#Vaulta The Vaulta wasn’t a place—it was a state.

They said if you whispered your deepest regret into the hollow of the old oak, the Vaulta would answer. Mara hesitated, then breathed hers into the bark.

Silence.

Disappointed, she turned—only to freeze. The world had inverted. Trees stretched downward; the sky pooled beneath her feet. A voice, neither kind nor cruel, echoed: "Regret is weight. You carry it, or it carries you."

Mara woke at the oak’s roots, dew on her skin. In her palm: a single acorn.

She planted it that evening.