The path to Lunasveil took them north, out of the Mirrorwood and into the wide, rolling barrens known as the Mourning Fields. The landscape changed gradually—trees gave way to gnarled shrubs and patches of brittle grass, pale under a constant, silver-tinged sky. Wind carved quiet songs through hollows in the earth, and scattered across the hills were remnants of ancient stone circles, half-sunk and moss-worn.
Bram squinted into the distance, his thick brow furrowed. "These stones… they weren't built to mark graves. They contain something."
"Emotion," Lira murmured, drawing her cloak tighter around her. "Old grief. Bound into the land to keep it from devouring those who lived after."
Caelum walked in silence. The weight in his chest had grown heavier since leaving the Twilight Market. It wasn't just the sorrow in the air. It was the memory the Archivist had shown him—the man who broke the pact out of fear and hunger. The man who had believed his suffering outweighed the price.
He understood him.
And that frightened him more than he could admit.
By twilight, they came upon a stone circle that hadn't yet crumbled completely. Thirteen stones, each taller than a man, arranged in a ring around a sunken pit. Vines crawled over the edges, and the grass inside grew strangely silver, touched with frost despite the warmth of the season.
"We'll camp here," Bram said, eyeing the stones. "There's protection in it. I can feel it."
As the fire crackled and the sky dimmed, Lira sat beside Caelum, her gaze drifting from the flames to the ring beyond.
"Do you feel it?" she asked.
"I do."
"It's like something's sleeping under us. Something that dreams in sadness."
Caelum nodded slowly. "This place remembers."
Bram tossed another branch into the fire, then turned to Caelum. "You said the pact was broken by greed. By someone who meant well but chose wrongly. You said it as if you pitied him."
"I do," Caelum said.
"Why?"
"Because I've seen the same fear in every world I've walked through. That moment when a man has nothing left, and believes that pain gives him the right to take." Caelum glanced at the stones. "And because… I don't know that I would've done differently."
Bram studied him in silence. "You're not from here," he said, not as accusation, but fact.
Caelum hesitated. "No. But I am here now."
"Then you owe us truth," Bram said. "Who are you, really?"
Caelum opened his mouth—and closed it again. He didn't know what name to give. Not the one he had worn before, in the world where he first woke. Not the name the stars once whispered.
"I'm learning that answer myself," he said finally. "But I promise you this: I came to heal, not harm. To understand what your people have lost."
Lira reached into her pack and retrieved the shard. It pulsed faintly in her hands, brighter now than it had been since the Market. She stood, walking to the edge of the circle.
"I think it wants something," she said. "This place… it remembers sorrow. Maybe it wants us to witness it."
Caelum rose to join her. Together they stepped into the circle. The moment they crossed the threshold, the air thickened—as though dipped in mourning. The fire's glow dimmed. The grass underfoot stiffened.
Then the runes on the shard flared, casting light over the stones.
A voice rose from the earth. No words, only emotion: aching, distant, raw.
And then the vision came.
They stood in the same circle, long ago. The stones were freshly carved, the grass vibrant green. In the center knelt a woman—a fey healer dressed in robes of starlight. Her arms cradled a dying child, human, his breath faint.
Around her stood others—fey and mortal both. They held hands, heads bowed.
"We offer this sorrow to the earth," the healer whispered, tears falling onto the soil. "Let it not poison what remains."
The child exhaled—and faded.
From his chest rose a single silver light, like a final breath made visible. It hovered above the pit, then descended slowly into the ground. The stones hummed.
And then silence.
The vision ended.
Caelum staggered back, his breath unsteady. Lira clutched the shard tightly, tears running down her cheeks.
"They buried sorrow," she said hoarsely. "So it wouldn't consume them."
Bram stood outside the ring, face pale. "That's why the glimmerlings fade. Why the land mourns. We stopped honoring what was lost."
Caelum's hands trembled. "The pact wasn't just a treaty. It was a promise to carry sorrow with care. To share the burden."
"And we forgot," Lira whispered.
There was a stillness then, not silence, but a hush of acknowledgment.
And beneath their feet, the stone circle pulsed once—gentle, like a heartbeat.
Caelum took the shard from Lira. It had changed again. A new rune had emerged on its surface: a mark for remembrance.
One of the seven truths had returned.
They slept lightly that night, with the stones around them and the grass glowing faintly in the dark. Dreams came—some Caelum's own, others not. He felt the grief of mothers long gone, of friendships fractured, of laughter never heard again. But there was peace in it, too. Not everything that was sad had to end in despair.
In the morning, the frost was gone. The silver grass had turned a soft green. And above them, glimmerlings hovered briefly—watching.
"I think we're being guided," Lira said quietly, staring up at the fragile lights.
Caelum didn't answer. He was already looking north, where the hills curved like a rising wave, and the sky held a stillness that did not belong to morning.
"The next shard is there," he said. "I can feel it."
Bram slung his pack over his shoulder. "Then let's keep walking."
They left the stone circle behind—but its memory walked with them.