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—Aelric Stormrune—
The storm had calmed.
Aelric stood on the cliff's edge, wind tousling his ash-blond hair, cloak flaring behind him like a banner of dusk. Below, the spires of Narethil shimmered faintly in the illusion-laced mists, its floating citadel hovering above the land like a crown no longer claimed.
In his hand, Tempestheart pulsed—a blade of forged myth and skyfire, its edge alive with whispering winds. It had once sung only in battle. Now, it thrummed with warning.
"He's returned," Aelric murmured, the words tasting like thunder about to break.
He had known it the moment the petals began to fall.
Ash, soft and curling, descending like snow—but not lifeless. Each petal shimmered with pale fire, shaped not by nature but memory. He caught one on his gauntlet. It pulsed with a vision—one of a council chamber, of Kaelith's voice raised in sorrow and fury, of fear writ on once-proud faces.
Aelric crushed it before it could draw him in further.
Behind him, his small company waited. Not soldiers, not yet. Wanderers, oathkeepers, remnants of shattered banners. They followed not his name, but the weight of what he carried: justice sharpened by loss.
"It's a vision-curse," said Maelis, his elven second, scanning the sky with narrowed eyes. "Only he could craft something like this. He's bleeding memory into the city."
"No," Aelric said, eyes still on the drifting ash. "He's not bleeding. He's reminding them."
He turned, Tempestheart gleaming faintly in the twilight. "We go at dawn. The Circle won't stop until the heart of Narethil forgets how to beat. And I will not let the innocent pay for the guilt of the powerful."
Maelis nodded. "And if Kaelith stands in your way?"
Aelric looked skyward, where the petals fell from nothing and nowhere.
"Then I remind him who I am."
—Kaelith—
Above it all, cloaked in illusions and light-bending shadow, Kaelith stood where the Council once summoned stars to dance. His sanctuary, once bathed in reverence, now shimmered with false sun and perfumed sorrow.
The petals fell from the sky like tears that refused to burn. Every flake a fragment of memory twisted into beauty. An apology from the past given form too late.
He watched them drift across the city, a vision-curse carefully woven to unravel minds with kindness. No fire. No blade. Only remembrance, endless and inescapable.
Below, the High Council screamed in silence.
In their chambers, the curse had taken hold. Each of them now relived the trial that damned him—again, and again, and again. Except now, the roles shifted. Their words faltered. Their fear grew louder. They saw not Kaelith the traitor, but themselves reflected in his sorrow. They saw the moment they chose comfort over truth.
And still, they could not wake.
The Lunavynx perched beside him, tail flicking lazily. "You could have killed them."
"Death is a mercy," Kaelith replied, soft and cold. "Let them live with what they buried."
He turned his gaze outward, past the veil of illusion, to where the storm gathered on the horizon. He could feel him—that pull in the air, that gathering pressure.
Aelric Stormrune had arrived.
"Will you face him?" the Lunavynx asked, its purr barely hiding the anticipation.
"He is the last dream they still believe in," Kaelith said. "And dreams…" His golden eyes flared, a low shimmer rising from his hands, "…are meant to be broken."
The petals continued to fall.
And in the heart of Narethil, the past remembered.
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