The Thornfields of Kareth had changed.
Once a graveyard of cinder and sorrow, the land now stirred with life. Emerald grasses rippled beneath golden sun, and slender trees stretched skyward, eager to reclaim what war had stolen. Wildflowers bloomed where ash once ruled. But as Elira stood at the valley's edge, cloak stirring in the breeze, her heart knew what the eye could not see.
The curse whispered.
Faint. Familiar. Wrong.
Beneath the roots and rebirth, something stirred.
She clutched the Weeping Blade, its runes glowing faintly—like breath on glass. It had not burned this way since Caelen's last battle. Since his blood sealed the light into the heart of the world. The blade was restless. And so was she.
A voice called out across the clearing. "Elira?"
She turned to see a young man, sun-worn and dust-marked, approaching. His eyes, though tired, shimmered with recognition—and something deeper.
"You're the one who carries his story," he said, breath caught. "The one who—"
"Who loved him," she finished softly. "Yes."
The words landed like truth in the grass between them.
"I've come not just to speak," she continued, her voice steady as stone. "But to warn. The numbness Caelen died to stop—it's spreading again. Quiet children. Too quiet. No tears. No pain."
His face fell. "We thought it was mercy," he whispered. "A sign that the curse had finally lifted."
"No," she said, eyes hard. "It's the same rot. The same silence Eredan-Mir promised. And it's returning."
By nightfall, settlers had gathered in the makeshift council hall—an old barn lit by lanterns and firelight. Elira stood before them, the blade at her back, Caelen's legacy in her bones.
"He gave his life not to destroy pain," she said, her voice ringing through the room, "but to preserve the right to feel it. To grieve. To hope. To love. That is what makes us human. That is what he protected."
A hush followed. Then: nods. Murmurs. Tears.
One by one, the villagers stepped forward—pledging to teach their children not to avoid pain, but to hold it. To feel fully. To remember.
At dawn, Elira knelt in the heart of the village and planted the seedling—taken from the grove of names carved into living trees. She pressed her palm to the soil, her voice a whisper. "For you, Caelen. May this place never forget."
But that night, as stars blinked overhead, the curse pulsed in her chest like a warning bell.
Far to the east, a shadow stirred.
She saw it in dream-vision—a village cloaked in silence. A child with hollow eyes. A voice, not Caelen's, but darker, colder, whispering through the trees.
She woke with a gasp, hand on the blade.
"I'll find it, Caelen," she whispered into the dark, rising to her feet. "I'll find the echo. And end it. For good."
The Thornfields bloomed behind her, bright with memory. But her path led onward, where no kindness had yet bloomed, and where the silence waited to rise again.