The final climb was a test of will as much as strength. The song of healing grew clearer with every painful handhold, a delicate melody of mending that wove through the groaning of the wind and the crunch of ice underfoot. It was a sound that spoke not of power, but of profound, patient care.
When they finally crested the ridge, the sight that greeted them stole the breath from their lungs.
It was not a lake nestled in a valley, but a lake held in the sky. A vast, circular basin of impossibly clear water rested in a cradle of the highest peaks, its surface so still it perfectly mirrored the scudding grey clouds above. The air was preternaturally calm, the howling wind of the lower slopes silenced as if by an unseen hand. And in the center of the lake, on a small, grassy island, stood a single, slender willow tree, its branches trailing like silver hair into the water.
But it was the woman who held their gaze.
She stood at the water's edge, her back to them. Her hair was indeed the color of the willow branches, a flowing silver that seemed to hold its own light. She wore simple robes the color of moss and stone. Her hands moved in slow, graceful arcs over the water, and where her fingers passed, the very light seemed to bend, weaving bands of gentle gold and soft blue into the liquid surface. She was not just a Water-Whisperer like Finn; she was a weaver of light and life itself.
As if sensing their presence, her hands stilled. The woven light settled into the water, spreading out in a soft, glowing ripple. She turned.
Her face was ageless, etched not with lines of time, but with the gentle, perpetual sorrow of one who has healed too many wounds to count. Her eyes were the color of the deep lake, calm and knowing. They passed over the bedraggled group, registering their exhaustion, their fear, Roric's injury, with a deep, encompassing empathy. Then her gaze settled on Kaelen.
"You have come a long way, Stone-Singer," she said. Her voice was like the sound of water over smooth stones, both gentle and immense. "The mountain's song has been heavy with your footsteps." Her eyes flickered with a hint of deep pain. "And you carry an echo of my student's final note. Finn's light has gone from this world."
Kaelen felt a lump form in his throat. He simply nodded, unable to find words in the face of her serene presence.
It was Elara who found her voice. "My Lady... we need your help. Our friend is badly wounded. And the Blight..."
The Lady—Aeliana, as she would later name herself—gestured for them to approach. "The Blight is a wound that festers in all things now. But one wound at a time." She looked at Roric. "Bring him to the water."
They helped Roric to the lake's edge. Aeliana knelt, her hands hovering just above the surface. She did not sing a loud, cleansing song like Finn's final blast. Instead, she hummed a soft, complex melody, and the water at her fingertips began to glow with a soft, white light. She cupped her hands, gathering the luminescent water, and poured it over Roric's wounded side.
There was no dramatic flash. But Kaelen, with his heightened senses, could feel it. The infection that had clung to Roric's body like a filthy shroud dissolved under the gentle light, not with a violent purge, but as if it were being patiently, lovingly untangled from his very flesh. The angry red inflammation faded. The feverish heat bled away. Roric let out a long, shuddering sigh of relief, the first truly easy breath he had taken in weeks.
It was the most profound act of healing Kaelen had ever witnessed. It held no force, only an absolute, unwavering compassion.
Once Roric was resting comfortably, Aeliana turned her gaze back to Kaelen. "Now," she said, her voice still gentle, but holding a new weight. "Show me."
Confused, Kaelen began to speak. "The Blight is spreading, we saw a shard of the Sun-Crown, Morwen is—"
"Not that," she interrupted, her lake-deep eyes piercing into him. "The wound you carry. The one that is not of the flesh. Show me the silence you hold inside."
A cold dread washed over him. How could she know? He had hidden it, even from himself as much as possible. He looked at Elara, at the survivors, suddenly ashamed.
Aeliana's expression was not one of judgment, but of profound understanding. "You have stood in the presence of absolute Unmaking, young Singer. Such an encounter does not leave one unscathed. It leaves a... hollow space. A void that the Silence seeks to fill. Ignoring it will not make it go away. It will only allow it to grow."
Trembling, Kaelen took a step forward. He didn't know how to show her. He simply opened his senses to her, dropping the walls he had so carefully maintained, and let her feel the cold, numb emptiness the Blight-knight had carved into his soul.
Aeliana's serene face tightened with a flicker of pain, as if she were feeling the void herself. She reached out, not touching him, but placing her hand palm-up over the center of his chest.
"You have been trying to fill it with your own strength," she murmured. "But you are a river, not an ocean. You will run dry." She closed her eyes, and her humming resumed, a different melody now—deeper, more resonant. "You cannot fight the silence with more silence. You cannot fill a void with emptiness."
The light around her hand intensified, but it did not push into him. Instead, it wrapped around the edges of the cold void, a gentle, golden containment.
"You must learn to sing around the wound," she whispered, her voice the barest breath of sound. "Acknowledge its presence. Make it a part of your song, but do not let it become the only note. Your melody is made more beautiful, more complex, by the silence it holds within."
As she sang, Kaelen felt something shift. The void was still there, cold and hungry. But it was no longer a spreading stain. It was contained, a single, dark rest in the music of his being. The constant, draining pull of it lessened. For the first time since the attack, he felt like he could take a full breath without a part of him screaming in resistance.
He looked at Aeliana, tears in his eyes. It was not a cure. It was a truce. A way to live with the injury.
"The Blight is not your enemy to destroy, Kaelen," she said, lowering her hand. "It is a wound in the world's song. And a wound is not healed by attacking it." She looked out over her pristine, perfect lake, and her sorrow seemed to deepen. "It is healed by everything that is not the wound. By light, by life, by courage, by love. Your task is not to become a sword, but to become a living reminder of the song the world has forgotten."
She had given him back to himself. Not whole, but capable of being whole again. The journey to the lake was over. The true work was just beginning.