Smoke lingered long after the enemy was gone. It clung to the valley like a memory that refused to leave.
The morning after the battle, I walked through the temple grounds in silence. Broken stones littered the courtyard. Scorch marks stained the gates where the veil had bloomed. Ash coated everything in a thin, gray shroud.
But beneath the ruin, there was something new in the air.
Not fear.
Not despair.
Song.
It started low—barely audible. A woman sweeping debris hummed a tune under her breath, soft and trembling. A stonemason nearby picked it up, then another. Before long, the courtyard echoed with the same melody that had risen from the fires the night before. They didn't know the words yet. But faith doesn't need language. It needs memory.
We buried the dead of both sides at midday. Some of the Shard soldiers had laid down their arms and refused to return to their commanders. They sat apart, silent, watching us as if expecting punishment. Instead, I told them to eat.
One of my own men spat in the dirt. "They came to kill us."
"Yes," I said. "And now they're here. Still breathing. If the gaze remembers us, it remembers them too."
He didn't understand. Not yet. But faith is slower than flame. It spreads quietly, like roots under stone.
By dusk, the people had begun to gather without being asked.
They carried twin torches—one wrapped in golden cloth, the other in dark silver. These were not divine fires. They were mortal ones—lit by calloused hands, trembling with exhaustion. But as the torches burned side by side in the temple courtyard, something happened.
The flames leaned toward each other, their tips touching just enough to spark a faint spiral of light between them. Gasps rippled through the crowd. Someone whispered, "It's like the veil."
I stepped forward, raising my hands. "Then let this be our flame. Not to summon the gaze… but to remember it."
The torches were placed before the unfinished dais. For the first time, we built something together that was not wall or weapon. A ritual born not from divine command—but mortal hands reaching toward the sky.
The runes came next.
A group of artisans approached me shyly, holding stone tablets and chisels. "Prophet," one of them said, "last night… when the flames rose… we saw shapes. In the light. Patterns we can't forget."
They sketched them into the stone before my eyes—simple curves, spirals, lines interlocking like breath and silence. They were not exact copies of Kaelíth's runes. But they felt right.
We carved them into the temple walls that night. One by one, men and women came forward to leave their mark—not because they were ordered to, but because they wanted their hands to remember what their eyes had seen.
Above Elyndris
High in the luminous spires of Elyndris, Seravyn watched the valley burn with mortal light. The twin flames below reflected off the dawn rivers of her realm, shimmering across her radiant wings. Her laughter rang like chimes through the air.
"They imitate," she whispered. "Little stars, trying to become suns."
Within Nethralis
Across the dark divide, Nyxara stood among the silent mists. The mortal ritual was faint here, but even silence feels echoes. Her gaze was still, cold, thoughtful. She did not laugh. She did not sneer. She watched.
The mortals had seen their Father once.
And now, they were trying to speak back.
That night, when the crowd dispersed and the flames burned low, I stayed behind in the courtyard. The new runes caught the torchlight and shimmered faintly, as if alive.
I knelt before them and closed my eyes.
The air grew colder.
A whisper brushed the back of my mind—not like a command, but like the turning of a great page in an unseen book.
"Stone remembers what flesh forgets."
My breath caught. It wasn't the same thunderous presence as before. It was softer, closer. Like Kaelíth wasn't watching from afar this time… but through the stone itself.
And for the first time, I didn't feel small.
I felt woven.
That night, the valley did not sleep. Songs rose, hesitant and uneven, but alive. Runes were carved. Flames burned. And though the stars remained distant, it felt as though something was listening.