There are places even gods fear to name.
The Forgotten Vale is one of them.
We ride at dusk. No banners. No escort. Just me, Cael, and Ashen, who hasn't spoken since the sky cracked open.
He watches me differently now.
Not like a queen.
Like a question no one dares to answer.
"What's in the Vale?" Ashen asks quietly.
"Memories," I say.
"Ones they tried to bury in my bones."
The Forgotten Vale lies beneath a frozen lake that never thaws.
Its waters are too still.
Its reflection shows the world as it should have been a cruel mercy.
Cael steps ahead, blade drawn.
"There will be wards," he warns.
"Not traps. Not curses."
"Then what?" I ask.
"Truths."
The gates are carved from silverbone, etched with language older than magic.
They open without sound, but I feel it a rush of breath from the earth itself, like the vault has been waiting.
Inside, it's not dark.
It's worse.
It's familiar.
Because I've been here before.
And I left something behind.
We pass rooms of broken prophecies.
Thrones made of ash.
A cradle carved in obsidian, still warm.
Then, at the very heart
A mirror.
Framed in lightless gold.
Covered in my name.
But not Seraphina.
Not Pale Flame.
Lyraxis.
I freeze.
"Lyraxis," Cael whispers, voice shaking.
"That's your true name."
"No," I say. "It's the name they gave me before they feared me."
"What does it mean?" Ashen asks.
I touch the mirror.
And the answer burns my mouth.
"It means: The First Spark.
The one that lit the gods aflame."
Because I was never just a Cataclysm.
I was their beginning.
And I will be their end.