The return to Varn was not triumphant.
No cheering crowds, no songs of valor, no banners fluttering in the wind. Only stillness.
Heavy, unnatural stillness.
Ael and his companions rode through the northern gate, the twin blades wrapped in linen and strapped across his back—Whisper humming in silence, Echo pulsing with quiet sorrow.
Even the air in the city felt wrong. Too thick. Too… expectant.
Queen Altheira's expression hardened the moment her boots touched the cobbled road. "Where are the guards?"
Lyra dropped from her mount and checked a nearby watchtower. "No corpses. No signs of battle. Just... absence."
Elric raised his hand, casting a simple wide-range detection spell.
It fizzled halfway through.
He paled.
"That shouldn't happen. Something's—something's disrupting the weave."
Then they heard it.
Not a scream.
A sob.
High above.
They looked skyward—and saw it.
Floating in the clouds, its form shifting like vapor, was a storm with a face.
Not metaphorically. Not poetically.
A literal face.
Grief-stricken.
Eyes closed.
Tears falling as rain.
Ael stared at it, breath held. "That's not just weather."
"No," Altheira whispered. "That's a Guardian."
—
The Sky-Guardians were myths.
Protective spirits bound to Varn since the Age of Glass. Most believed they were long dormant—sealed away when the ancient kings died out and the capital fell to chaos.
But something had woken this one.
And it was weeping.
Each tear from the sky crashed into rooftops like a hammer, shattering tiles, splintering wood. Lightning arced across the city—blinding, angry.
But it wasn't attacking.
Not yet.
Elric ducked beneath a collapsed archway. "Why would it cry?"
Arienne replied, "Guardians are linked to emotion. To legacy. If this one is awake, it's responding to a wound in the soul of the city."
Ael clenched his jaw. "The Choir."
Lyra nodded. "They must've left something behind."
Queen Altheira cursed under her breath. "If the Guardian fully manifests, it will destroy Varn in its grief. It won't know the difference between enemy or ally."
"We stop it, then," Ael said.
Elric gave him a sharp look. "You want to fight a Sky-Guardian?"
"No," Ael answered.
"I want to reach it."
—
The Citadel of Tears stood at the city's heart—a palace of crystal spires and steel bridges. It was once a place of hope. Now, it was a conduit for the storm.
Lightning struck its highest tower again and again.
That's where the Sky-Guardian wept from.
Arienne whispered, "It's coming from inside."
As they ascended the tower, the pressure increased.
Grief bore down on them.
The weight of thousands of souls mourning all at once.
Ael felt their deaths. Their regrets. Their dreams left unfinished. Their love unspoken. He felt everything.
And yet… he didn't collapse.
Not anymore.
He had felt something like this before.
That first night in the cave, holding a crying child in a burning village.
The first time his heart ached.
The beginning of his becoming.
At the summit, they found it.
A body.
Small. Fragile.
A child, no older than seven, wrapped in ceremonial cloth—eyes wide, tear tracks frozen on pale cheeks.
In her tiny hands was a pendant.
A Choir sigil.
A sacrifice.
Ael knelt. "They used her grief to awaken the Guardian."
Altheira's voice broke. "Not just awaken it. Bind it."
As they watched, the storm-face in the sky opened its eyes.
Golden, luminous.
And utterly lost.
The voice that followed was vast, yet unmistakably human.
"Where is she…?"
"Why is she gone?"
"I was meant to protect… not weep…"
The wind shrieked.
Buildings trembled.
Ael stood.
And stepped toward the storm.
—
The others shouted his name. Lyra reached out, but something—powerful—held them back.
Ael walked alone, each step lifting him higher as if the storm itself pulled him in.
He wasn't afraid.
Because he understood now.
Emotion wasn't weakness.
It was connection.
And this Guardian was mourning the loss of the only soul it had bonded with since awakening.
He rose above the city, the wind roaring around him, his cloak snapping like wings.
The Guardian looked at him.
A face of vapor and light.
Eyes full of agony.
Ael held out the pendant.
"She was scared," he said softly. "And she was strong. She gave her soul to wake you. To protect the city."
A pause.
Then the wind quieted.
The rain slowed.
Ael took a deep breath. "But she wouldn't want you to destroy it."
He stepped closer, standing on nothing but air.
"She wanted someone to remember her."
The storm blinked.
The clouds shifted.
A giant tear of light traced across the sky—and then, gently, the Guardian began to unravel.
Not in death.
But in release.
A breeze caressed Ael's cheek as the face faded into stars.
And the city exhaled.
—
Later, in the quiet aftermath, Ael stood atop the Citadel with the pendant in hand.
Lyra approached from behind. "That… was something else."
He nodded. "She didn't need power. Just someone to listen."
Elric sighed. "We should prepare. If the Choir planted that… there might be others."
Ael turned to them, eyes no longer cold.
Just steady.
"No more running."
"We find every last seed of their madness."
"And we burn it out."