In the silence after finding Orion, Velastra remained kneeling in the void of Sainara, the sacred candle clutched to her chest. Its blue flame still glowed, but there was a tremble in its heart now—a flicker of something darker at its edges.
A warning.
Time is running.
She rose to her feet, her limbs trembling with exhaustion and urgency. Around her, the soul-lights pulsed in their endless dance, silent as snowfall. The candle's flame tugged gently, but no clear resonance stirred within her bones.
Screams were begging her to take them, but none of them were Cael's.
She began to walk again, her steps heavier now. She passed soul after soul, some glowing bright with memory, others dim as dying embers. None of them stirred her heart. None of them called to her.
"Call my name," she whispered, again and again. Her voice cracked. Her throat ached.
She tried listening as she had before—with her soul, not her ears. But there was nothing. No note. No vibration. Just silence.
She dropped to her knees and sobbed. Her tears fell into the emptiness, disappearing like smoke. Time continued to slip past her fingers like water, and the candle began to dim. The blue faded further. Purple now. A soft throb of crimson crept up from the wick.
"Please, Cael," she whispered. "Call my name."
But the silence remained.
And then, a thought.
"Is this your way of running away from me?" she said aloud, her voice trembling. "The quietest in the room. The one who said the least but felt the most."
She stopped searching for voices.
She searched instead for silence.
She stood and opened herself to the void—not to sound, not to light, but to stillness. A place within the noise where everything went still. She walked deeper, further from the bright clusters of soul-lights, into the dim reaches of Sainara, where fewer lights glowed.
And there, she felt it: a hush so complete it pressed against her skin like velvet. A silence so profound, it became a presence.
She turned.
Floating a short distance away was a soul-light so faint it barely shimmered. Pale as moonlight on snow. There were no eyes in this one. No movement. Just stillness.
She approached slowly.
The candle's flame stilled. No thread of connection reached toward the soul. No pull. No glow.
"Cael," she said, her voice a breath.
The soul answered in glowing light.
She picked it, but was late. The candle shuddered.
Its flame flared red.
The warmth around her shifted. The realm began to fracture. Cracks splintered through the fabric of Sainara, not with sound, but with the terrible silence of breaking. The lights around her wailed with voices.
And as the surroundings crumble, millions of grief, anger, and desperation echo.
The unheld souls screamed within her.
Their voice is getting louder like they are rushing toward her, drawn to the candle's turning light.
"Take me!" one presence cried in her mind.
"Let me be seen!" another howled.
Hands of light reached out, ghostly and trembling.
However, her scream is the loudest. "Take his soul, burn it. PLEASE! NOT YET!" She lunged for it, candle outstretched, trying to force the connection.
"Please," she whispered.
Yet unmoved, the candle refused.
The red flame surged, and a barrier of heat pulsed outward, rejecting the soul.
Velastra screamed.
She tried again, pushing Cael's soul towards the red candlelight.
But it would not burn blue.
It would not open.
"Please!" she sobbed. "I found him! That's enough, isn't it?"
Still no response.
The world began to tear—the space around her distorted. Light spun into a vortex of unraveling stars. Her limbs grew heavy. Her eyes blurred. Her body, no longer hers, began to unravel.
The candle was pulling her back.
"No! Not yet! Just one more second!" she cried, fighting against the pull.
She reached for Cael's soul again, fingers stretching toward the quiet light, the one that didn't scream, didn't beg. The one that waited.
And then—
Darkness.
The soul slipped away as the last thread of light snapped.
She was torn from Sainara.
When Velastra awoke, the stone circle spun above her like a ceiling of broken constellations. Her body lay sprawled on the ritual floor, breath ragged. The sacred candle rested in her arms.
Its flame was pale again. Blue. But small.
Inside the flickering heart of the flame, a soul shimmered faintly.
Orion.
Only him.
Velastra clutched the candle and wept.
The ritual had ended.
And Cael had been left behind.