The garden had become a battlefield of fire and memory.
Where blossoms once whispered peace, now the very air pulsed with echoes of war.
Names flew like blades, cutting through silence and lies alike.
Each lanternbearer that rose from the ground did not rise to haunt—but to fight for remembrance.
Amira led them—not as queen, not as prophetess—but as a woman who had dared to listen.
Elias fought beside her, blade forged from the hollow light, flickering wildly between blue and gold. He moved like a spirit unshackled. His every strike burned not just flesh, but forgetting.
Taru faced the Seven. One by one, their masks cracked beneath his relentless fury. And with each fracture, a memory screamed out into the sky—some ancient, some stolen.
But it was Amira who faced the Architect.
He floated just above the lantern roots, eyes glowing with a fire that refused to dim.
"You think memory is light," he said, stepping toward her. "But it's only weight.
And the world bends beneath it.
I tried to lift it—
You buried it."
Amira's lantern pulsed.
"You burned it."
Their flames collided.
The Architect's power was vast—centuries of names twisted into fuel.
But Amira's light was rooted in truth. In the pain of remembrance. In the love of lost things.
As their power clashed, the garden around them changed.
Blossoms burst into singing ash, not screams.
Each petal spun a tune, delicate and strong, like lullabies long unsung:
"For the ones who wept,
For the ones who waited,
For the ones who were never named…
We remember."
The Architect stumbled, eyes wide.
"No… no, you cannot—"
But Amira stepped forward, crown aflame, lantern lifted high.
"You are not memory.
You are refusal.
And your time has passed."
She plunged the lantern into the ground.
Light surged through the soil. Through names. Through bones.
And then—the roots sang.
The Architect screamed—not from pain, but from being known.
And in that final cry, he scattered like ink into the wind.
The Seven dropped their masks, now just hollow men, blinking beneath unfamiliar skies.
Silence followed.
Then the Last Lantern bloomed—one final time.
Its flame turned violet.
Neither mourning, nor fury.
But peace.
Elias took Amira's hand.
Taru knelt before the lantern's base, whispering a prayer for those who had led him here.
And around them, the garden slowly healed.
The war of the flame and the forgotten was over.
But their pilgrimage was not.
Because now, with the crown reforged, the light restored, and the names returned to the wind…
They would carry the ashes that sing to the furthest edges of the world.
So no name would ever burn alone again.