Chapter Four: The Offered Memory
"Who is that?" whispered Seon, rising from his mat.
The sound was faint, distant, but clear: a child crying. Not a cry of anger or pain, but a cry of loneliness. The cry of one who knows they are lost and will never be found.
He left his room for the main cavern. It was empty except for Elara, who stood before the Wall of Memories, touching a small piece of ice the color of pale grey.
"You heard it too," she said without turning. "This is Caryn's shard. His first cry after the Stalkers took him."
"How... how can it cry inside ice?"
"Memories don't die. Especially painful ones. They remain... active."
She turned to face him. "Have you decided?"
Seon pulled out his false pendant. "Yes. I will offer my memory."
"Which one?"
"The night I left Elidor. The night I received this scar."
Elara showed no surprise. As if she expected it. "Elidor. The City of Glass. The city of separated feelings."
"How do you know?"
"All pilgrims know of Elidor. But few have seen it. And you... are the first to come from there."
She gave him a new piece of ice. "Hold it. Think of the memory."
Seon closed his eyes. And held it.
---
Elidor. A city of glass, each building glowing with moving colored lights. Red, blue, green, yellow. Each color a separate emotion.
He stood on a glass bridge. His father beside him. "Don't go. If you stay... you can keep your feelings separate. Safe."
"I would rather feel everything together, even if it hurts."
His mother stepped forward, her tears pure blue—unmixed sorrow. "We will leave a mark. Perhaps one day you will remember."
A burning, cold pain on his neck. Then the scar: concentric circles.
"Go to the Road. It is the only place that might understand you."
---
He opened his eyes. The ice shard glowed with a new color: a bluish-green. A mixed color—sorrow and hope together.
He placed it in the wall. It clicked into place.
"Now you are one of us," said Elara. "And your task begins at dawn."
"What about the crying I heard?"
"It will be with you. All pilgrims hear it sometimes. Caryn's memory... asks for its father."
At that moment, something changed.
The heart of the Road beneath their feet beat powerfully. Faster, stronger pulses. And the blue light in the cavern grew brighter.
"What's happening?" Seon asked.
Elara looked at the new ice shard, then at Seon. "The Road... recognizes you. Your memory... stirred something."
From the tunnel, Farell appeared hurriedly. "The heart... is beating abnormally fast. As if it's... waking up."
"Impossible," said Elara. "Not without the true pendant at the Crossroads."
But the beats continued to accelerate. The walls began to tremble.
Then, a voice.
Not the heart's voice. A woman's voice. It came from everywhere and nowhere.
"At last... one has returned."
The voice was sad, ancient, carrying the weariness of millennia.
Seon knew it. The woman's voice from his dream. The voice of the Road itself.
"Who... who are you?" he asked, his voice trembling.
"I am what you made. And what you lost. And what you seek."
Then, suddenly, she appeared.
Not a full body. A transparent shadow, a tall woman with hair white as snow, manifesting in the center of the cavern.
The Frozen were outside the cavern. Dozens of them. They appeared suddenly, passing through the walls as if they were mist.
And the Coldwardens. They entered through the main entrance, their ice-spears bared.
And the Dusk Stalkers. They emerged from the shadows, their black masks swallowing the excess light.
All three factions, in the same place, for the first time.
And the transparent shadow of the woman looked only at Seon.
"My son," she said. "You have returned."