Page 117 of Stormvein

I try to speak, to demand clarification of these riddles, but my voice doesn’t exist here in this space between realms. My thoughts form questions that dissolve before they can become sound. Still, she seems to hear the confusion and impatience in my silence, reading me as easily as I read the shadows.

She moves to one wall where symbols glow brighter than the rest. Her fingers hover over markings that almost look like Meridian script, yet not quite. Like this is the original language from which all others descended.

“The crystal holds memory.” She traces a pattern with her finger. Light trails after her touch, hovering in the air. “Not weapon, but window. Not destroyer, but revealer. Not ending, but beginning.”

The chamber fades. A cavern forms around us, lit by blue crystals embedded in the rock. Their glow spills across ancient carvings that cover every surface. Words in languages I almost recognize. They stir something buried, just out of reach.

I recognize odd words. High Meridian interwoven with script from before recorded history.

“What they took from you is not lost, only scattered.”

Her words sink deeper than they should, hitting somewhere memory doesn’t quite touch.

“What Sereven fears is not your shadow, but what it might reveal when joined with storm.” Her voice grows more intense.

Images flash—sharp, quick, half-formed.

A child standing in the rain, silver light flickering beneath skin as lightning strikes nearby. A metal band circles a small wrist, patterns etched so fine they could be mistaken for veins. A woman watching from darkness as Authority soldiers march through a burning village, clutching something wrapped in blue fabric while tears track silently down her face.

“Elowen,” the woman says.

The name vibrates through the cavern, not loud butfinal. The crystals pulse in response.

“Stormbringer. Veil-walker.”

I try to form the question, even if the words don’t make a sound.

Who is Elowen?

She doesn’t answer. Instead, she turns toward the largest crystal in the cavern. Its surface ripples with shifting images I can’t place. Places I’ve never been. Faces I don’t know.

“Elowen walks between. Named for power. Hidden from knowledge. Returned when needed most.”

The crystal pulses, its glow sharpening to a piercing blue. Inside it, I see Sereven, alone in a chamber that mirrors this one. He holds the crystal weapon from River Crossing. Hisexpression as he studies it is not hatred, or righteousness. It’s fear.

“He knows what might be revealed. The crystal responds to intent, to blood, to the power it was designed to channel. It can tear apart … or it can bind together. What he would use to destroy might instead illuminate.”

The scene fractures, shards of color and sound spinning through darkness.

Blood on stone. A crown broken in two.

The images whirl in chaotic patterns that make my head throb with half-remembered pain. Then they reassemble, coalescing into a jagged mountain ridge beneath storm-thick skies where lightning splits the clouds without reaching earth, illuminating shadowed figures locked in confrontation.

I recognize myself among them. Across from me, Sereven holds the crystal weapon, its blue light pulsing against the storm above.

“Blackstone Ridge. Where paths long divided will converge once more. Where truth can no longer be buried beneath deception.”

The vision fades as the woman turns her attention fully to me. “You must prepare. The crystal is both weapon and key. It aligns with whoever wields it, and their purpose.”

Her form begins to unravel, dissolving into the shadows that birthed her. But her voice lingers, softer now, but still clear.

“Find Elowen.”

The light from the crystal flares one final time, then vanishes.

“The crystal reveals what was hidden. Elowen remembers what was forgotten.”

“Elowen.” It’s leaving my lips by the time I open my eyes, carried from dream to waking.