The wind whispered warnings as Elira approached the cliffs, where sea met stone and sorrow ran deep. Hidden beneath the craggy hills, veiled by mist and ancient grief, the mouth of the cave waited—dark, breathing, alive with old pain. It was not merely a place. It was a wound.
She descended alone.
The Weeping Blade lit her way, its faint glow steady, casting long shadows that twitched with each step. The further she ventured, the louder the curse became—not as a whisper, but as a scream, a chorus of trapped souls crying out in silence. The air thickened, heavy as mourning, and the walls pulsed with a heartbeat not her own.
This place… this was the root.
The last shard of Eredan-Mir's will, festering, feeding, birthing the painless.
At the cave's heart stood a crystal—obsidian-black, jagged and wrong, suspended in a web of shadows that writhed and whispered. It pulsed with void-light, its rhythm twisted, hollow.
Elira staggered back, the curse inside her recoiling in instinctive terror. Her breath caught. Her skin prickled.
And yet… the Weeping Blade pulsed warm.
Caelen's presence.
His essence, woven into its steel, steadied her.
"You stopped him," she whispered. "You gave everything.
Now I finish what you began."
The shadows surged, twisting into a mockery of form—a tall figure cloaked in darkness, eyes like pits. The echo of Eredan-Mir.
"You cannot sever me, girl," it hissed, voice made of ash and lies. "To destroy numbness is to destroy yourself. Let go. Feel nothing. Be free."
And for a moment, she wavered.
The cave pressed close. The curse pulsed with the weight of a thousand wounds. Her grief carved hollows into her bones. The offer of peace—a world without ache—whispered sweetly, falsely.
But then she saw him.
Caelen. His eyes—tired, kind, unyielding.
His voice, not spoken, but remembered:
"Choose pain. It means you're still alive."
Elira gripped the blade, her hands shaking.
"No," she breathed, and her voice sharpened like steel.
"I choose pain. Because pain is proof. Because kindness demands it. Because he believed I could."
And she struck.
The Weeping Blade blazed like dawn.
It plunged into the crystal.
The scream that followed was inhuman—not rage, not defeat, but grief finally felt. The void shattered, the crystal fracturing into light, into memory, into ash. Souls burst free, their agony raw, ripping through Elira like fire.
She fell to her knees, gasping.
Every emotion seared her from within—fear, love, betrayal, joy, sorrow.
But she did not break.
She bore it, as Caelen once did.
She gathered their pain, not to hoard it, but to hold it. To honor it.
The cave quieted.
The shadow was gone.
But the curse… it remained.
Not as a burden she feared, but as a scar—a mark of all she'd chosen to feel.
When she emerged into the pale light of morning, her body trembled, her soul frayed. But her steps were steady.
The war was never truly over.
But neither was hope.