---
The morning sun lay soft across Ember Vale, but I felt the weight of what came next pressing beneath my skin. Fourteen sparks pulsed in my palm, each one a memory of trials past… and a promise of trials to come. Myra and Soren gathered beside me, dawnfire and white flame flickering in their eyes.
Before us rose the Mountain of Mourning… a granite peak carved by tears and time, its slopes streaked with old dried rivulets of blood that glowed faintly red in the sun. Legends said this mountain held a hollow beneath its heart, where those who lost everything found communion with grief's deepest echo.
> "We must go beneath," Myra whispered. "To the heart of sorrow itself."
I nodded, cloak settling on my shoulders like a vow.
> "Then let us walk together," I replied. "Into the Mountain of Mourning."
---
The path up the mountain was steep and littered with broken stones, each one etched with names long since forgotten. We climbed in silence, fragments flaring with each step… fourteen lights weaving a steady thread through the morning haze. The air grew colder as we rose, wind carrying the faint scent of iron and sorrow.
At last we reached a cave mouth cut into sheer rock, half hidden by a waterfall stained red where it met the stone. Water fell in a thin veil, cold and relentless… a curtain of tears guarding the entrance.
> "Beyond lies the Hall of Mourning," Soren said, voice calm. "Where echoes of grief echo beyond life and death."
Myra laid a hand on the curtain of water, her fragment glowing gentle. The droplets parted around her like petals in a breeze. She stepped through and beckoned us onward.
---
I followed her into the cavern, cold water sliding over my skin as I crossed the threshold. The air inside was still and breathless, lit by phosphorescent moss clinging to damp walls. Shadows flickered along the rock… shapes half seen… memories half remembered.
We descended a stair of hewn stone that wound downward without end. Each step felt heavier than the last… as though gravity itself mourned here. The walls bore carvings of sorrow… faces turned to stone with tears etched in bas relief… palms pressed to closed eyes in eternal lament.
My fragments stung beneath my cloak… fourteen sparks dancing in my veins, urging me forward into the darkness where only memory guided the way.
---
At the bottom we entered a vast hall… its ceiling lost in gloom. Pillars of red granite rose around a central chasm… a pit of endless black. Around that pit lay a circle of stones, each one carved with the wish of a mourner… words of longing, prayers for release, vows of remembrance.
A hush reigned… deeper than any cave… the silence of grief left unchecked. We stepped forward, Myra's white flame torch whispering against the dark, Soren's dawnfire echoing like a heartbeat.
> "This is the Mountain's heart," Myra said softly. "Where sorrow breathes."
I knelt beside one of the stones and traced its carving with a finger. The words glowed faintly red beneath my touch… a vow written by someone who had lost a child, offering their own fragment to bind memory and hope.
The fragments in my palm flared… fourteen lights flickering in recognition. Behind my eyes I felt every face carved on the pillars, every word etched on the stones, every tear ever shed in this hall.
---
> "To awaken the fifteenth spark," Soren said, "we must bind our grief to the Mountain's sorrow."
Myra and I rose and joined hands. Her fragment glowed gentle as dawn, mine pulsed with abyssal edge. Soren stood behind us, fragment blazing like sunrise.
> "We share our burdens," I said. "We give voice to sorrow… so it may live as strength."
We turned as one to the chasm at the center of the hall. Its darkness yawned like a mouth refusing to speak… an absence that pulsed with longing.
---
Myra released a soft lament into the air… a single note of sorrow that rippled through the hall. Her fragment brightened, sending waves of gentle flame across the black stones.
Soren added his vow… a vow of protection spoken in a voice both soft and strong. Dawnfire streamed from his palm, a ribbon of light weaving through the pillars.
I closed my eyes and called on the abyss within… fourteen sparks blazing into an inferno of memory. I spoke the truth I carried… the pain of rejection… the loneliness of contract… the sting of every loss.
The fragments flared so bright the hall trembled. The runes on the pillars glowed in answer, ribbons of red light spreading through stone. The chasm stirred… darkness rising like mist.
---
A shape emerged from the black… a figure draped in mourning robes, face hidden beneath a veil of shadow. It held a small child's toy in one hand, fragmentless and broken. The figure's presence pressed on us… a weight of all sorrow bound in silence.
> "You have called me," the echo said, voice soft yet endless. "You have shared your grief."
I stepped forward, torch flame and dawnfire in my hands.
> "We stand not alone," I said. "We bear sorrow so it may guide us, not destroy us."
The figure bowed its head. The broken toy glowed faint red in its hand.
> "Then take my burden," it whispered, placing the toy in my palm. "Carry my grief… and let it be your guide."
I closed my fingers around the toy. The fragments in my palm flared… fourteen lights merging with the silent sorrow. A fifteenth spark ignited deep in my chest… a warmth like hope born from grief.
---
The monument's pillars shook and the carvings glowed, tears running like rivers down stone faces. The chasm at the center glowed once… then receded, its darkness tempered by sorrow now shared.
Myra and Soren stepped close, fragments twining with mine in a weave of light and memory. We knelt before the figure of mourning.
> "Your grief lives in us," I said. "We will honor it by walking onward."
The figure bowed again, then dissolved into mist that drifted across the hall and vanished. The chasm closed… runes dimming to rest.
---
We rose and placed the child's toy on the dais beside the final stone… the vow of a bereft heart now honored. The pillar runes glowed soft red… a sigil of remembrance etched anew in the stone circle.
I pressed a hand to my chest, feeling fifteen sparks dancing beneath my skin… each one a heartbeat of sorrow and hope. The hall was still once more, its grief now woven into our own.
---
We climbed back through the stair, the mist curtain parting around Myra's torch flame. The dawn light greeted us at the entrance, the mountain's red waterfall drying to memory. We stood for a moment, watching the valley unfold beneath the silent peak.
> "The fifteenth spark burns with remembrance," Myra said. "We carry more than power now."
> "We carry all those who were forgotten," Soren added.
I nodded, fragments pulsing warmly in my palm.
> "Then let us honor their echoes," I said. "By walking the boundless path with open hearts."
---
That night we camped beneath the lonely pines at the mountain's base. Our firelight danced on needles soaked in grief and dawn's promise. Fragments glowed fifteenfold in my palm, each spark a memory etched into my soul.
I lay on the forest floor, pressed to earth heavy with sorrow and hope. I whispered into the night…
> "We walk on… beneath every dawn, beyond every shadow, honoring every heart we carry."
The valley answered with the rustle of leaves… a lullaby of remembrance under the vast sky.