Chapter 190: Sanctum of the Forgotten Flame

The northern winds sharpened their edges the closer they came to the ruins of the Sixth Sanctum. The snow didn’t fall here—it hovered. Suspended in the air like flakes of ash, unmoving, timeless. The trees near the old path had long since withered, their bark curling in on itself like pages from books too long burned. And every step the group took forward pressed against the weight of something unseen—like walking through the threshold of an unfinished thought.

No one spoke much anymore.

Serena walked at the front, flanked by Elias and Darian, her senses stretched to the edge. Each time her foot hit the ground, she expected it to vanish beneath her. The terrain was real—but wrong. The ley-lines in this place no longer sang. They stuttered.

“I don’t remember the Sanctum being this…” Darian’s voice trailed as he gazed at what remained of the eastern wall. “Twisted.”

Serena’s eyes tracked the stone pillars jutting from the ice like broken bones. “It’s not the Sanctum that changed.”

Lilith walked in slow circles near the archway. “He’s rewriting it.”

And he had.

Where once stood a temple of remembrance and fire now sprawled a half-finished ruin stuck between memories. One section still held the glowing glyphs of the First Flame—walls covered in etched names, floor tiles warm with legacy. Another section was entirely blank—gray, cold, stripped of anything resembling history. But worst were the parts in between. A hallway that looped back into itself. A staircase that descended into blackness and ended at the ceiling. Maeron hadn’t just damaged the Sanctum—he’d bent it around his own mind.

They made camp just inside the first chamber, choosing the one corner where the warmth still lingered. Elias and Kael took turns carving protection wards into the stone while Kiva lit small memory flames to anchor their own histories from unraveling. Serena sat near the center, her palms resting on the old floor tile marked with the symbol of the Flame’s First Oath. Her thoughts felt fragmented—like Maeron had already started pulling her memories out thread by thread, replacing them with phantom echoes.

“How long do we stay here before heading deeper?” Kael asked, running a whetstone down the blade of his scythe. “Because I’ve had enough of breathing in ghosts.”

Leoré stirred the wardlight fire. “We wait for the Sanctum to speak.”

Darian, however, stood unmoving near the blackened corridor. “It already has.”

They followed him down the twisted hall early the next morning, stepping between frozen shadow and flickering memory. Every few feet, they passed objects—some half-material, others unfinished—memory-fragments that hadn’t fully survived Maeron’s purge. A broken harp missing its strings. A pair of shoes, child-sized, burned on the soles. A scroll that read only one word: Remember.

Serena didn’t touch any of them.

She remembered Atheira’s warning.

Maeron had begun building his own version of history.

And these pieces were bait.

Finally, they reached the Sanctum’s Inner Chamber.

Or what was left of it.

The ceiling here was partially collapsed, open to the sky, allowing pale light to spill in. The walls had cracked in long vertical lines as if some force had tried to split the room in two. At the far end sat a massive throne of obsidian—impossible, since no such thing existed in the Sanctum’s history. But now it did.

Maeron had carved himself into the story.

And he sat there now.

Alive. Whole.

And waiting.

He wore no armor. No crown. Just a long black cloak and skin pale as frost. His eyes were dark voids that shimmered faintly with red when he smiled. “Took you long enough,” he said, voice like crushed glass over fire. “I was worried you’d forgotten me.”

Serena stepped forward slowly. “Maeron.”

He bowed his head mockingly. “Ashbearer.”

Elias moved beside her, tense. “You’re trespassing.”

Maeron spread his arms. “Oh, I am the Sanctum now. You’re the ones forgetting where you belong.”

Kiva raised a flame near her chest, the fire hissing against the air. “You erased the names. You devoured their memories.”

“I set them free,” Maeron replied. “They don’t need their stories anymore. They’re quiet now. Peaceful.”

Serena felt the pressure of his voice trying to twist her thoughts. But she reached into the fire at her center—the one bound to the Hollow, to the truth of what had been saved—and she anchored herself there.

“You want the First Flame’s Name,” she said. “But you can’t reach it. You need me to open the Vault.”

Maeron’s smile faltered. “And you came anyway.”

“I came to remember what you want the world to forget.”

He stood slowly, stepping down from the throne. “You think it’s that simple?” he whispered. “You think memory is truth? Memory is pain. Memory is chaos. It’s biased, broken, rewritten again and again by those with stronger pens. I don’t want truth—I want silence. And I will carve it into every name ever spoken.”

He raised his hand.

And the Sanctum groaned.

From the cracks in the stone, shadows slithered—half-formed creatures made from false memories. They had the faces of people Serena had once loved—Auriel, her mother, even a younger version of Elias—but twisted, insincere. Mockeries meant to confuse and dismantle.

“Do not speak their names,” Leoré warned as they circled.

Kael was the first to strike, slicing through a mimic of his long-lost brother. It shrieked, not in pain, but in protest—as if its existence depended on belief. Lilith summoned fire from her spine, torching a false child that bore her mother’s eyes. Elias fought without speaking, his every motion precise, controlled.

Serena didn’t move.

Not until one of the mimics whispered in her voice: You were never meant to carry this.

Then she burned it with a single glance.

When the last mimic fell, Maeron simply clapped once.

“You’re stronger than I expected.”

Serena stepped toward him. “You’ve corrupted the Sanctum, but you’ve forgotten the one rule the fire obeys.”

Maeron tilted his head.

“It remembers,” she said. “Even when you try to make it forget.”

She raised her palm—and the floor lit up.

Old glyphs, hidden beneath Maeron’s edits, surged to life.

The true memory of the Sanctum’s original oath flared in molten gold across the walls, and Maeron staggered.

“No,” he hissed. “That name is mine!”

But it was too late.

The Vault cracked open.

And behind it—beyond light and shadow—rested a single flame.

No bigger than a whisper.

But alive.

Serena stepped into the chamber, reached forward—

And remembered.

Not just for herself.

But for everyone Maeron had erased.

For Auriel.

For the forgotten children.

For every Keeper who died in silence.

She remembered them into being.

Maeron screamed as the fire spread.

Not to consume.

But to restore.

And in that moment, the Sanctum—the real Sanctum—began to awaken.