Zelaira collapsed to the earth, the weight of it all crashing through her bones like thunder splitting stone. Around her, the scent of blood and smoke rose with the cold. But she smelled only him. Felt only him.
Kaelen.
His body lay still beneath the broken skies, and the silence between his breaths tore at her soul more than any scream ever could.
She gathered him in her arms. Fingers once so sure now trembled against his bloodied cheek. She brushed back his hair, smearing mud and ash as if she could wipe death away.
"You foolish, beautiful soul…" her voice broke in pieces. "You gave everything."
She pressed her forehead against his. A storm of memories flooded through her — the way he smiled when she doubted herself, how his laugh curled like sunlight, how he said her name like it mattered. In the firelight of sleepless nights, in the hush of battle-planned mornings, she had begun to love him. And she never told him.
Not like she meant to.
And now, there was only silence between them. And the cold.
Above them, the Ice Fountain surged with light.
The silver beam rose high into the heavens, parting the sky like a blade. And within it stood Eryndor — no longer flesh, but something more. A spirit. A guardian of the ancient world. His body was gone, yet he remained, luminous and unreachable. The chosen one. The final sacrifice. The soul that gave the fountain life when all else failed.
The Watchers fell still, stunned by what they saw. Their blades dropped. Their breath caught. This wasn't the ending they had prepared for.
It was a miracle. And a wound.
Morvane staggered through the chaos, blood soaking the edges of his cloak. His eyes caught the motionless form of Vareon, the boy he had raised like a son, now lifeless among shattered stone.
He dropped to his knees.
"Vareon…" he breathed, fingers shaking as he closed his eyes for the last time. "You were meant for greatness."
His voice cracked, softer now.
"You were meant to stand in the light… not fall in my shadow."
He turned to the pillar of light and rose with a scream in his throat. "Eryndor! Let me through!"
He charged at the beam.
The light flared, and like a father cast out from paradise, Morvane was thrown backwards. The ancient magic rejected him. His face hit the stone. He did not rise.
Zelaira watched it all. Her grief no longer quiet. No longer weeping.
Something rose in her — old as the relics, raw as war.
She stood, eyes glowing with a silver fury. Her voice trembled, not with fear, but with the language of destruction. She began to chant in the ancient tongue, the same whisper etched into relics buried long ago. Her fingers traced the air like blades, her breath a storm forming in her chest.
The mountain answered.
Stone split beneath her feet. The cave began to tremble, groaning like a god in pain. Cracks slithered through the walls like veins of fire. Above, the ceiling of the sacred place began to fall.
The Ice Fountain, once immortal, began to break.
"Let it fall!" Zelaira cried, voice rising in rage and heartbreak. "Let it all burn!"
Soldiers fled. Some screamed. Some prayed. Many did not make it out. Boulders crashed like judgment, crushing steel and bone beneath them.
The sacred basin cracked.
The murals of the ancestors collapsed in dust.
The old songs died in stone.
The Ice Fountain — Syltharion — shuddered in its final breath, then vanished, its light swallowed by the shadows. The beam in the sky flickered… and went out.
All that remained was ruin.
Zelaira fell beside Kaelen once more, the trembling gone now. She no longer wept. Her tears had buried themselves inside her, too deep for sound. She placed her hand on his chest and closed her eyes.
In the darkness behind her eyelids, she saw him once more — Kaelen, laughing in the woods. Kaelen, brushing the snow from her hair. Kaelen, asking her if love could still grow in a place like this.
She never answered.
Now, she whispered to the silence, "Yes."
And as the wind carried ash through the sky like scattered memories, the mountain mourned with her.
For the boy who loved fiercely. For the girl who could not save him.
For the name lost in stone, but never in heart.
Kaelen.
A name the mountain would whisper for all time.