Legacy of the Lost Sigil

Chapter 6: Echoes of the Rift

The wound whispered.

Kael sat beneath the dying orange sky, his fingers lightly brushing the healing gash on his left bicep. It wasn’t deep—Seris had already dressed it—but something strange clung to it. Not pain. Not fatigue.

Memory.

He had seen it last night—flashes not his own. A gaunt face screaming in a collapsing temple. A hand reaching toward flame. A broken pendant falling into dark waters.

And then it was gone.

[New Trait Active: Wound Reading]

Description: Allows the host to intuit biological trauma—and in rare cases, absorb psychic remnants left in muscle or nerve tissue.

Note: Echoes may present as fragmented visions. Trait is unstable in early stages.

Kael shook his head. “That doesn’t help much.”

“What doesn’t?” Seris asked from across the glade. She was oiling her blade with the same care others gave to prayer.

Kael hesitated. “When I got hit last night… after I used Pulse Cut… something showed me a memory. But not mine.”

Seris lowered her cloth. “Whose was it?”

“I don’t know. But it felt... heavy. Like grief soaked into the skin.”

Her face darkened. “That’s not unheard of. Some healers in the old Orders could ‘read’ wounds. They called them Memory Binders. It’s a rare mutation of restorative magic. Rare—and dangerous.”

“Dangerous?”

Seris stood and walked to him. “Because pain is never neutral. You can drown in someone else’s agony before you realize it’s not your own.”

Kael looked down at his bandaged arm.

“Can it be controlled?”

“Not yet. But if it’s happening, it means your system is aligning with your bloodline. Your mother’s side, likely.”

He looked up, startled. “She had powers?”

Seris smiled faintly. “She didn’t just have them. She commanded them.”

That night, as stars pooled over the canopy and the fire hissed low, a pulse of mana rippled through the woods.

Kael stood at once.

“Did you feel that?”

Seris nodded, drawing her blade slowly. “Someone’s coming.”

From the edge of the trees, a faint glow bloomed. Not firelight—but a pale, bluish aura. It flickered softly, like a lantern wrapped in mist.

Then came footsteps. Deliberate. Confident. And finally—a voice, deep and crisp:

“Kael. By Vindra’s breath, you look just like her.”

A man stepped into the clearing.

He was tall, cloaked in aged robes of blue-grey silk, trimmed with scorched runes. His beard was short and white, but his eyes—pure silver—burned with undiminished clarity. He held a mage’s staff, gnarled at the top and inlaid with fragments of starstone.

Seris’s posture shifted instantly. Not relaxed, but no longer hostile.

“Thorne,” she said flatly. “Didn’t think you were still alive.”

The man smiled. “Some of us have the decency to age.”

Kael stared. “You knew my mother?”

“I served her,” Thorne said, stepping forward. “Not just as a mage—but as her sworn shield. I took an oath to protect both her... and you.”

Kael’s throat dried. “Where were you when she vanished?”

Thorne’s smile faded.

“Holding off the things that tried to follow her into death.”

They sat in a triangle by the fire. Thorne’s staff rested on a stone beside him, still glowing faintly with residual energy.

“She was called Aelira of the Crimson Branch,” he began. “Born of the Miran bloodline—one of the last carriers of the true Sigil line.”

Kael’s heart thundered at the name. Aelira. He had never heard it spoken aloud.

“She walked two paths—Restorative and Elemental. And she was feared by the warlocks of Vel’Drakthar because of her ability to sever cursed lineages.”

Kael frowned. “Sever them?”

Thorne nodded. “Not just heal or kill. She could ‘break’ blood magic—undo bindings that tethered people to dark contracts. That’s why the Shades were sent. Not just to destroy her—but to erase every trace of her.”

Kael looked down at the pendant around his neck.

“She never told me any of this.”

“She couldn’t,” Thorne said softly. “The Sigil reacts to age, trauma, and proximity to a Rift. You activated yours early—unintentionally. That means something nearby triggered it.”

Seris and Thorne exchanged a glance.

“The Rift,” Kael said, reading their faces.

“Yes,” Thorne replied. “The Wyrmbound Awakening is tied to her death. The titan buried beneath that rift was sealed by her own blood.”

As Kael stood to clear his mind, the System blinked to life.

[System Alert: Proximity Sensor Tripped]

Subterranean Rift: Now 63 miles

Seismic activity increasing

Dormant Phase: 62 hours remaining

Signs of internal rupture detected

New Echo Source: Activated Memory Imprint nearby

Location: Kael’s Wound (Bicep – left)

He froze.

“System... access imprint.”

The world shimmered.

He stood in a rainstorm.

Not his own body—older, taller. His mother.

She was running through a crumbling citadel, cradling a blood-covered infant. Behind her, the walls cracked with red lightning. Creatures with eyeless faces shrieked through collapsing corridors.

A man screamed—a voice Kael didn’t recognize but felt something toward.

Then a door slammed. A sigil pulsed. A dagger gleamed—and the pendant was pressed to the baby’s chest.

“Live where we cannot…” Aelira whispered, “and let the system bloom in time.”

Kael gasped.

He stumbled out of the vision, Seris catching him before he hit the ground.

“What did you see?” she asked.

“My mother... running. Carrying me. She sealed me with the pendant. Someone was with her—he stayed behind.”

Thorne exhaled shakily. “That was your father. Drel Kaelen. He fought the Wyrmbound in its first emergence—and stayed behind to collapse the citadel.”

Kael wiped tears from his cheek, surprised to find them there.

 “Do we go there?” Kael asked finally, voice hoarse.

Thorne nodded. “We must. If the Rift opens fully, the Wyrmbound will rise—and seek the Sigil it once failed to claim.”

Kael stood. “Then I’ll go.”

Seris gave him a firm look. “This is not a heroic march. It’s a funeral path. Are you ready to fight something your parents couldn’t kill?”

He met her gaze. “I’m not them. But I carry both.”

Thorne smiled, placing a hand on Kael’s shoulder. “Then let’s arm you properly.”

By morning, the trio gathered supplies: water flasks, magelight orbs, salted meat, anti-venom kits. Thorne summoned a Windfold, a traveling creature of stone and air that could carry their packs in a woven saddle. Its body rippled like silk over stone, humming faintly.

Kael checked his sword. The edge was now coated with a thin line of Cinderglass, a material Thorne had enchanted to channel both flame and healing.

[Weapon Trait Added: Emberline Edge – +15% Pulse Efficiency]

[Crimson Path: Progress 18%]

Kael tightened the straps on his pack.

“Let’s go,” he said.

And together, they turned toward the north—toward the Rift where past, future, and blood would soon collide.