The Azure Tower stood at the center of a frozen sea.
Kael stared out across the impossible landscape—water captured mid-wave, crystallized into blue glass that stretched to the horizon. Creatures moved beneath the surface, visible but trapped, swimming eternally through moments that would never end.
"Don't look too long," Lyra warned. "The Frozen Sea shows you memories. If you're not careful, you'll drown in them."
Too late. Kael was already seeing things. His mother's face. Mira's laugh. His father teaching him to harvest wheat, the old man's hands patient and weathered. Simple moments from a life that felt like it belonged to someone else now.
"Kael!" Lyra's voice cut through the visions, sharp and urgent. "Focus!"
He blinked, and the memories shattered. But the ache they left behind didn't fade.
"Sorry," he muttered.
"Don't be sorry. Be careful." She pointed to the tower. "Lord Azure rules here. Unlike Theron, he's not hostile to outsiders. But he's... different. Changed. The sealing broke something in him, and he's been trying to fix it for three thousand years."
"What kind of different?"
"You'll see."
They approached the tower across bridges made of frozen water. Kael could feel memories pressing against his mind—not his own, but the sea's. Three millennia of trapped moments, all trying to escape through him.
He saw the war. The real war, before the sealing. Saw realms tearing themselves apart over something that glowed like a captured star—the Heart of All Things. Saw his ancestor, Aldric Ashford, standing before it, making the choice that would doom the Seventh Realm.
But he also saw Aldric's pain. The man's tears as he sealed away an entire world. The promises he'd made and couldn't keep. The guilt that had consumed him until his death.
"He didn't want to do it," Kael whispered.
"What?" Lyra asked.
"Aldric. My ancestor. He didn't want to seal the Seventh Realm. But the Heart was corrupting everything it touched. He thought... he thought he was saving everyone."
Lyra's expression hardened. "Good intentions don't erase three thousand years of suffering."
"I know. But maybe understanding them is a start."
They reached the tower's entrance, and Kael immediately understood what Lyra had meant about Lord Azure being different.
The lord wasn't one being. He was hundreds.
Figures moved through the tower's first floor, all of them identical—a man with blue skin and eyes like deep ocean trenches, wearing robes that shifted like water. They moved in perfect synchronization, speaking in chorus.
"Kael Ashford," all the Lord Azures said simultaneously. "Heir to the Broken Pact. We've been expecting you."
"Why are there so many of you?" Kael asked.
The lords smiled, all at once. "When the sealing happened, I was caught mid-spell. A duplication ritual meant to create a single copy of myself. But the seal fractured it, split it, shattered it into infinity." All the versions gestured to themselves. "Now I am many. And I am losing track of which one is real."
"That's horrible," Kael said.
"That's survival." The lords moved closer, surrounding them. "We've learned to adapt. Each version of me experiences different memories, different emotions, different possible futures. Together, we are more than any single being could be."
"But you're also less," Lyra said quietly. "You've lost your center. Your self."
The lords' expressions flickered—some sad, some angry, some utterly blank. "Yes," they said. "That too."
One version of Lord Azure stepped forward, separating from the others. "I remember being whole. Sometimes. In dreams. I remember what it felt like to be just... me." He looked at Kael. "Can you fix it? Can your power restore what was fractured?"
"I don't know," Kael admitted. "I barely understand what I can do."
"Try." The lord knelt. "Please. I'll give you anything. Safe passage. Knowledge. The key to the Shadowroads that lead to the Palace of Echoes. Just... try."
Kael looked at Lyra, who nodded slowly.
He reached out, letting his power flow. The green light touched Lord Azure's fractured existence, and for a moment, Kael saw it—all the scattered pieces, all the broken versions, each one holding a fragment of a whole person.
And he saw what could be. Saw a future where Lord Azure was unified again, complete, himself.
But to reach that future, some of the copies would have to die. Would have to sacrifice their existence so the original could live.
"I can do it," Kael said quietly. "But it will cost you. Most of you."
The lords looked at each other, a hundred conversations happening in silence.
Then, as one, they nodded.
"Do it," they said. "We're tired of being broken."
Kael didn't know if he could actually pull this off, but he had to try. He focused, pulling the scattered pieces together, weaving them back into a single whole. It felt like trying to hold water in his hands—the moment he grasped one part, another slipped away.
But slowly, agonizingly, the copies began to fade. They didn't scream or resist. They just smiled, faint and grateful, as they dissolved back into the original.
One by one.
Ten.
Twenty.
Fifty.
Until only one Lord Azure remained, kneeling before Kael, tears streaming down his face.
"I can feel it," he whispered. "I can feel myself. I'm... I'm me again."
Kael stumbled back, exhausted. Lyra caught him before he fell.
"That was incredible," she said. "And incredibly stupid. That much power—you could have burned yourself out."
"Worth it," Kael managed.
Lord Azure stood, testing his limbs like he was wearing a new body. "Three thousand years," he said. "Three thousand years I've been scattered. And you fixed it in minutes." He looked at Kael with wonder and fear. "You truly are an Ashford. The power runs strong in you."
"Does that change anything?" Kael asked. "Between our realms?"
"It changes everything." Lord Azure straightened, his form solidifying, becoming more real than it had been. "I will support you. I will send word to the other tower lords. And I will give you this."
He pulled something from the air itself—a key made of crystallized water that never melted.
"The Passage of Tides. It will take you directly to the Palace of Echoes, bypassing three of the remaining towers. You'll still need to deal with the others, but this will buy you time."
"Thank you," Kael said.
"No. Thank you." Lord Azure smiled, and it was the smile of someone who'd forgotten what joy felt like and was remembering. "Go. Save us all. Or die trying. Either way, you've given me back myself. That's enough."
They left the Azure Tower, and Kael felt something shift inside him. He was learning. Growing. Becoming something more than he'd been.
But with each use of his power, he felt something else too. A pulling sensation, like the realm itself was trying to claim him. To make him its anchor.
"Lyra," he said as they walked. "What happens if I can't find a way to fix this? What happens if the only solution is for me to become the seal?"
She didn't answer right away. When she did, her voice was quieter than he'd ever heard it.
"Then we lose. Everyone loses. Because you're not just a tool, Kael. You're a person. And if we save two realms by destroying who you are, then we've failed at the only thing that really matters."
"What's that?"
"Proving we're better than the people who came before us."
In the distance, thunder rolled across the frozen sea. Not natural thunder—something darker. Something that meant Theron or the Sorceress had found their trail again.
"Time to run," Lyra said.
And they ran, leaving the Azure Tower behind, carrying Lord Azure's key and the weight of two more impossible promises.