The wind changed.
Not the kind of shift you could feel on your skin, but one that tugged at something deeper—something old. Elara stood at the bow of the Astriferra, fingers tightening on the rail as the horizon bled a strange hue of violet and copper. The skies whispered to her again, only this time, the stars didn't sing—they warned.
"We're close," Cassian murmured, stepping up beside her. "Do you feel it too?"
She nodded. "Like we're being… watched."
"No," Ithiriel corrected, appearing behind them. "Not watched. Remembered."
Cassian looked toward the rippling sky, where an outline began to coalesce—a floating mountain ringed in shattered light. A fortress suspended above the world, its spires cracked and glowing with ancient runes.
The Skyhold of Solgrave.The birthplace of Kaelen. The throne of the House of Sky. The seat of a memory too powerful to die.
The Astriferra bucked as they crossed the threshold of the aetheric storm guarding the skyhold. Waves of air twisted around them, winds shrieking with forgotten names, stars above stuttering like dying embers.
Elara reached into her satchel and pulled out the mirror shard Vesryn had given her. It pulsed softly—no longer showing reflections, but paths. A spectral line pointed toward the inner sanctum of the floating ruin.
As they descended, towers emerged from the clouds—impossibly elegant structures, woven from obsidian and glass. Once, this had been a citadel of visionaries, dreamweavers, and skybinders. Now, it was a tomb.
They stepped off the ship onto the cracked skybridge.
And immediately, the voices began.
"Traitor…""Thief of stars…""She comes again…"
Shadows formed from mist and memory—guardians, not quite ghosts, not quite alive. Their armor bore the sigils of the fallen House of Sky, glowing faintly like dying stars.
Cassian drew his blade, but Elara held up a hand.
"No. Let me speak."
She stepped forward, her voice steady.
"I carry Kaelen's truth."
The guardians froze.
Then, as one, they lowered their weapons and knelt.
At the heart of the Skyhold lay the Hall of the Hollow Crown—a vast, circular chamber open to the heavens, lined with mirrors that no longer reflected.
In its center, a crystalline throne hovered a few feet above the ground, shattered into pieces and suspended mid-collapse. Runes spiraled across the air, locked in place by a forgotten spell.
And inside that cage of stasis—a figure.
Not dead. Not alive.
A man wrapped in tattered robes of light and sky-silver, his hair pale as ice, floating motionless.
Elara approached, heart racing.
"Kaelen," she breathed.
Cassian moved beside her. "He's alive. But he's sealed—trapped in time itself."
Ithiriel walked the perimeter, eyes narrowed. "This isn't just a stasis field. It's a prison. Built with parts of the Pact."
Elara turned the shard in her hand. "Then we break it."
"But if we do," Cassian said softly, "we shatter part of the Pact."
She looked up at him.
"That's the point."
The ritual was dangerous.
To unravel the temporal seal, Elara had to step into the mirrored perimeter and speak the Unseen Name—a word not of this world, but buried in her bloodline. The shard pulsed violently, cutting into her palm.
The runes screamed.
The air cracked.
The throne shook, and Kaelen's body began to descend.
Just as the final glyph unraveled, a tremor surged through the skyhold.
And from above, the Ashen Coil arrived.
Ships of black crystal tore through the clouds, banners of the Coil trailing like shadows.
A voice rang out from the lead vessel.
"Elara Thorne. In the name of the Unraveler King, surrender the Fulcrum."
Cassian stood between her and the sky. "Not a chance."
Elara, bleeding and breathless, looked back at Kaelen—still unconscious, but breathing now.
"We need to move. Now."
Ithiriel cursed. "We won't outrun them in the open."
"We don't need to outrun them," Elara said, eyes hardening. "We wake him."
She stepped back into the circle.
This time, she didn't need a mirror or a relic.
She placed a hand on Kaelen's chest and whispered, not in words, but in memory.
The moment she first saw the stars.The moment she lost her father.The moment she chose to remember, not forget.
The throne cracked.
The fragments fell.
And Kaelen opened his eyes.
They were not human.
They were not mortal.
They were constellations.
He gasped, shuddering, as light exploded from him in every direction. The sky screamed in color. The storm split. The Coil's vessels reeled, some crumbling mid-air.
Kaelen rose, not by gravity, but by sheer will.
His voice was a chord of thunder.
"Who dares claim the Pact without knowing the sky?"
The Coil retreated—for now.
Kaelen descended, weakened but awake, his gaze landing on Elara.
"You," he said hoarsely. "You remembered me."
She nodded. "The stars never stopped."
He reached for her hand.
And smiled.