The vision seared into Kael's mind was not of war or death—but of peace.
He stood upon a balcony overlooking a reborn Asael's Vigil. Sunlight bathed the spires in golden warmth. Laughter echoed from below, children running between the market stalls. Selan leaned against him, her touch light, her eyes alive with something he had thought lost to both of them: hope.
Kael reached for her hand in the vision—
And then it shattered.
Pain lanced through his skull like a spear. The Eye of Varethos flared violently in his hand before sputtering and dimming. A crack had split its surface.
"No—no no no—" Kael muttered, pressing his palm against the artifact as if sheer will could undo the fracture.
Selan knelt beside him, still pale, still breathing hard from the aftermath of battle. "What did you see?"
Kael didn't answer immediately. His hands trembled, and his body still bled from the wound he'd inflicted. "A world... without this. Without the blood, the pain. We lived."
"And?"
Kael clenched his jaw. "It's not this world."
He stood, barely. The field around them was littered with the dead—Purifiers and resistance alike. Smoke curled into the bruised sky. Somewhere behind them, a child's scream echoed from the ruins, snapping Kael back to the reality of what his power had cost.
Selan turned toward the horizon. "More will come. Valen wasn't the end. The Crown will not accept this defeat quietly."
Kael looked down at the Eye. "Then we give them something louder."
Later that night, within the ruins of Azkaris' great library.
The survivors of Kael's faction regrouped under candlelight. Less than two dozen remained—some real, some illusions, fragments of Kael's fractured mind projected with terrifying realism.
A man named Harth—scarred, limping, but loyal—spoke first. "We've lost half our fighters. We need to disappear before the next wave finds us."
"No," Kael said, sitting on what remained of a shattered throne. "We press forward. There's one more relic. One that can silence the Crown forever."
He looked to Selan. "The Threnody Shard. You said your mother once studied its location."
Selan frowned. "That's a legend, Kael. A weapon made to sing the death of gods. If it exists, it's in the Labyrinth of Oras."
"Then we walk into the Labyrinth," Kael said.
Harth laughed bitterly. "That place eats armies."
Kael smiled grimly. "Good thing I don't need armies."
The Labyrinth of Oras,
It took them three days of silence and sandstorms to reach the edge of the desolation. The Labyrinth rose like a broken tooth from the desert—a structure half-buried in time and taller than any cathedral. The air shimmered with heat, but it wasn't sunlight—it was magic, old and cursed, radiating from the stone like breath from a sleeping beast.
Kael approached first.
The Eye of Varethos, still cracked, pulsed faintly in warning. The scythe on his back buzzed with anticipation.
The entrance stood open.
A voice echoed from within.
"Enter, Kael. Leave behind what you were."
Selan grabbed his arm. "That wasn't your voice."
"I know," Kael replied.
He stepped forward.
Inside the Labyrinth,
The walls shifted as they moved, rearranging hallways in response to thought and emotion. Every turn disoriented. Every step echoed like it wasn't alone. Strange whispers followed them—some Kael recognized as voices from his past. Others he didn't know at all.
After an hour, Harth disappeared.
One moment he was beside them. The next, gone—no scream, no trail.
"We're being separated," Selan warned.
Kael nodded. "Then find the shard. No matter what you see, it isn't real."
He touched the Eye.
The world responded.
Suddenly, he was walking through Asael's Vigil again—but untouched by war. His father stood at the gate, arms open. "Come home, son. It's over."
Kael closed his eyes.
And walked past the vision.
Deeper inside, Kael found something waiting: himself.
A mirror-image, dressed in pure white. No scars. No blood. The version of him who had never chosen vengeance. Never become what he was now.
"I can give it all back," the white Kael said. "Your peace. Her love. Your soul."
Kael's scythe twitched.
"I don't need peace," Kael replied.
He lunged.
The two Kaels fought—scythe against silence. Every blow was mirrored. Every spell cast was countered. They were evenly matched until Kael smiled.
"You're me. But you've never killed. Never bled. You can't win."
With that, he forced his own blood to boil with magic. He twisted pain into power. His scythe split the illusion in half.
Silence followed.
A door appeared.
Beyond it, a single chamber—walls of obsidian, floor of glass. In its center hovered the Threnody Shard.
It was a sliver of music given form, vibrating with deadly resonance. Kael approached, drawn like a moth to a storm.
He reached out—
And it spoke.
"One song, one end. Who shall die for your dream?"
Kael whispered, "Me."
He touched it.
And the Labyrinth screamed.
Outside, the world shook.
Selan found herself ejected from the Labyrinth, sprawled across the sand. She looked up in time to see Kael rise from the collapsing ruin—bloodied, glowing faintly, and carrying the Shard.
He looked... changed.
More ghost than man.
She ran to him. "Kael! You're alive—"
He looked at her with eyes no longer his.
"Not for long," he said. "But long enough to end this."
And in the distance, the banners of the Crown approached on the horizon.