The divine presence was gone, yet the world had not recovered from its passing.
The Whispering Vale remained bent, as if the sky had pressed a thumb into it and never fully released. Leaves hovered mid-fall. The air tasted faintly of iron and starlight.
Auren stood where the god had vanished, the shard of celestial metal resting in his palm. It was cold—unnaturally so—yet it pulsed in rhythm with his heart, as though recognizing its owner against its will.
Lyra broke the silence first.
"You died," she said softly. Not accusing. Not afraid. "And came back."
Auren closed his fingers around the shard.
"I didn't come back," he replied. "I was sent."
Kael watched him closely, the half-shadow beneath his feet shifting uneasily.
"The Judge wasn't lying," Kael said. "You made a bargain. I felt the resonance when he spoke of it."
Auren exhaled, slow and controlled. He had hoped—foolishly—that this truth might remain buried a little longer.
"When I fell in the First War," he said, "I didn't beg for power. I didn't ask for revenge. I asked for rest."
Lyra's eyes widened slightly.
"Then why—"
"Because rest was denied."
The wind stirred at last, carrying whispers that were not truly sound—echoes of a place beyond death.
Auren's voice lowered.
"The gods offered me a choice. Oblivion… or return.""Return without the curse. Without the endless karmic burden."
He laughed once, quietly. There was no humor in it.
"But balance demands payment. And I was too tired to ask the cost."
Kael's jaw tightened.
"The Third Seal," he said. "It's bound to that cost."
Auren nodded.
"The seal doesn't protect the world.""It protects the truth."
The ground beneath them trembled—not violently, but insistently. Far away, something ancient shifted in its sleep.
Lyra steadied herself.
"What happens when it breaks?"
Auren looked toward the horizon, where the sky still bore a faint scar from the god's descent.
"Then everyone learns what I gave up to be reborn.""And what followed me back."
The celestial shard in his hand reacted suddenly—flaring once, sharp and brief. Images tore through his mind.
A battlefield not of light or shadow—but silence.Four colossal shapes circling a wounded star.Chains forged from vows rather than steel.And beneath them all… a gate sealed not by gods, but by a single knight standing alone.
Auren staggered.
Kael caught him instantly.
"You saw it too, didn't you?" Kael whispered. "The dragons."
Auren recovered his footing, eyes burning brighter than before.
"Not just dragons," he said."Wardens."
Lyra felt a chill crawl up her spine.
"Ancient?"
"Older than the gods' current order," Auren replied. "And bound to me by a vow I don't fully remember."
The earth trembled again—stronger this time.
Somewhere far beyond mortal borders, a massive eye opened beneath stone and fire.
Kael released Auren slowly.
"The Abyss didn't just wait for you," he said. "Neither did the heavens."
Auren straightened, slipping the shard into his armor where it dissolved into light.
"Then they'll both have to wait a little longer."
He turned to Lyra, his expression calm—but resolved.
"From here on, every step we take pulls the world closer to the truth."
He looked ahead, where fate thickened like storm clouds.
"And when the Third Seal breaks…""No one will be innocent of what comes after."
"Some prices are not paid in blood, but in what the world is forced to remember."
~ The Lost Traveler