The crackling of the campfire was the only sound breaking the heavy silence of the great hall. The shadows of the flames danced on the grave faces of Lycor, Gaellum, and Gretel, who waited, tense, for Seres's words. She, sitting before the fire, seemed to have aged decades in that minute. Her gaze, once full of youthful determination, now carried the weight of a thousand lives seen, of a thousand failed endings.
On the other side of the flames, motionless like the statue watching over them from above, Uriel remained in his trance. His breathing was barely perceptible, a slight movement of his chest indicating that life still dwelled within him, though his mind was far away, recomposing itself in the twilight of his own being.
"Tell me, Princess," began Gaellum, his deep voice resonating with unusual caution. "What did you see in that place? What is it that keeps this man... this saint, trapped here?"
Seres took a deep breath, as if the air itself could help order the torrent of images, emotions, and horrors she had absorbed. Her eyes lost themselves for a moment in the flames, seeing in them not burning wood, but fragments of scattered memories.
"I saw the origin of everything," she started, her voice low but clear, forcing the others to lean in to listen. "I saw a city called Ydrat, not the frozen ruin of now, but alive, lush, bathed by five rivers. A city that flourished under the sun. And at its heart, a princess. Isis."
The name, spoken with a mixture of tenderness and pain, seemed to vibrate in the air. Gretel shuddered.
"The one... the one who became that? The thing in the castle?" asked Lycor, his soldier's pragmatism struggling to grasp the dimension of the tale.
Seres nodded slowly. "Yes. But before that, she and he," she said, pointing at Uriel, "were companions. Warriors. Friends. He arrived here, wounded and lost, and she saved him. Together they protected these lands, fought the corruption that was already beginning to lurk at the edges of the kingdom." A faint, sad smile appeared on her lips. "They were good together. They understood each other with a glance. The day before the end, they sat on the walls, watching the sunset. That was when she made him promise something."
"The promise?" whispered Gretel, caught up in the story.
"'If I ever become corrupted, I hope you will be the one to end me.' Those were her words. And he, Uriel, promised. 'I will.'"
A thick silence fell over the group. The promise now resonated like a curse, a bond tied not only between two souls, but to the very fate of the city.
"What happened next? How...?" asked Gaellum.
"The Kingdom of Ydrat guarded one of the seven Fragments, that of the Unbreakable Will, I believe," continued Seres, her fingers nervously playing with the edge of her tunic. "It was a sacred relic, but also a dangerous burden. Princess Isis, as the royal heir, was chosen to be the new Priestess-Guardian of the Fragment. The ceremony was performed in the great hall of the castle... but something went terribly wrong. I don't know if it was a flawed ritual, sabotage, or if the corruption already lurking in the kingdom was too powerful. The Fragment... was not purified. It was tainted."
The word 'tainted' left her lips like poison. "Instead of strengthening Isis's will, the tainted Fragment amplified and distorted everything within her, and then, like a virus, it spread. Not only to her. To everyone present in the castle: guards, servants, nobles... The power of the Fragment, now perverted, fused them, twisted them. Princess Isis, the heart of that mass of agony we saw, became the core of a living aberration. A beast of flesh, eyes, and infinite desire to consume, which razed the city in a matter of hours."
The images Seres had witnessed came to her mind with rawness: the screams, the smoke, the deformed silhouettes. She paused for a moment, fighting back nausea.
"Uriel was not there. He was on a mission at the borders. When he returned... he found only ruins and that horror inhabiting the castle. He faced it. He fought with all he had, alongside the few warriors who had not yet been consumed. But it was impossible. He could not win. And what was worse... he could not keep his promise. He could not kill her. Even in the midst of that monstrosity, he still saw glimpses of his friend, of the woman he had sworn to protect."
Lycor hit the ground with his fist. "Damn it all! That's a warrior's worst nightmare. To fail when it matters most."
"But he did not give up," said Seres, and there was a flicker of admiration in her voice. "Wounded, on the verge of death, he used the last thing he had left: an archaic enchantment scroll, of a power he didn't even fully understand. A forbidden spell, which alters the fabric of reality at a terrible cost. He did not summon a shield or a weapon. He summoned... a loop."
Gretel frowned. "A loop? Like... a circle?"
"A circle in time," clarified Seres, her tone becoming solemn. "The spell froze the moment of Ydrat's fall, but not as a static instant. As a day that repeats, over and over, from the dawn of the day of the ceremony to the moment when corruption consumes everything. He, Uriel, the 'stone saint,' as you call him, became the axis of that loop. Each time the beast won, or each time he... failed, the spell activated. Time went back to the beginning. And he awoke, with his wounds healed, but with his memory intact. With the burden of having failed yet again."
Comprehension slowly dawned on her companions' faces. The dead-alive city, the creatures that seemed to follow routines, the frozen day and night... everything took on a terrifying meaning.
"One hundred years," murmured Gaellum, looking at Uriel's motionless figure with a mixture of pity and respect. "One hundred years repeating the same day, the same horror."
"Yes," confirmed Seres. "Dozens, hundreds of cycles, thousands of cycles. He tried everything. Warning Isis, sabotaging the ceremony, evacuating the city, seeking a cure... Nothing worked. The tainted Fragment and the curse of the loop were too powerful. Each failure, each time he saw his friends turn into monsters, each time he faced Isis without being able to free her... it gnawed at his mind. The burden was unbearable. Until, finally, it broke."
"His mind fragmented, like the crystals I saw," deduced Gretel, her voice trembling.
"Exactly. To be able to continue existing, to not go completely insane, his consciousness self-destructed in part. He destroyed memories, buried emotions, created a new and simpler personality: Uriel, the confused 'stone saint,' who only remembered fragments and vaguely his duty to 'guard.' He forgot the promise. He almost completely forgot who Isis was. Only the instinct to protect the ruins and a dull, inexplicable pain remained."
"And the frozen day and night? The creatures that only come out at night?" asked Lycor, returning to practical matters.
"That's a side effect of the worn-out loop and the corruption," explained Seres. "The spell is no longer stable. It doesn't reset perfectly. It 'stuck' in a perpetual twilight, with that strange fixed sun and moon. The 'daylight' side of the city, the one bathed in that strange light, is where the residual temporal flow of the spell is strongest. It's pure chaotic temporal energy. If one of those corrupted creatures, which are essentially errors in the loop, entered there... it would be like throwing an imperfect drawing into a furious current. They would disintegrate, their particles scattered by time. That's why they avoid it instinctively. The 'night' here, this shaded side where we are, is a zone of relative stability, a fold in reality where the loop has less strength. But the effect is the same."
Gaellum assimilated the information, his tactical mind processing. "So, the Fragment we seek..."
"Is at the center of everything," concluded Gretel. "It's the tainted core of the beast. It's what fuels the curse and what keeps Isis trapped in that agony. And it's in the castle, protected by... by her."
A new silence, charged this time with the cold reality of their mission. It wasn't just about retrieving an object. It was about facing the heart of a century-old tragedy.
"And how are we supposed to get it?" asked Lycor, direct. "If he, in a hundred years and knowing the terrain, couldn't, what can we do?"
Seres slowly turned her head to look at Uriel. His profile, lit by the fire, seemed carved in pain and resignation.
"We can't," she said, and her words fell like heavy stones. "The loop, the curse, the promise... it's all tied to him. It's his burden. His debt. His redemption, if such a thing exists." She paused, swallowing. "The only way to break the loop, to free the Fragment... is to fulfill the original promise. Someone has to give Princess Isis her final rest. Someone has to... end the beast."
"Kill her?" whispered Gretel, sadly.
"Yes. But not like any other monster. As an act of mercy. As the liberation he promised her a century ago. It is the only key that opens this prison."
"But... if the loop breaks," calculated Gaellum, his face hardening, "what happens to the city? To the spell that keeps everything... in this state?"
Seres lowered her gaze. "The spell is unstable, but it's the only thing keeping Ydrat, even as a shadow, in existence. If the core that fuels it—the tainted Fragment—is removed, or if the beast that is its central axis dies... the reality of the loop will collapse. The city, as we know it, will fade away. The laws of real time will reclaim their place. Probably, only ancient ruins, dust, and silence will remain. As if a hundred years had passed all at once."
Lycor pointed his chin at Uriel. "And him? If all this is tied to him, if he's the 'axis'..."
Seres couldn't contain a tremble in her lips. "The stone saint is a creation of the loop, an anomaly. His existence is intertwined with this distorted reality. If the loop unravels... it's very likely he will disappear with it. His body and his mind, already so damaged... would not survive the collapse. Fulfilling the promise... is a death sentence for him."
The campfire crackled, throwing a shower of sparks that rose toward the darkness of the ceiling like fleeting souls. The truth, now complete, crushed them with its weight. To fulfill their mission, to obtain the Fragment, they had to ask a man who had just recovered his past—with all its pain—to sacrifice himself. To finally kill the woman he loved to free her, knowing that in doing so, he would sign his own death warrant.
It was a cruel choice. A heartbreaking solution.
"There is no other way," said Seres, more to herself than to the others. "I've seen it in his memories. He tried everything. This is the only door he never dared to open completely, because it meant accepting total loss. But it's the only one that exists."
At that moment, a soft but sharp sound cut through the heavy atmosphere. A long, deep sigh, coming not from any of them.
Everyone turned in unison.
Uriel had opened his eyes. They were not empty or confused as before. They contained a devastating clarity, an ocean of sadness, and a determination as solid as the stone from which he took his name. The sparks from the fire reflected in them like distant stars in a night sky.
He looked at each of them, slowly, and his gaze stopped last on Seres. In his eyes, she could see that he had been listening. That he had returned from the journey into his mind not only with his memories, but with the understanding of what she had revealed.
There were no screams, no tears, no denial. Only a terrible peace, the peace of one who finally sees the complete map of their labyrinth and, though the end is a precipice, knows the way.
With supernatural calm, Uriel sat up. The movement was measured, as if his stone body was awakening from a very long sleep. He adjusted his ragged clothes, an absurd and profoundly human gesture, considering he was made of stone.
Everyone held their breath. Gaellum tensed his muscles, ready for any reaction. Lycor moved his hand to the hilt of his sword. Gretel simply looked at him, her eyes full of tears she dared not shed.
Uriel directed his gaze toward the entrance of the great hall, as if he could see through the walls, through the deserted streets, to the imposing and cursed castle rising at the heart of the frozen city.
Then, he looked back at the group. His face, marked by shadows and age, was a mask of serene acceptance.
And he spoke. His voice was not the confused whisper from before, nor the echo of a specter. It was a voice hoarse from disuse, laden with the patina of a hundred years of silence and pain, but firm. As firm as the oath made under a sunset that no longer existed.
"I will do it."