Maelon did not return to the Accord.
Instead, he followed Solin, Vereya, and Revek into the hollows beyond Tel Vareth—a place known in fractured stories as Aerryn's Drift, where the wind carved names into stone and even echoes forgot where they'd come from. Here, no one spoke aloud. Not because they were forbidden, but because the silence felt... kind.
As they walked, Maelon removed his mirror-mask for the first time in years. Beneath it, his face was not cruel or burned or unrecognizable. It was simply human—lined with hesitation, shadowed by choices. He carried no Darkshard yet, but something inside him had yielded.
That's when Umbrael spoke again.
Not as a voice, but as a presence across all four of them—a weightless settling, like memory returning after grief. And with it came a choice.
"You've gathered Shards of Letting Go, of Witness, of Forgiveness, of Recognition," Umbrael whispered through stone and silence. "Now choose—will this become a cause... or a communion?"
It was Revek who answered:
"Light made legacies. We make lanterns—each meant to be passed, not worshiped."
So they built something different.
Not a citadel. Not a temple. A circle—a place called the Hollow Names. A grove etched with every name the Accord had erased. Carved with hands that trembled but endured.
And there, as Maelon kneeled to inscribe the name of the first bearer he silenced long ago, his shard awakened.
It was not grand. It was quiet.
A pale coil of memory drifted from his chest, forming the Shard of Acknowledgment—the sixth in the constellation Umbrael weaved. It shimmered not with power, but presence: a reminder that truth begins when judgment ends.
They placed the shard among the others.
And without fanfare, without prophecy, the Circle of Shadowlight was born.
Not to extinguish the sun.
But to hold a space where it could rest.
Would you like to follow how the Circle's message spreads through fractured lands—or witness the Accord's leaders begin to fracture under the weight of what they've denied? The dark is patient… but no longer still. 🌘