The circle of sealing glowed beneath Rhea's feet, pulsating in rhythm with her heartbeat—wild, erratic, unstable. Around her, the remnants of the battlefield were hushed under the weight of a spell older than most written languages. The scent of scorched feathers, molten crystal, and divine ichor filled the air like a fog of memories clinging to every breath.
The Wraithlords recoiled at the edge of the light, their cloaks dissolving at the hems, whispering curses in languages that hadn't been spoken since the beginning of time. Their masks cracked, leaking shadows. They weren't merely wounded—they were confused. Confused by resistance. Confused by her.
She had expected them to be angry, monstrous, powerful. But she hadn't expected fear.
That thought sent a shiver down her spine. These were ancient beings, older than the Celestial Orders. The fact that they could feel fear meant something. It meant they knew what was coming.
But it also meant they could still act.
A whip of shadow lashed toward her. She raised her arm, and the magic circle repelled it with a sharp pulse. Light struck shadow, flared, and dissipated—but the strain bled through her bones. Her legs trembled. Sweat poured down her back beneath shattered armor. She could feel her soul unraveling, thread by golden thread.
Somewhere to the west, Kael's voice rang out. "Rhea, the shield's integrity is dropping! We can't hold much longer—either finish the spell or fall back!"
Fall back? There was no fallback. Not anymore. Behind them lay a broken realm and a dying Orb. If she failed, there would be no world left to return to.
"I need more time!" she shouted back, her voice hoarse, every word scraping her throat raw.
But time was exactly what they didn't have.
Then—
A ripple through the light. A tremor not of earth, but of memory.
She looked up.
And there he stood.
At the edge of the sealing circle, untouched by debris or spell-light, stood a figure cloaked in silver and crimson. No flame, no aura. Just presence. Steady. Real.
Her heart stopped.
"Auren?" Her voice cracked. Her knees nearly gave out.
He looked just as she remembered, though time had worn lines into the corners of his eyes, or perhaps it was grief. His hair was shorter than before, tousled and wind-swept. His gaze, calm and ancient, bore into her with painful familiarity.
"You've grown strong, little sister," he said, voice gentle. "Stronger than I ever was."
She couldn't breathe. She'd seen him die—watched him burn under the siege of Valleria, sacrificing himself to protect the eastern seal. His loss had hollowed her.
But he was here. Not a vision. Not a dream. Here.
"I—I watched you die." Her lips trembled. "This isn't possible."
"Not possible," he agreed, "but real. The Orb remembered me. And when it cracked, I slipped through."
The words hit her harder than a blade. "Then you're not alive. You're… a memory."
He smiled, one filled with pride and sorrow. "That's all any of us are, in the end."
Another tremor shook the battlefield.
The Wraithlords hissed, flailing against the edges of the spell-circle. One of them collapsed, disintegrating into dust as its name vanished from the lips of those who had once feared it.
The spell was working—but it was killing her.
Auren stepped closer. The barrier did not reject him. His soul, after all, was born of the same power that now fueled her.
"You'll die if you finish this seal," he said softly. "Just like I did."
"I know," she whispered.
"There's another way," he continued, and Rhea shook her head before he could finish.
"There isn't. I've tried every path."
"No," he said. "You've tried every path that remembers the Wraithlords. But what if they could be forgotten?"
She stared at him.
"Forget them?" she echoed. "You can't destroy history—"
"Not destroy. Rewrite. If the Orb no longer holds their memory, if no one remembers… then they cannot persist."
"That's not sealing. That's erasure." The thought made her blood run cold. It felt wrong, unnatural. Her mind recoiled from it. "We don't know what it would do to the balance. If we erase them, what happens to the past?"
Auren's gaze held hers. "Would you rather preserve the pain for the sake of purity? Or let go of it and save what remains?"
She looked away.
The idea was dangerous. More dangerous than sealing. Sealing bound evil, but erasure—true erasure—meant playing god with memory itself.
But even so…
Could she let her people suffer again just because she feared the unknown?
Behind her, Kael was shouting again. The last mage lines were buckling. The Wraithlords were circling for a final strike.
She turned to Auren.
"What do I do?"
He stepped beside her, eyes glowing faintly. "Let go. Let the seal collapse. Channel the Orb's final memory into a single truth: that the Wraithlords never were. Then let that truth spread."
The light around them surged, then dimmed.
She nodded.
Then, slowly, she knelt, pressing the shard of the Orb into the center of the sealing glyph.
The glyph cracked.
Power unraveled.
The battlefield stilled.
The Wraithlords paused mid-strike—confused.
They began to speak, but the words slipped away before they could form.
Their names dissolved from memory.
The air shifted. A great silence fell over the land—not from peace, but from sudden absence.
It was like a part of reality had simply ceased to exist.
The Wraithlords screamed—not in pain, but in confusion, in fear, in disbelief. Their bodies unraveled into lightless smoke, not banished, not sealed, but utterly forgotten. Their essence scattered across the winds.
And then they were gone.
Truly gone.
Rhea gasped, falling backward. Kael caught her, dropping to his knees beside her.
"You're okay," he said, though the tears in his eyes betrayed his relief. "It's over. You did it."
"No," she whispered, her hand closing around the cold shard. "We did."
Auren stood a short distance away. Already fading.
"You chose well," he said, his voice already distant, like the wind. "The world will heal now."
She looked up at him, blinking tears from her eyes.
"I'll remember you. Even if no one else does."
He smiled. "That's enough."
Then he was gone.
And the world moved on.