The inn breathed around them with the weight of held emotion. Though the hearth crackled and candles burned low, warmth felt like a memory.
Lira sat by the window, arms wrapped around her knees, watching the streets through warped glass. Outside, the townsfolk drifted like smoke—quiet figures wrapped in layers, faces upturned without hope or need. They didn't speak. They didn't even look at each other.
Behind her, Bram paced. He hadn't touched his food. He hadn't sat down since they returned from the square.
Caelum sat on the floor between them, his back against the wall. The shard on his chest pulsed faintly—not in power, but in rhythm, like a heart trying to remember how to beat. He stared at his hands. They trembled, not from fear, but from a dawning recognition: that to understand sorrow was not to fix it—but to hold it, and not let go.
"They can't live like this," Lira whispered, finally breaking the silence. "It's not life."
Bram turned to her, voice raw. "Then what? One of us stays behind forever? Becomes that… thing? A ghost chained to this place?"
"It wouldn't be you," she said. "We'd never let you."
"You think I wouldn't volunteer?" he shot back. "You think I couldn't—"
"You would." She stood, facing him now. "That's why you shouldn't. You'd throw yourself away because you think it's your job to protect everyone. But that's not what they need."
He clenched his jaw, turning away.
Lira softened. "It's not about one person. That was their mistake."
She crossed the room and knelt beside Caelum, who hadn't spoken, but hadn't looked away either. The shard's light reflected in her eyes.
"You feel it too," she said softly. "Don't you?"
Caelum nodded.
"I think… I think there's another way."
—
They found the shrine near the center of town, half-sunken in moss and ivy. A circle of leaning stones surrounded a weathered altar, carved with old fey glyphs. The air was colder here, and stiller. Even the wind held its breath.
The altar's basin was dry. Dead leaves curled inside it like forgotten offerings.
Lira ran her fingers along the rim, brushing away the debris, revealing faint lettering.
"Let sorrow be lessened, not lost. Let it be carried, not cast away. One heart may break—but three may bend."
Bram knelt beside her, reading it aloud.
"They were never meant to give it up," Lira said. "They were meant to carry it. Together."
Caelum's hand touched the stone. The shard on his chest pulsed, warm now. Familiar. The symbols on the altar flickered faintly in return, as though recognizing him—not as a god, but as someone willing.
A voice drifted behind them.
"You found it."
The old woman from the square stood there, a bundle of wood in her arms. Her face looked different in the shrine's light—less hollow, more human.
"This is where the first Heartbearer stood," she said. "Before we made the wrong choice."
Bram stepped forward. "What really happened?"
She set down her bundle gently.
"We lost too many in the plague. Children. Lovers. Parents. Our grief felt endless. So when the fey came—offering relief—we took it. We gave them our sorrow… and they took everything else with it."
Her eyes filled with something close to pain. "But the first Heartbearer had offered something else. A binding ritual. One that would share sorrow instead of burying it. The town refused. Too afraid. Too selfish."
"So the fey honored the contract," Lira said. "But warped it."
"They always do."
Caelum stood now, stepping between them. His hand hovered over the basin, and when the shard touched the stone, the altar bloomed to life.
Light flared along the glyphs. The basin filled—not with water, but with memory. Faces flickered in the surface—laughing, weeping, dying. Children lost. Spouses buried. Songs once sung at nightfall. It was all there. The town's grief, trapped like smoke in glass.
A whisper rose from the stone.
Three may bend…
Lira reached out first, without hesitation. Her fingers touched the surface, and the basin pulsed.
Bram hesitated. But Caelum turned to him and, for the first time since their journey began, touched his shoulder—not as a guide, not as a god, but as a friend.
"You don't have to carry it alone," Caelum said—not with voice, but with his gaze, his presence. The words were shared, not spoken.
Bram placed his hand beside Lira's.
Last, Caelum set his fingers to the surface.
The basin glowed with a soft hum, not searing, not painful. It was warmth. Weight. Sorrow, yes—but sorrow shared. The grief poured through them like wind through trees—bending, not breaking.
Visions came: the town's loss, the pain of decades locked away. But now, with each of them holding a part, it was manageable. Bearable.
The altar flared once, then dimmed.
Behind them, the town exhaled.
A boy cried in the street. A woman dropped her bucket and screamed—not in fear, but in joy. Laughter broke through like sunlight between clouds.
People emerged from their homes, blinking. Eyes that had once been dull now shimmered with tears—real tears. A man knelt in the square and wept into his hands.
And in the shrine, the basin emptied. But not into nothing. Into them.
Caelum stumbled back, breathless.
Lira leaned against Bram, eyes wide.
The old woman bowed her head. "You did what we couldn't."
"No," Lira said. "We just… helped carry it."
—
That night, the stars returned over the nameless town. The houses still sagged. The sign still hung crooked. But the silence had changed. It was full now. With voices. With music. With life.
And Caelum, for the first time since arriving in this world, felt the shard inside him not as a burden, but a bond.
A piece of sorrow he would never forget. And never regret.