The statues watched them.
That was the feeling Walliam couldn't shake as they crossed the plaza — dozens of crystal-frozen figures locked mid-motion, mid-scream, mid-reach. Time hadn't stopped them.
It had caught them.
Elaris kept her eyes down.
Torren did not look away at all, like refusing to look would somehow make the horror worse later.
The Warden led them toward the shattered spire at the plaza's heart. Up close, the crystal tower wasn't smooth — it was layered, like growth rings in a tree, each band a slightly different color.
Memory, Walliam realized.
Not stone.
Stored moments.
"This was the First Beacon," the Warden said. "Aethrune drew power from it — not magic as you know it, but alignment. Harmony between world and sky."
Walliam touched the mark in his chest. It pulsed in answer.
"The Heart once spoke through Beacons like this. Not with words. With… direction."
"Then what went wrong?" Elaris asked softly.
The Warden placed a hand against a dark vein in the crystal. Purple light crawled under its surface like disease.
"The bearer tried to command the Heart. Instead of listening."
Torren folded his arms. "So ancient sky magic requires teamwork and emotional maturity. That explains the collapse."
Walliam almost smiled.
Almost.
The Warden turned to him. "The Beacon still remembers. If you touch it, it may show you."
"May?" Torren echoed.
Elaris shot him a look. "We didn't come this far to not press the glowing ancient doom-button."
Walliam stepped forward.
The crystal was cold.
Until his palm met it.
Then—
Light swallowed him.
Not blinding.
Endless.
He stood in a city that wasn't broken.
Aethrune alive.
Bridges of light spanned the sky. People walked across air. The Beacon spire towered whole, glowing with soft blue warmth.
Laughter echoed in the streets.
Peace.
He felt the Heart — not distant, not hungry.
Present.
Balanced.
Then a figure stepped into view.
A man with the same mark on his chest.
Older.
Tired.
The First Bearer.
"You feel it too," the man said, voice layered with a faint echo.
Walliam tried to speak but found he wasn't breathing. He was… witnessing.
"It's beautiful," the man whispered, looking at the sky. "So much order. So much potential."
The Beacon flared.
The sky above shifted — threads of light connecting city, land, sea.
"I can make it perfect," the Bearer said.
The glow sharpened.
Rigid.
The threads tightened.
The people below slowed.
Smiles froze.
Wind stopped.
The Heart's warmth turned sharp, strained.
Walliam felt it like a muscle pulled too far.
"No," he tried to say, but the vision rolled on.
The Bearer forced the alignment, bending the sky like metal.
Cracks appeared.
First small.
Then screaming across the heavens.
The Beacon shattered.
The city fell.
The man looked at his hands in horror as crystal erupted through his skin.
"I only wanted it to stop hurting…"
The world broke around him.
Light collapsed into darkness.
And Walliam fell with it.
He slammed back into his body, gasping.
Elaris caught him before he hit the ground. "Easy—easy!"
Torren was already gripping his shoulder. "Still alive? Blink twice if you didn't just meet a ghost."
Walliam laughed weakly. "He wasn't evil."
The Warden tilted its head. "No. He was afraid."
Walliam pushed himself upright, staring at the dark veins in the Beacon.
"He thought control would fix everything. But the Heart isn't meant to be held."
"What is it meant to be?" Elaris asked.
"Shared," Walliam said.
The word felt right the moment he spoke it.
The mark in his chest pulsed, softer now.
The Warden nodded slowly. "Then you understand what none before you did."
A low rumble shook the plaza.
Crystal dust fell from above.
Torren looked up. "Please tell me ancient cities don't have defense mechanisms."
The rumble grew louder.
The purple veins in the Beacon flared.
From cracks in the ground, shapes began to crawl.
Not shard-beasts.
Not people.
Something between.
Humanoid figures formed from broken crystal and shadow, their bodies flickering like unstable reflections.
Elaris stepped back. "What are those?"
The Warden's voice lowered.
"Echoes. Fragments of those lost when the Beacon fell. Memory twisted into hunger."
One of the Echoes turned its head toward Walliam.
And screamed.
The others followed.
Walliam felt the sound in his bones.
"They recognize the mark," he said.
"Of course they do," Torren growled, drawing his axe. "Why wouldn't haunted crystal ghosts hate us personally?"
The Echoes charged.
The fight was chaos.
Elaris unleashed waves of light, pushing the first Echoes back as Torren met them head-on, his axe shattering crystal limbs in bursts of sparks.
But each broken piece tried to crawl back together.
"They don't die!" Torren shouted.
"They're memories!" Walliam yelled back. "They're stuck!"
One lunged at Elaris. Walliam grabbed it, the mark blazing.
Pain shot through him — not physical, but emotional. Fear. Regret. The last moments of falling.
"I'm sorry," he whispered.
Light poured from his chest.
The Echo stilled.
Its form softened, cracks smoothing, light replacing the purple rot.
Then it dissolved — not violently, but gently, like mist in sunlight.
The others hesitated.
The Warden watched him carefully.
"Do you see?" it said. "Balance."
Walliam moved through the battlefield, touching Echo after Echo, enduring the flood of memories — loss, terror, confusion.
Each one he released dimmed the Beacon's corruption slightly.
Elaris protected his back. Torren held the line.
They fought not to destroy—
But to let go.
Finally, the plaza fell quiet.
The purple veins in the Beacon faded to faint threads.
Walliam collapsed to his knees, shaking.
Elaris knelt beside him. "You okay?"
He nodded weakly. "I think… this is what the Heart actually wants."
The Warden stepped forward.
"The Beacons are waking across the world. Some are worse than this."
Torren sighed. "Fantastic. So we're magical grief counselors now."
Walliam looked at the cracked sky above Aethrune.
For the first time, the fracture didn't feel like a threat.
It felt like a wound waiting to heal.