The first frost of autumn coated the River Plain with silver light, and Aris walked among the people as she always did, her presence gentle yet unshakable. Children laughed around her, unaware of the faint tremor beneath the earth. But Aris felt it—an almost imperceptible hum, like the heartbeat of something long buried.
By the silver vine monument, she knelt again, brushing soil away from the crown fragments. One glimmered more brightly than the rest, as though eager to be noticed. She hesitated, hand hovering above it.
> "Not yet," she whispered.
A rustle came from the trees behind her. A figure stepped forward, tall and cloaked in shadows. Eldoria's people stopped their work, sensing the unfamiliar presence.
The figure removed its hood, revealing a face both human and otherworldly—eyes like polished obsidian, reflecting the silver light of the monument.
> "You scatter the crown," the stranger said, voice smooth, almost melodic. "But even fragments remember."
Aris rose slowly, calm but wary. "Who are you?"
> "A seeker… or a herald. Call me Liora. I come because the pieces speak. They call to those who still carry echoes of the past."
Aris studied her, noting the subtle shift in the air—the way shadows bent slightly toward Liora, as though recognizing her presence.
> "The crown is broken for a reason," Aris said firmly. "No throne should rise again in Eldoria. We are free of that burden."
Liora's lips curved into a faint, knowing smile. "Freedom… is never without consequence. Even peace demands vigilance."
The wind stirred, and the fragments glimmered brighter, humming in resonance. Aris felt a pull, a tug at her very being. The Dawn Circle, the people, the silver vines—they all seemed to whisper the same warning: something old had begun to awaken.
> "I will not let shadows undo what we've built," Aris said, her voice steady, though her heart raced.
> "Shadows do not ask permission," Liora replied. "They only return. And some of them… are hungry."
The air thickened, and for the first time in years, Aris sensed the weight of the Echo King's lessons pressing down on her. Balance, she realized, would require more than forgiveness or patience. It would demand action—and a courage she had never known she needed again.
As Liora vanished into the forest, the fragments pulsed with light, hinting at stories yet untold. Aris knelt, pressing her palm to the earth.
> "Then we begin again," she whispered.
And somewhere beyond the hills, a faint, unseen howl echoed—not a curse, but the stirring of power waiting to be remembered.