The northern wind smelled of iron and ash.
The ruins of the gods stretched as far as sight could surrender.
Kael Dren walked among the fallen columns of the temple, the sword wrapped in black bandages across his back.
No bells, no hymns, no priests remained — only echoes of broken prayers that time had long forgotten to answer.
Each step cracked over the dust of ancient bones.
The air burned with the memory of divine lightning, a whisper still trembling beneath the stone, as if the world itself had not yet finished dying.
He had sworn never to enter a temple again —
but men without oaths are those most in need of refuge.
He hadn't slept for three days, hunted by the Pure Flame's trackers.
His right arm — where the Mark of the Echo spread like roots of obsidian — pulsed with a pain not of the flesh but of the soul.
Each spasm tore out a memory: a name, a laugh, an image of his son he could no longer piece together.
The temple was half-buried in sand.
Inside, a circle of decapitated statues guarded a blackened altar.
Upon it — a child.
Naked, covered in dust, murmuring in a dead tongue.
Kael froze.
The boy's words were an echo of the past — a song of the ancients that no one should remember.
The voice was so sweet it hurt, as if the sound itself bled.
When Kael took a step closer, the child opened his eyes: irises of liquid silver, like the moon reflected in dark water.
"Who are you?" Kael asked.
The child looked at him without fear.
"You called me."
Kael felt something pierce through him.
Not a blow — a void, a silent tearing.
Images burst from his mind and crumbled like ash:
his wife's face, the scent of morning bread,
the voice that had once called him father.
Everything unraveled beneath the touch of that creature.
He staggered back, gasping.
"What… are you doing to me?"
"I'm returning what you gave," said the child.
"You offered me your memories — so that I could live."
Kael tried to scream, but only a breath escaped.
The boy spoke with an ancient calm, far too vast for his small body.
And then Kael understood: he was not standing before a human being.
The Echo breathed within him.
The last sleeping god had opened an eye.
The sky roared.
In the distance, the hunters drew near — silhouettes with torches and spears gleaming like teeth.
The Order had followed his trail to the world's end.
Kael looked at the boy, then at the sword bound upon his back.
For years, he had slaughtered bearers of the Echo.
Burned them, tortured them, purified them in the name of a faith he no longer believed in.
And yet before him stood the living image of all he was meant to destroy…
and he could not raise his hand.
"You have to run," he murmured.
The child tilted his head.
"If I run, you'll come after me."
"I won't."
"Everyone returns," he whispered. "Even gods."
Kael knelt, pressing his forehead to the cold stone.
The Echo pulsed through his flesh, calling him by his true name —
the one he had forgotten centuries ago.
From the altar rose a dim radiance,
a gray glow that was neither light nor shadow.
The child extended his hand.
Kael took it.
In that instant, he saw everything —
the wars of the dawn age, the burning of the sky,
the gods dying one by one while men prayed for their silence.
And he understood the original sin of Ereval:
it was not the gods who abandoned men —
it was men who devoured the gods, to make themselves eternal.
The light faded.
Kael was alone once more,
but the child slept in his arms.
The storm arrived with the hunters.
Shouts. Fire. Steel.
Kael emerged from the temple with the boy beneath his cloak and the sword still wrapped.
One of the inquisitors recognized him.
"Dren! At last we've found you, traitor!" he roared.
Kael looked at the man — at the flame dancing upon his torch.
He remembered how many times he had spoken those same words himself.
Traitor.
Heretic.
Pure.
He unwrapped the sword.
The bandages fell away like dark petals.
The blade was a shard of petrified light,
and as it touched the air, it began to absorb everything:
heat, sound, soul.
The inquisitor had no time to scream.
His body collapsed into dust,
and the wind scattered him among the ruins.
Kael stood still, staring at the blade pulsing like a heart.
The child watched without blinking.
"What are you?" Kael asked, voice breaking.
"I am what remains when all ends," said the child.
"A god?"
"A memory."
When night fell, the temple burned like a dying star.
Kael walked away, the child in his arms,
as the fire devoured the foundations of the past.
The Echo murmured in his mind words he could not understand —
promises of power and forgiveness.
He knew none of it was real.
But he also knew he could not leave the child behind.
"Good and evil died with the gods," he thought.
"All that remains is necessity."
And with that certainty, he vanished into the horizon of ash —
toward the desert, where the voices of heaven still begged for an end.