Chapter 7 – The Return of Shadows
The wind of Aerion blew with a deceptive softness that evening.
The plain was bathed in the light of a pale twilight, as if the world were holding its breath.
It had been three weeks since Kael had vanished without a trace.
Around the fire, Eyra, Lyric, and Thane sat in silence.
Their faces, hollowed by fatigue, flickered in the unsteady flames.
No one dared speak his name, as if whispering it might shatter the fragile pain in their chests.
"Three weeks… and still nothing," Lyric finally said, his voice hoarse with a broken laugh. "You think he's forgotten us?"
Eyra looked up at the sky, where the first star was appearing.
"No. Kael would never forget us."
Her voice trembled, but her gaze remained fixed, defiant.
She was lying to herself.
Each day without news carved a deeper wound in her heart.
Thane, until then motionless, slowly laid his sword beside him.
"If he were still himself, he would've come back. Or sent a sign. Something."
He spoke softly, but his words landed like stones.
Lyric turned away, unable to face the raw truth.
Silence fell again.
Only the fire crackled, echoing the nights before — the ones when Kael still laughed with them, when the future still seemed to make sense.
Eyra hugged her knees to her chest.
The images returned endlessly: his cold gaze the day he left, the words he refused to say.
She remembered that phrase: "I have to go alone."
She had wanted to see courage in it. Now, she saw only distance.
"What if… what if we let him down?" she murmured.
Lyric looked up, surprised.
"What do you mean?"
"When it all started… we acted like his doubts were normal. Like his pain would pass. We didn't see it coming. Not at all."
No one answered.
Guilt hung over the three of them like a thick shadow.
Even Thane, the most stoic, was at a loss for words.
He remembered Kael's eyes — that flickering flame already dimming before he left.
And he had chosen to look away.
The fire eventually died, leaving only a red glow in the embers.
Night fell for good.
An unnatural silence swept over the plain.
Even the wind stopped, suspended like a held breath.
In the distance, a bird dropped from the sky, stiff, without a cry.
The beat of its dead wings stirred the dust.
Eyra lifted her head, breath catching.
Something was coming.
Something ancient.
Then, suddenly, a low rumble made the earth tremble.
The three sprang to their feet, instincts on high alert.
A cold gust swept across the plain, snuffing out the last flames.
Lyric drew his bow, fingers trembling.
"What was that?"
A silhouette appeared on the hill.
Black against the gray sky.
Calm. Upright.
Each step it took echoed with a solemn slowness.
Eyra felt her heart stop.
Even in the darkness, she would have recognized that stance among a thousand.
"Kael…" she whispered.
Thane stepped forward, sword in hand, but froze mid-motion.
What he saw in Kael's eyes was no longer the light of before.
It was a dull, deep flame — like fire trapped in stone.
Lyric let out a nervous laugh, tears brimming.
"Gods, you… you scared us, brother! Three weeks without a word! We thought…"
He trailed off.
Kael didn't answer.
No smile. No word.
Eyra stepped forward slowly, each step a battle against fear.
The wind played in her hair, lifting the dust from the ground.
"Kael… say something."
He finally raised his eyes.
His gaze met hers, and her whole body froze.
It wasn't hatred she saw there.
It was worse.
It was the total absence of everything that made a man.
When he spoke, it wasn't just his voice they heard.
Another, deeper, slower, slid beneath his — as if two beings shared the same breath.
"I've come to kill you."
The words fell like a guillotine.
At first, Lyric let out a nervous laugh, convinced it was a bad joke.
"What… you're joking, right? Tell me you're…"
But his laugh died.
Kael didn't move.
His gaze was fixed, cold, unrelenting.
Lyric felt his stomach twist.
Thane stepped back, gripping his sword without daring to raise it.
He saw the stance, the breath, the control in every one of Kael's movements.
This wasn't play.
This wasn't grief.
It was intent. Pure. Absolute.
Eyra shook her head, tears spilling despite herself.
"No… no, tell me this isn't you… tell me it's a lie…"
Kael didn't answer.
A shadow passed over his face.
Under the cold moonlight, one could almost see dark marks on his skin — signs of an energy no longer of this world.
And when he slowly drew his sword, the dead flames of the camp reignited on their own, red as blood.
And that night, for the first time, Eyra understood that the hero they had known had died long before this day.