The horizon never seemed nearer, yet at last the dunes broke.
Elara staggered to the crest of a final rise, Tomas limp across her shoulders. The sight before her stole what breath she had left.
The tower of light was no mirage.
It loomed from the heart of the ash sea, its surface gleaming like molten crystal, veins of pale fire running through its bones. It stretched impossibly high, stabbing the blank sky until it vanished into nothingness. Around its base lay rings of collapsed pillars, half-submerged in dunes, as though a city had once knelt before it and been buried alive.
And still the light pulsed, steady as a heartbeat.
Elara fell to her knees. The key in her grip trembled, glowing faintly, answering that rhythm.
"This is it," she whispered to Tomas, pressing his forehead against her own. "This is where we end it. Or it ends us."
The walk down from the dune was harder than the climb.
Faces stirred in the ash, but none spoke now. They only watched, hollow-eyed, as she dragged herself and Tomas toward the tower's base. Shadows flitted at the edges of her sight—too quick, too thin to be fully real. Each time she blinked, they were gone.
By the time she reached the first ring of pillars, her legs shook so violently she nearly dropped him. The stones were carved—faint runes worn down by time, marks she couldn't read but felt like a warning.
Her sun-eye flared. The runes glowed faintly.
KEEPER. SILENCE. BLOOD. REMEMBER.
She turned her face away. "No more riddles. No more chains."
They reached the tower's base at dusk—or what passed for it. The light spilling from its veins painted everything in pale fire, illuminating the dunes with a ghostly glow.
The entrance was no door but a wound—an arch split open, jagged as a broken ribcage. From within came a low hum, steady and deep, vibrating in her chest.
Elara hesitated. Her body screamed for rest. Her arms were numb from Tomas's weight. The whispers inside the tower pressed at her mind, promising both answers and oblivion.
She set him down gently against the stone. His breath was shallow, his skin nearly translucent in the glow.
"I'll come back," she whispered. "Just let me see what's inside. Just a moment."
His eyelids fluttered. "Don't… leave me…"
Her throat caught. She clasped his hand tight. "I won't. Never."
But she stood, the key heavy in her grip, and stepped into the wound.
Inside was not a tower.
It was a spine.
The walls curved upward like ribs, each bone glowing faintly with light. Ash drifted through the air in slow spirals, but it did not settle—it hung suspended, as though gravity here obeyed a different will.
Her footsteps echoed too loud.
Every breath scraped her lungs.
And then the visions began.
Faces rippled across the walls, shifting like reflections in water. Not the dead this time. Not strangers. Herself.
Dozens of her, each one frozen in a different moment—child, girl, woman, warrior, broken, whole. Their mouths opened in unison.
We carried it. You carry it. You are the chain.
Elara clutched her skull, her scream echoing off the bone walls. "I broke the chain! I ended you!"
But the faces only laughed, their voices overlapping into a storm.
You ended nothing. You are the keeper. You are the Hour.
Her sun-eye blazed so bright it burned, tearing the vision apart. The walls fell silent, empty bone again.
Elara staggered, clutching her chest, her breath ragged.
She whispered into the silence, "I am not you. I am me. And I'll burn this whole world before I let you win."
The tower hummed deeper, as though in answer.
At its center lay a dais.
Upon it: a cradle of chains, glowing faintly with pale fire. And within the cradle—a shape like a heart, but made of ash, pulsing slowly.
The Hour's core.
Elara's hand tightened on the key. The weight of all she had endured pressed down on her—the faces, the dunes, the giants, the endless whispers. All of it traced back to this.
She lifted the key high.
But before she could strike, a sound shuddered through the tower.
Not whispering. Not silence.
Footsteps.
Elara froze, her heart hammering.
A figure stepped from the shadows beyond the dais. Its body was human. Its face—
Her breath caught.
It was Tomas.
Whole. Unbroken. Smiling.
"Elara," he said softly. "You don't have to fight anymore."
"Elara," the figure said again, his voice smooth, gentle, unbroken.
The tower's glow flared brighter, painting his face in pale light. His eyes shone the way they once had, before the pain, before the square, before everything had unraveled. He stood without a limp, his chest unscarred, his skin flushed with life.
Elara's throat clenched. Her heart screamed to run to him, to collapse into his arms, to believe. But her sun-eye seared in warning, and she forced her nails into her palm until she felt blood.
"You're not him," she whispered.
The apparition tilted his head, that familiar crooked smile curling his lips. "Then who am I? Look at me, Elara. Feel me."
He stepped closer, and the air warped. The hum of the tower deepened into something like a heartbeat.
Her grip tightened on the key. "He's outside. Dying. And you think you can trick me with—this?"
The figure's smile didn't falter. "Dying, yes. You can't stop that. Not out there. Not dragging him through dust and whispers. But here?" He stretched his arms wide, the light pouring brighter. "Here, he is whole. Here, I can make him whole forever."
Her sun-eye flared, and the truth rippled through the illusion. The figure's arms weren't arms. They were chains, looped and shining. His chest wasn't flesh, but ash threaded with veins of pale fire.
Still, his voice broke her.
"Elara. You've carried him this far. Why not lay him down? Why not rest with him? Don't you deserve peace?"
Her chest shook. She remembered the countless nights of dragging him through dunes, the fever, the whispers. The weight of his body across her shoulders. Her back screamed with phantom pain.
And for a terrible moment, she wanted it.
She wanted to rest.
But then memory cut through.
Tomas's true voice, hoarse and weak, whispering against her ear in the ash: "Better suffering than slavery."
The words rang inside her like a blade.
She raised the key, its light pulsing hotter. "You're not him. You're his shadow. His silence."
The apparition's face cracked, the smile stretching too wide, splitting. Chains spilled from its mouth, hissing against the bone floor.
It screamed.
The walls shook, faces rippling across the bone again, thousands of Elara's eyes staring at her, mouths open in a chorus of mockery.
Keeper. Chain. Hour. You are us. You cannot unmake what you are.
Elara's knees buckled. The sound wasn't sound—it was silence made solid, crushing her lungs, filling her veins. Her sun-eye bled light, her vision splitting in two.
One half saw the tower. The other half saw herself, standing within the cradle of chains, her own hands bound, her own voice whispering: Bind me. Free me.
She screamed, forcing herself forward, every step through the silence like wading through stone.
The apparition lunged, chains whipping from its body. One slashed across her shoulder, tearing flesh. Another wrapped her wrist, burning ice into her skin.
She roared, swinging the key. Its light tore through the chains, the clash sparking fire against bone.
The apparition shrieked, its face melting, splitting into a thousand fragments of Tomas's face—smiling, crying, broken, whole—before collapsing into ash.
The silence recoiled.
Elara staggered to the dais, clutching her bleeding shoulder, the key heavy as a star in her grip. The heart of ash pulsed within its cradle, every beat sending waves of silence through her chest.
Her vision blurred. Her body shook.
But she lifted the key higher.
"For Tomas," she whispered. "For me. For all of us."
And she drove it down.
The tower screamed.
Not with a voice, but with silence so vast it broke the ground beneath her, split the sky above her. Chains burst from the walls, lashing wildly, tearing the bone-ribs apart. The heart convulsed, spilling light and ash in great plumes.
Elara clung to the key with both hands, pressing it deeper, forcing it into the heart. Her sun-eye blazed like a star, her vision gone white.
In that blaze, she saw everything.
The Hour as it once was—an ancient dream, meant to hold silence as mercy for the dying. A gift turned prison, a keeper's vow twisted into eternity. She saw keepers binding themselves, generation after generation, each believing they were saving the world while they fed it deeper into chains.
And she saw herself, walking into that legacy. Not as a prisoner. Not as silence.
But as the one who could end it.
With a final cry, she wrenched the key down.
The heart shattered.
Light poured out in a flood, burning chains to dust, tearing faces from the walls. The tower's spine cracked, collapsing inward.
Elara was hurled backward, ash and fire consuming her.
The last thing she felt before the white-out took her was Tomas's name burning on her lips.