The wind that rolled through Caelondis carried the scent of lilies, cypress, and iron.
It was the day after the burial.
The city's mourning had faded to silence, same for the rhythmic clang of blacksmiths in the distance and the occasional toll of the temple bell. Lyrian stood at the edge of the palace garden, looking out at the city from the stone balcony where he had once shared drinks with Garron, long ago.
The funeral had passed like a dream.
He had not wept then.
He had simply stood, as he always had.
Unmoving.
Unaged.
Unchanged.
But now, as his boots crunched softly over the old flagstones and he approached the Temple of Remembrance, something stirred.
The knights stationed at the gates straightened at once when they saw him.
A silver-cloaked captain bowed deeply.
"Sir Lyrian," he said, reverently.
"Please… this way."
As he walked, murmurs followed.
Not of admiration. Not quite.
But of a kind of awe reserved for stories one half-remembers from childhood—half-lost legends that flicker at the edge of belief.
> "Is that really him…?"
"He doesn't look a day older."
"I thought he died…"
"No, no—he was the elf one. The quiet one."
"My grandmother told me he once stopped a storm with a word."
He didn't acknowledge any of it.
He simply walked the hall.
At the far end of the Temple, flanked by stained-glass windows and golden ivy, stood six statues.
Garron.
Eira.
Alwen.
And three others—stalwart comrades who had long since passed.
And there, beside them, the seventh plinth.
Incomplete.
The figure was partially carved. The robes and staff were there, etched in stone—but the face remained blank. Unfinished.
Forgotten.
Lyrian stared at it for a long while.
"…Still no face," came a voice behind him.
He turned slightly. Alwen stood with her hands folded behind her back, her once-glorious court robes now replaced by a more modest blue cloak. Her hair was streaked with silver.
"I told them forty years ago that you wouldn't sit still long enough for a statue," she said with a dry smile. "Looks like I was right."
Lyrian said nothing. He looked away from the statue.
"…He always believed in honoring the dead," he murmured.
Alwen nodded. "Garron was the kind of man who saw value in remembrance. Even when the world began to forget."
There was a silence between them, thick and strange.
Then she stepped closer, her voice quieter.
"Lyrian… I saw you weep. Last night. At the burial site."
He didn't meet her gaze.
"I cried once before," he whispered. "Nine hundred years ago. When my master died in the mountains."
She nodded softly. "This world has taken much from you. But you always carry it quietly."
From behind them came another voice—gentle, uncertain.
"My father… told me you saved his life, once."
They turned.
A young woman—no older than thirty—stood at the archway, dressed in mourning black. Her eyes were green like Garron's.
She stepped forward, joined by two boys who kept close behind her.
"I'm Rina," she said. "Garron's daughter. And these are his grandsons."
Lyrian gave a soft bow. "He spoke of you often."
Rina stepped closer. "He kept a journal, you know. In the last pages… he wrote about you. How he always regretted that Eira never saw the world she loved again. How he hoped… one day you might."
Lyrian's eyes widened. A silence passed over him like shadow across water.
And then—almost reluctantly—he reached for something in his cloak.
A folded parchment.
Old. Brittle.
He hadn't known it was there.
Not until a few days ago—when the palace bird, bearing a black ribbon, brought news of Garron's death.
He had found it wedged in a hidden seam of his old satchel. Eira's handwriting—faded, but still legible—whispered like a breath from another life:
> "There's a tree at the edge of the world.
They say it can bring back the dead.
I think it's only a story.
But if it's real… promise me you'll see it.
See the world. For both of us."
His fingers trembled around the edges.
"I never knew it was there," he said hoarsely. "All these years…"
Rina stepped back, her eyes shining. "Then maybe now… it's time to fulfill...."
Alwen laid a hand on his shoulder.
"You've wandered the world before with your master, Lyrian. But never for yourself in centuries. Never for anything."
He looked once more at the faceless statue.
At Garron's.
At Eira's.
And then, to the temple doors.
---
The next morning, the bells tolled again.
But this time, Lyrian stood with the knights.
Cloaked. Armed. Ready.
As Garron's casket was lowered into the tombs beneath the temple, Lyrian accompanied it—not as a hero, but as an old friend. One of the last.
And when it was done, and the dust had settled…
He stepped beyond the gates of Caelondis and said his last farewell to Alwen for eternity. She is still alive but if ever returns after finding the tree ....
She would be....
Both of them, knowing the future just nodded their head as if they understood everything without a single word.
After that Lyrain vanished from Alwen's sight for the rest of time.
Alwen just silently whispered to herself that "I want to meet with them one last time too, you know"
(Form Author: I cried after writing this part 😭 Just some dust fell in my eyes)
The sun poured over the plains, and far on the horizon, where the sky met the earth, something ancient stirred.
He looked out at the long road ahead.
And for the first time in centuries, he felt it:
The beginning of something.
> "I'm sorry it took me forty years, Eira," he whispered.
"But I'm ready now."
And with that, Lyrian took his first step on the endless journey—
toward the tree,
toward the past,
and whatever waited at the world's end.
---
End of Chapter 2