NOVEL WEB Chapter 14: Chapter 14 – The Memory That Shouldn't Return
Elara didn't sleep.
The room was warm now-the fire Kaelith had arranged burned low in the hearth-but her thoughts stayed cold and wide awake.
She sat in the chair by the window with a soft blanket draped across her shoulders. Outside, the stars shifted behind thin clouds, and the palace lanterns flickered like echoes of a world too tired to sleep.
Memories kept tugging at her.
Not just dreams. Not shadows.
Real ones. Sharp. Specific.
For the first time in years, she was beginning to remember the moment the curse had been made.
It hadn't been a ritual in a temple. It hadn't been some grand, dramatic act. It had been a whisper. A decision made in pain.
And it had happened in this palace.
No-beneath it.
Elara's eyes narrowed as she turned toward the edge of the room. Somewhere below this wing, buried beneath the storage corridors and the chapel ruins, was the Hall of Ashes-the place where forbidden oaths were once made, long before Kaelith's reign. It had been sealed in his father's time, but the walls never forgot.
She rose, steadying herself as the memory pulled her toward something she wasn't sure she was ready to see.
At that same hour, Kaelith lay awake in his own chambers.
Sleep hovered but never settled. His thoughts spun-around Elara, around her words, around the strange ache in his chest that grew stronger every time she looked at him.
She spoke with such certainty.
Such sorrow.
And yet he didn't doubt her.
Not truly.
What disturbed him wasn't the possibility she was lying-it was the possibility she was telling the truth.
His hand moved to the drawer beside his bed. He opened it and pulled out the black journal once more. The cursed one.
He had tried to burn it once. It hadn't even charred.
He flipped to the page where the sentence had once read: "I killed her before I loved her."
It was blank now.
But as he stared, new ink began to surface-slowly, as though it were bleeding through time.
"She is beneath the stone."
Kaelith's breath caught.
A knock echoed at his chamber door.
It was Captain Revik, his personal guard.
The man rarely knocked unless it was urgent.
"My prince," Revik said as Kaelith opened the door. "A visitor was caught moving through the forbidden halls beneath the east wing."
Kaelith's pulse spiked. "Who?"
Revik hesitated. "The woman. Elara."
Moments later, Kaelith descended the torchlit staircase leading to the old east cellar. Guards stood at the bottom-tense, unsure. One of them moved aside, revealing Elara standing in front of a sealed stone wall, fingers still outstretched.
She didn't look surprised to see him.
Kaelith walked past the guards. "You can leave us."
They hesitated, but obeyed.
When the last footstep faded, he turned to her.
"Elara. What are you doing here?"
She exhaled slowly. "I think… this is where I made the vow."
He stared at the stone wall. "There's nothing here."
"Not anymore," she said. "But there was. Once."
Kaelith looked back at her. "Why didn't you tell me?"
"Because I wasn't sure I could find it again. And because… part of me hoped I never would."
He stepped closer, trying to read the wall. "What's behind it?"
"I don't know," she whispered. "But I think if we break it open… I'll remember everything."
Kaelith didn't move. The air felt charged. Heavy with things unsaid.
He looked into her eyes.
"Do you want to remember everything?"
A pause.
Then she nodded. "Even if it breaks me."
He stared at the wall a moment longer. Then reached for the sword strapped across his back-not for violence, but for power.
The blade of Feyglass-the royal ancestral sword-gleamed in the low light.
He raised it slowly.
And struck.
The wall didn't shatter-but it cracked.
Once.
Then again.
Stone groaned. Dust flew.
A final strike sent a section collapsing inward with a dull, thunderous sound.
Behind it was a dark tunnel.
Cold air poured out like breath.
Elara stared into the darkness, eyes wide.
Kaelith gripped the hilt of his sword.
"We go together," he said.
Far above them, in a sealed chamber of the Silent Order, the blue flames on the altar erupted.
The watchers stirred.
"She is opening the path," one whispered.
"She cannot be allowed to reach the Mirror."
"Then summon the Hallowed."