The golden light flickered within the lantern, not steady, but searching—like a heartbeat remembering how to beat.
Nima stood motionless, its glow dancing across her skin. Around her, the Echo Vault held its breath.
"You are the bridge," Morya had said.
But bridges are walked upon. Used to cross from one shore to another.
And sometimes… they collapse under the weight of what others refuse to carry.
That night, Nima stood on the edge of the black cliffs, the lantern pulsing in her palm. Below, the sea churned restlessly—as though something beneath was waking, and it remembered her.
Morya approached in silence, as always.
"There is one path to restore the forgotten," she said. "Place the lantern in the Tidehold Temple. Let it shine. It will recall the lost names—and with them, those bound to them."
Nima looked up. "And what will happen to the world as it is?"
Morya's silence was answer enough.
The peace Amira forged—the fragile balance between the lantern cities and the shadowed coast—would not survive the full return of the forgotten. The whispers would become voices. The buried dead would walk, not to haunt, but to reclaim.
"I'd be undoing my mother's final act."
"No," Morya said gently. "You would be finishing it."
Before dawn, Nima walked alone to the cliffside path that led to Tidehold Temple, the place where the first lantern had ever been lit. It rose from the sea like a crown of stone, battered by wind and storm, inaccessible except during the low tide's breathless pause.
The golden lantern hung at her side, wrapped in cloth that could not conceal its glow.
She was not afraid.
But she was not certain either.
As the tide receded, the path revealed itself.
She stepped down.
Inside the Temple, mosaics told stories long removed from textbooks: a world where memory was law, where lanterns were more than light—they were keys. And every soul was a lock, waiting to be opened.
She reached the altar.
The lantern pulsed once. Twice. Then hovered to its place.
"Do it," the wind seemed to whisper.
"Don't," echoed another.
Behind her, two figures appeared—one in violet, the other in crimson.
The first bore Amira's likeness.
"You can choose mercy," it said. "Protect the living. Let the forgotten rest."
The second bore no face—only a mask made of cracked glass.
"You can choose truth," it rasped. "Name the lost. Let the silence burn."
Nima's hands shook.
Tears welled in her eyes.
"What if I'm not strong enough?" she whispered.
And from the lantern, her mother's voice—soft, familiar:
"Then be true. That is enough."
Nima closed her eyes… and placed the lantern in its cradle.
Light poured out—not burning, but cleansing.
The walls of the temple glowed with names—names never spoken, names long buried, names once erased by fear.
The sea rose. The cliffs quaked.
But Nima stood firm.
She had made her choice.
She would not protect a world built on silence.
She would give it back its memory.