CHAPTER 13: THE SEEKER'S BURDEN
The wind howled atop the cliffs of forgotten gods, clawing at the stone stairway like a beast desperate to drag the past into the present. The Sanctuary of Binding loomed above Eris like an open wound stitched into the skin of the world—its pillars rising from ancient rock, veined with sorrow, crowned with silence.
Eris climbed.
Each step bled memory.
Her cloak, once silver, now trailed shadows of all she had left behind—sister, mentor, lover, betrayer. Her boots, caked in dust from three realms, struck the sacred stone with defiance. And with each echo, the air around her wept.
The Witness waited.
She had come not to free it. She had come to ask a question.
But as she neared the summit, a deeper truth began to unravel: she no longer remembered the question.
Memory was treacherous in the Rift.
Here, it was not stored in the mind, but in the soul. And Eris's soul had been fractured long before she chose to climb.
She had once been a priestess in the Mortal Plane—an acolyte of the Thread, taught to interpret the dreams of the dying. Then a Seeker, trained in the Wastes to navigate ruins laced with traps and time anomalies. Then an exile, branded with the sigil of the Unseen—those who dared ask: "What if the gods were wrong?"
Now, she was none of these.
Now, she was simply a question in search of an answer that might undo her.
The final step brought her to the threshold.
The Sanctuary was a circle of massive pillars, blackened with age, carved with runes that flickered between comprehension and forgetting. In its center hung The Witness—a figure stretched across dimensions, crucified between past and future.
Its eyes were sewn shut.
Its mouth was open, but no sound emerged.
Its skin shimmered with the stories of humanity—millions of scars, each one a sin remembered.
Eris knelt.
Not in reverence.
But to gather strength.
"I seek what was taken," she whispered.
No response.
"I seek my truth."
Silence.
"I seek myself."
At that, the air tightened.
And a voice—neither male nor female, neither kind nor cruel—unfolded within her mind:
"You are not here to remember. You are here to choose who will forget."
Eris's breath caught.
She stood.
"No," she said. "Not again."
Once before, she had stood at this altar.
Once before, she had traded memory for knowledge.
She had given up her name.
Her love.
Her child.
And in return, she had been allowed to see the truth hidden beneath the divine order: that the Stairway—the Thread of Judgment—was not a gift. It was a trial.
A test given by something older than gods.
Something watching still.
The Witness stirred.
Its head tilted.
And from its open mouth came not words, but visions.
A flood of them.
Eris fell to her knees as the world cracked around her.
She stood on a battlefield made of glass, watching Lucien Draeven lower the Crown of Dichotomy onto his bleeding head.
She stood in the graveyard of time, witnessing Ashriel press a lily to the final grave of Han Jiwoon.
She stood in the ruins of the cathedral, as Elaris lifted her blade of wrath and cleaved through the chains of judgment.
And then—she saw herself.
Not as she was now.
But as she had once been.
A mother.
A daughter.
A betrayer.
A protector.
All versions screaming, begging, warning.
And then… burning.
Eris gasped as the visions ceased.
Blood dripped from her eyes.
The Witness was silent again.
But she understood now.
The price of knowing who she truly was… was choosing which version of her would survive.
She stepped forward.
And one by one, the shadows of her past rose around her.
The child she bore and buried.
The comrades she loved and betrayed.
The truths she learned and silenced.
Each held a mirror.
Each showed a different Eris.
And each whispered:
"Choose."
She reached for the mirror held by the soldier—the version of her who had fought for justice, who had bled for peace, who had lost everything and still believed.
The moment her fingers touched the glass, the others screamed.
But it was too late.
The mirror shattered.
And all other versions turned to dust.
Eris stood alone in the Sanctuary.
Lighter.
Stronger.
But with a new weight pressing into her soul.
She had chosen who would forget.
Now she had to live with who remained.
The Witness whispered once more:
"The Thread awaits."
Eris turned.
Behind her, the Stairway shimmered into view—an impossible path of stone and light, rising through realms like a question that refused silence.
She would climb it.
Not to find herself.
But to test the gods.
To judge them.
And in the distance, the Rift stirred—preparing for convergence.
The Seeker walked forward.
And the world waited for her burden to unfold.