The fire had died down.
Ash drifted like pale snow through the hollow remains of Nareth'Mir. In the ruins of a collapsed chamber, they rested—barely. No one slept. Not really.
Ayra sat near the shattered wall, fingers running cloth along the curve of her bow. Not polishing—listening. The way she always did before a storm.
Fenric had propped himself against a broken pillar, one boot off, foot wrapped in bloodied cloth. He was pretending not to wince.
Graveth stood at the doorway again, sword braced like a crutch, watching the skyline darken with each pulse from the broken sky.
Kael lay nearby, breathing steady now. Sylvi hadn't moved far from him, her hand still resting on his.
No one asked where Saerion was.
But the silence said enough.
Somewhere beyond the wreckage, Saerion stood.
Blood dripped slowly from his chin. His left arm hung useless. His sword—once gleaming—was now cracked down its length.
Before him, Elura loomed in shadow, the ruin trembling under her stillness.
He had bought them time.
But time had a cost.
He swayed—but his knees held. Not because he had strength left. But because he had something left to return to.
"Niera…"
Her name was a thread.
He gritted his teeth. Lifted the blade again.
And breathed.
Back at the ruined chamber—
Ayra looked toward the door. "How long do we wait?"
No one answered.
Kael opened his eyes again.
"We go back."
Sylvi's hand tightened around his.
Graveth's voice was low. "He might already be gone."
Kael shook his head.
"He's not. Not until he's done."
Fenric grunted. "Then we'd better be ready when he falls."
Ayra stood, slinging her bow across her back.
"Then let's not let him fall alone."
The group ran through shattered halls, vaults broken open like bones split by ancient grief. Dust clouded their eyes, but the sound was unmistakable—blasts of raw void hammering down again and again.
Ayra was first to the threshold, bow in hand.
Then Sylvi.
Then Graveth and Fenric, bruised but pressing on.
They found him collapsed against shattered stone—Saerion, the noble once shrouded in mystery, now slumped in a cratered wall. His blade hung loose from his bloodied fingers, his breath shallow, mouth trailing red.
The others froze.
Kael took one step forward—then another.
"Elura!" he shouted.
She paused mid-step. The void coiled around her like flame-starved smoke.
Her head tilted slightly, not like recognition, but like something almost breaking.
"You weren't just power," Kael said. "You came here for something. Not for destruction… not for vengeance."
His voice steadied, sharpened. "You were forgotten by the world. But you didn't forget him."
The air trembled.
"You stood before the First King… and he remembered you. That's why you returned. Not to tear this place apart—but to find what's left of him."
His hand shook, but he raised it anyway—toward her, not against her.
"And now the world only sees you as the void. But I see what's still inside. You're not here to destroy. You're here to remember."
She howled.
A pulse erupted—waves of paradox shattering the air. Her form began to flicker, not fading but destabilizing, caught between ruin and remembrance.
Kael didn't step back.
He raised his voice against the storm.
"You came back. Not just for vengeance. Not just to destroy. You came to remember him—as he remembered you."
Her limbs trembled—veins of void cracking the very ground. The air around her churned like a storm trying to swallow its own name.
"Even if your name was lost… even if everything else changed… there's a part of you still holding on."
Then—
Kael shouted the name.
"Tharen!"
Elura's head snapped toward him.
A sharp breath escaped her lips. For a heartbeat—her eyes shimmered with light.
"…Tharen…"
It left her mouth like a forgotten prayer, drawn from the deepest corner of herself.
But the void screamed back.
Her form contorted, pulled apart by the paradox she had become. Tendrils of dark flame burst from her spine and wrapped the sky in twisting motion.
She wasn't vanishing.
She was breaking.
Kael stepped forward again. Graveth reached—but this time, didn't stop him.
"You came back to love him again, didn't you?"
"But the crystal didn't break."
"Even if you're the one who breaks first… he's still waiting."
Elura staggered.
One hand clutched her chest. The other reached out—lost between pleading and striking.
She was forgetting again.
Not because the memory was gone.
But because she couldn't hold it.
"He said it, didn't he?" Kael whispered, softer now.
"I'll wait for her."
And then—
A sound.
A crack.
Elura's head turned—not toward Kael—but behind her.
To the place where the king sleeps.
There, amid ruin and drifting ash, the crystal stood—silent… until now.
A thin fracture glowed faintly across its surface. Delicate. Alive.
The paradox swirling around her slowed. Her arms dropped slightly. Her breath caught—as if something in her remembered being more than the void that bound her.
She didn't speak.
She only stared.
And in that stillness—so quiet, it nearly felt sacred—she remembered.
Not just the man she once loved.
But that he remembered her.
Her lips parted once more.
"…Tharen…"
Not as a weapon.
Not as a cry.
But as something pulled back from the edge.
The crystal pulsed faintly. A light, slow and fractured, stirred in its core.
But even as memory stirred—
Kael's body tensed.
The mark on his chest ignited—but not like before.
Not in recognition.
Not in fury.
But in warning.
A cold ripple passed through his spine.
He clutched his chest, gasping—because this was the same as the moment he faced Ekrinox at the start.
But not quite.
Back then, the mark rose to obliterate.
Now, it rose to undo.
To reverse what should never have been.
The air thickened.
A low hum rose around Kael's frame.
And once again—
A voice returned. Familiar. Close. No name. No face.
But woven into him like a shadow that had never left:
"Deny what should be the truth."
Kael's eyes flared—lit by golden fire, not in rage, but in choice.
His breath steadied.
And then—
A burst of light cracked from his chest.
Not destructive.
But unraveling.
Not to destroy what was lost.
But to undo what could have consumed her.
And in that blinding shimmer—
Elura's figure blurred, the void around her pulsing wildly—
And the world—
turned white.