There are some names that history forgets not out of negligence, but fear. Names that once spoken, cause reality itself to falter.
And among those, her name stood above all.
Zeirion had buried her beneath the world.
And now... she whispered again.
"Zei…"
The Vault pulsed.
A soundless heartbeat echoed through layers of sealed existence, rousing powers untouched since the primordial schism. Stone wept. The air thickened with grief older than empires. Even Aralya, strong as she was, took an involuntary step back.
"Is it possible?" she asked, her voice hushed.
Zeirion's expression did not change, but his silence weighed like thunder.
He stepped forward—past the broken second lock, into the corridor where no light followed.
There, in the endless hollow where fate had been entombed, floated a single chain of light, coiled like a serpent around a statue of shattered marble.
The statue wept blood.
And beneath its feet, sealed in crystalline flame, was a coffin—one that radiated familiarity and doom in equal measure.
The Woman of the Seventh Name
Aralya stood at Zeirion's side now, hand resting gently on Eclipsion's hilt. "You told me you laid her to rest," she said.
"I did," Zeirion replied. "But I never said she wanted to sleep."
The crystalline coffin shimmered.
Within it lay a woman garbed in tattered celestial robes, her hair a river of midnight, her face ageless—and hauntingly beautiful. In life, she had worn a crown. In death, she still did.
Serenya.
The Seventh Name.
The First Queen of Flame.
Zeirion's consort from the First Sovereignty.
The one who had died by his hand.
And yet...
She was smiling.
"You should have let me burn it all, Zei," her voice whispered from the cracks of the world. "We could have ruled even the gods."
The flame around her stirred—not alive, but almost. The Vault recognized her. It remembered why she had been sealed here—not because she was evil. But because her very soul defied order.
Zeirion stared down, expression unreadable. "You knew this place would open again."
"I always trusted your arrogance," Serenya's voice cooed. "Even when you mourned me."
"Do not listen," Aralya said, voice sharp. "She's not whole. She's feeding on the Vault's echoes."
Zeirion nodded once. "She always did hunger for more."
The Choice Before Him
As he approached, the crystalline flame flared—not in warning, but invitation.
One more lock stood before her.
The third.
The Vault whispered, now with her voice. It showed him memories: battles fought side by side with Serenya... the moment he had crowned her... the moment he had turned his blade against her.
Her betrayal had been catastrophic, but her love had once been genuine.
She had once held his hand like Aralya did now.
"You need me," she whispered. "The realms will not bend for mercy. They never have. Let me burn the way forward, Zei. Let me finish what we began."
His hand trembled—for the first time in an eternity.
But then Aralya stepped forward. Her presence pushed back the fire, the echoes, the temptation. Her voice, clear and steady:
"No kingdom is worth the world's soul. Not even yours."
Zeirion's eyes closed.
The Vault fell silent.
And then—he raised Eclipsion.
One clean strike.
The third lock shattered—not in release, but in defiance.
The crystal around Serenya screamed as if it were alive. The flame shrieked. The world shook. But the coffin remained sealed.
Serenya's voice, now trembling with fury, lashed out.
"You will regret this, Zei. When the gods turn, when Aralya bleeds, you will beg to wake me."
Zeirion turned away.
"Let the world burn," he said coldly, "but you will never rise again."
The Vault Recoils
As the Vault trembled, the ancient seals realigned. The door to the fourth lock—one even Zeirion had forgotten—began to emerge.
But behind them, unseen eyes blinked open.
From the very walls of the Vault, something else stirred—not Serenya.
Not an echo.
But a Watcher.
A being that had never been meant to awaken.
Its eyes gleamed like obsidian suns.
Its whisper rode the wind like a blight:
"Sovereign... you've broken the first three. Break the fourth, and the Vault will no longer obey you."
Outside the Vault
In distant planes, powers surged.
The Stormborn Sect's armies began to gather in the North once more.
In the Court of Shadows, the Pale Mirror knelt before a figure even he feared.
And in the Shattered Meridian, a child was born with eyes of fire and shadow—marking the first Harbinger in ten thousand years.
All of them would be drawn to the Vault.
All would come to stop or claim what slept beneath it.
But Zeirion...
Zeirion would not turn back now.
He looked at Aralya, their hands clasped once again.
"Whatever waits behind the Fourth Lock... we face it together.