CThe road ahead was etched in twilight, a ribbon of earth winding through fields slowly awakening from their scars. The air was thick with the scent of rain-soaked grass and rebirth. Birds sang again in Aerthalin—cautious, tentative melodies that hadn't dared to return in years. But now, with every step Elira, Caelen, and Sel took, the world seemed to breathe again.
Elira walked at the front, the Weeping Blade sheathed across her back. Though her strength had returned, the weight of all she'd lived—real and illusion—still settled on her shoulders like dusk. She glanced back every so often at Caelen, not because she feared he'd vanish again, but because she still couldn't believe he hadn't.
And behind him walked Sel, the girl with a firestorm of curiosity and silence braided into her soul. She was different, Elira knew—wrought from trauma and mystery. But there was something in the way Sel watched the world, how she carried a seedling from the garden temple wrapped in cloth. She reminded Elira of herself in the early days—before the sorrow had shaped her, and before Caelen's presence had softened it.
"We'll make camp before the ridge," Caelen said, his voice low. "There's a brook there. Fresh water. Shelter under the cliffs."
Elira nodded, her eyes catching the faintest glow as the sun kissed the horizon. "Good. The world feels… thinner tonight."
Sel looked up from her quiet steps. "You sense it too?" she asked.
Caelen turned slightly, his expression serious. "Something watching?"
Sel shook her head. "No. Something remembering."
They camped beneath the cliffs, the fire between them casting gold across stone. Elira passed rations between them, but her eyes kept drifting to the sky. Stars had begun to pierce the veil of dusk—too many to name, too many to carry in memory. Caelen followed her gaze.
"You're quiet tonight," he said.
Elira exhaled, rubbing her palms together before the fire. "I keep thinking about the dream world. Not just what I lost, but what I created. The monuments. The children who remembered. The garden. It was all born from grief, but it… mattered."
He shifted closer, his warmth grounding. "Just because it wasn't real doesn't mean it wasn't true."
She blinked. "What do you mean?"
Caelen reached toward the flames, letting his fingers feel the heat without fear. "The garden wasn't there. But the feeling it gave you? The vision of what the world could be? That was your truth. You pulled it from the fire of your grief. That kind of truth doesn't die when the illusion breaks."
Across the flames, Sel listened, hugging her knees to her chest. She hesitated, then spoke. "In the garden, I saw someone too. A woman. She called me by a name I didn't remember. She told me I'd be free one day."
Elira and Caelen exchanged a glance.
"Who was she?" Elira asked gently.
Sel shook her head. "I don't know. But it felt… safe."
The fire crackled between them. Caelen leaned forward. "Maybe that's the curse's last gift," he murmured. "Not pain. Not power. But clarity. Showing us what we truly long for."
Elira reached across the fire and took Sel's hand in hers. "You belong with us now. And we'll make sure whatever that vision was—it becomes a future."
Sel's lips twitched in the hint of a smile. "I believe you."
They rested that night with their backs to the fire and their faces to the stars. In the silence, Elira felt Caelen's fingers brush hers once, a quiet tether. He didn't need to say anything. His presence was the vow.
But far to the south, beyond the reach of firelight and starlight, something stirred in the deep woods.
An old pain. A name long buried. A ruin once thought lost.
And it, too, remembered.