.
It saw everything.
Eris collapsed to her knees.
Visions consumed her.
She was a child again, lost in the woods of the Mortal Plane, chased by mercenaries who thought her blood could grant immortality.
She was a student in the Archives of Heaven, questioning the dogma of Ascension.
She was a rebel in the Abyss, leading the Silence Rebellion against the divine caste.
She was a martyr.
A betrayer.
A savior.
A lie.
Her mind buckled under the weight. She screamed. The shadows she dragged from the past clawed her back.
"I didn't ask to carry them all!" she cried.
"But you chose to," The Witness said—not aloud, but into her mind. Its voice was every voice she had ever known. Even her own.
Eris sobbed. "What am I supposed to do with this?"
The Witness moved. Chains rattled. Runes bled light.
"Climb."
She blinked. Before her, a staircase unfolded. It did not reach the heavens. It spiraled inward. Into herself.
The Thread of Judgment had touched her long ago. Marked her. She thought she had escaped it.
She was wrong.
The stairs pulsed with names—every life she had touched, every soul she had harmed or healed. She placed her hand on the first step. Pain flared.
Each step she took forced her to remember… and to forget.
She climbed.
Ten steps: she recalled her first life as a healer's daughter, her hands bloody from birth and battle.
Twenty: she remembered leaving her brother behind to save a kingdom that would later fall.
Thirty: she forgot her own name, replaced by titles given by others—Seeker, Heretic, Queen of Ashes.
Fifty: her mind shattered. Rebuilt. Shattered again.
By the hundredth step, Eris was no longer walking. She was transcending.
At the summit, there was no door.
Only a mirror.
She looked into it. Saw herself… as she truly was.
Not one life. Not one soul.
But a convergence.
The reflection spoke.
"Do you choose to remember?"
She hesitated. Then: "No."
"I choose who will forget."
The mirror cracked. A light burst forth.
All her shadows fell silent.
And within the sanctuary, The Witness whispered: "Judgment accepted."
Eris fell.
But she did not land.
She emerged.
A new Seeker.
Memoryless.
Purpose rewritten.
But not erased.
She turned west—toward the Wastes, where rumors of a cursed boy dripping shadow spread.
Toward the north, where a new monarch of ruin sat on a throne of pain.
Toward the east, where a Watcher's wings had reignited the sky.
The Rift was shifting.
And she was no longer just a Seeker.
She was its choice.
In the sky above, a single thread shimmered.
Not silver.
Not gold.
But a color that had no name.
Awaiting the one who would climb it.
Not to judge.
But to decide.