Return of the Flamebound Oathkeeper

The silence lingered, but the house no longer pressed on his chest. Luciel stepped away from the hearth and toward the doorway, brushing soot from his hands.

He glanced back once at the empty room. The stillness had settled into something ordinary now. He could no longer feel the dissonance as well.

Without the memory's protection, the house had returned to what it was—a forgotten, decaying home. But the tether hadn't vanished. The Voice had said it only weakened, and he still couldn't sense it.

Luciel stepped off the porch and onto the concrete road. The wind had calmed, but snow still drifted through the cracks between buildings. 

The rest of Aurelleth stretched before him in full silence. He followed the cracked road, retracing steps he hadn't walked in years. 

The Hollow Spine was a game-changer. He slipped through the maze of Hollows as he moved, even passing by a few Stratum Two creatures lingering around the dumpsite.

Luciel trusted his ability, but he wasn't arrogant and dumb enough to take them head-on. It didn't matter if he had the flame—Aberrant-class Hollows were on a different level entirely.

Without the Hollow Spine, the journey would've been painfully slow. Maybe impossible.

He passed what used to be a tool shed and paused near a collapsed brick wall. A faint warmth prickled just beneath his skin, but he didn't sense any resonance. Just nostalgia playing mind games with him.

He kept walking, slower now—almost like a tourist. If the tether had truly weakened, then there was no reason to rush. What mattered most was the enduring fragments of memories, and whether he could resonate with them or not.

And for that, he had to take it slow.

But as luck would have it, he didn't have to wait long.

Luciel stopped before a small playground sitting at the edge of the residential rows. Half of it had been destroyed—swings tangled, a merry-go-round half-buried under mud, a seesaw snapped in two—but one bench still stood upright beneath a dead tree.

'That bench looks... familiar.'

He didn't know why, but something tugged at him. A quiet pull, like his name being whispered. The moment he stepped closer, the flame stirred again.

He was right.

Luciel stopped at the bench and noticed an object beneath it. He crouched and brushed aside a thin layer of snow.

What he saw was a small shoe. Child-sized, worn, but still whole.

A memory then surfaced without warning—Mira dragging him here, forcing him to sit while she tried to balance on the seesaw by herself. Her laugh would always bloom when she failed, falling into the dirt and yelling at him to help her up with a pout.

She hated feeling small and powerless. She'd always felt like she could conquer the world with her bright smile.

Yet Luciel didn't smile. He didn't feel much at all.

But the flame did.

The warmth inside his chest stirred slightly. It wasn't heavy or uncomfortable. Just warmth you'd feel sitting in front of a fireplace amidst winter.

A faint echo then brushed his mind. It was a familiar voice half-laughing, half-scolding.

"Luciel, I'll get it this time. So watch me!"

He let the silence remember, then gently set the shoe neatly on the bench.

"You didn't grow taller, Mira," he murmured. "But I think you won that one."

He stood and stepped back, watching as the air lost its weight again. The echo faded on its own.

[A memory echo has been quieted.]

[The tether of the Realm has weakened.]

[Your flame remembers what you will not speak.]

[A Flickering Cinder settles in your soul.]

Luciel found it absurd how the echoes were actively digging up the memories he'd tried to bury.

This uncomfortable feeling of being seen through had been weighing on him ever since he stepped in Aurelleth. He just wanted to leave this ghost town as soon as possible, but a part of him wanted to stay to witness what he hadn't.

'Doesn't matter. I just have to finish my job and get out of here.'

Shaking that thought off, he left the playground behind and drifted deeper into the skeletal streets. The Hollow Spine still masked his presence well enough, but the flame stayed restless, flickering low and watchful beneath his blood and bones.

The snow thinned around what seemed to be the town's old community hall. Blanketed in layers of gray dust and frost, the ancient building stood in the middle of the town with its collapsed roof and leaning walls.

The moment Luciel approached the entrance, a faint pressure pressed against his senses. It wasn't Hollow corruption or the rancid scent of Hollow mist. That same wavelength appeared again. It undoubtedly had the property of something human.

He stepped into the hall, letting the door hang loose behind him.

Silence hung above the darkened room, but it wasn't empty.

Luciel scanned the rows of chairs and broken tables. Nothing unusual yet to be found—just debris littered around the ashen floor, so he left to search for other rooms.

He braved through the narrow hallway, his footsteps echoed back at him too loudly. Then, somewhere in the dark recesses of the hall, the flame throbbed in uneasiness.

He paused near the sharp turn to the auditorium. Thin layer of snow crunched lightly under his boots as he stepped inside the spacious hall.

It was colder and darker here. Rows of broken benches faced a grand stage, the curtains long rotted and burned away. He advanced down the aisle, steps now silent and feathery. Each breath felt heavier, not from the cold but from the way the flame pulsed erratically in his chest.

Luciel then scanned the stage. There was nothing but scorched boards and broken beams. A curtain rod sagged at an awkward angle, wrapped in burned fabric that dripped melted snow. At first glance, there was nothing here but ruin.

Then his eyes caught it.

At the center of the stage, the floorboards had split open. There, a faint scarlet glow pulsed through the cracks from below. It billowed and shimmered, coiling like smoke and bleeding black edges into the red. He felt it almost living, somehow breathing in sync with his own chest.

Luciel narrowed his eyes toward the light and felt the tether.

A deep, unsettling resonance hummed through the splintered boards, sliding up his legs like static. The pounding grew in his skulls with each step he took. It wasn't just bittersweet memories anymore. It was deeper, older, steeped in sorrow and deep despair.

He climbed onto the stage, each footsteps now echoing again in the shadowy cavern of this derelict auditorium. Luciel knelt and looked inside as he came to the edge of the light.

There was a nest of shifting light beneath the broken planks—shadows and flame tangled like hurried webs. But woven into that tumultuous glow was a shape, just enough to be discernible. It was a silhouette of a small girl, hair tied in two clumsy braids, flickering in and out of existence as she laughed softly.

Luciel's breath caught.

'Mira.'

His heartbeat stuttered. He blinked once... then twice, but the image persisted. As if to mock him even further, the glow brightened with each blink, and her silhouette sharpened in tandem.

Then, a voice broke through the silence. Etched in lines of trembling red, the silhouette echoed.

"Luciel... come back."