2 Days Before the Audience
The sun rose slowly over Saerion's estate, spreading a veil of gold across the pale stone walls and arched windows. It should have felt like peace—should have—but to Kael, it was a quiet that felt too heavy.
He sat alone near the edge of the garden, hands clasped, staring toward the central tower of Nareth'Mir, where the statue loomed. Not just a monument anymore. Not after what they had seen. Sylvi appeared beside him, barefoot on the tiles, offering a piece of dried fig. He didn't take it.
"I used to think silence meant calm," Kael said. "Now I'm not sure if it means something's over... or just about to begin."
Sylvi glanced toward the distant form of the statue. "You're not the only one awake this early."
"Graveth?"
She nodded. "He hasn't said a word since the ceremony."
Inside, Ayra was awake too, idly turning her dagger in hand. Fenric half-snored, half-muttered something about cake. Niera stood in the hall with her arms crossed, watching the clouds gather above the distant city walls.
Graveth remained apart, ever watching from the rooftops, his eyes drawn to the still-immobile statue. He had not spoken of what he saw—of the figure cloaked in void, of the ripple through reality. But there was something in his silence that Kael had come to understand: restraint. Not fear, but calculation.
The day of the King's audience.
The day arrived with trumpets, banners, and the low tolling of a bronze bell that echoed from the palace.
"The audience is today," Niera said, buttoning her formal vest with a half-smile. "Try not to insult anyone important."
"Too late for that," Fenric grinned, fixing his collar. "I've been breathing too loud all morning."
The gates to the palace of Nareth'Mir opened for them in slow, ceremonial fashion. Polished stone, arcane sigils embedded in the floors, and dozens of noble families lined the Hall of Echoing Stone. Tension clung to every step they took.
King Seridorn stood atop a crescent dais, his robes a blend of charcoal and bronze, his crown etched with symbols Kael could not name. Despite his aging form, the air around him was sharp—like something coiled.
As the group knelt, Seridorn raised a hand.
"You may stand. Guests of the trial are not guests of fortune—but of fate."
There were murmurs among the nobles. Not all approved. Several whispered behind gloved hands.
Kael didn't flinch. "Your Majesty, we need to speak plainly."
That stirred louder murmurs.
Fenric whispered, "We're not sugarcoating this?"
"No," Kael replied, stepping forward. "We saw something after the ceremony. A figure. A woman wrapped in the void itself. She appeared in the sky—then vanished. And the statue in the city moved."
Gasps. The clink of armored boots. At least four royal guards stepped forward, hands on their blades.
Ayra's stance shifted, hand resting near her own hilt.
Sylvi raised her voice. "We know what we saw."
A court noble sneered. "How dare you speak of illusions in the king's court?"
"They weren't illusions," Kael said. "They were warnings."
King Seridorn did not shout. He simply descended the stairs, slowly. He halted before them and said, "You saw her?"
Graveth, standing at the back, spoke for the first time in days. "She wasn't a vision. She broke the barrier of the city. What I felt... what I saw... it wasn't chance."
The king's eyes narrowed. "Then it begins."
"Who was she?" Kael asked.
"Her name," Seridorn said softly, "was Elura."
"Asha," Ayra whispered, "The notes in the Ashen Library called her Asha."
The king looked at her slowly. His gaze was quiet, old.
"I knew her as Elura."
"And she... loved the First King," Sylvi said, remembering Selmira's words.
The king's voice turned hoarse. "She was the one thing he couldn't protect."
The Truth of the First King
"She died," Seridorn said, "before the first blade was raised. When the Empire sent its warning, she stood against it—not with war, but with kindness. She believed they would listen. They didn't."
He looked away, toward the high window. "Her body was sent back to the village. Her head... delivered in a sack, with a message carved into bone."
Ayra's breath caught.
"They said this is what happens to those who defy the emperor," he continued. "And it broke him."
Kael asked, "He didn't go to war?"
"No," Seridorn answered. "War came to him. And in his final breath, before the spear struck—he whispered one thing. A wish."
He paused. "'Let me protect them. Even if it takes everything.'"
"And something heard him," Sylvi finished.
"Yes. The Paradox Forge."
"The statue…" Kael said.
"Was born of that wish," Seridorn said. "But the Forge gave more than a protector. It created a prison. At the First King's request."
"A prison?" Ayra asked.
"He believed," the king said slowly, "that she would return. The Paradox wielder known only as Ashreth—one who foresaw fractures in time—told him that her echo would return. That love, denied and broken, does not vanish. It becomes something else."
"And he chose to wait," Kael said.
"To be encased," Seridorn nodded, "until she returned."
Sylvi's hand curled. "And now… she has."
The king turned to his guards. "Escort them to the Heart of the Kingdom."
The Descent Below
Beneath the palace, through vaults older than the kingdom itself, the group descended. Stone turned to blackened metal. Torches lit on their own. The seals embedded in the walls pulsed with ancient paradox glyphs.
They came to a gate unlike any other—a ring of paradox alloy, cold and unmoving.
Inside, floating above the floor, encased in prismatic crystal, was the First King.
His face was calm. His hands were at rest. His blade lay beside him, carved with sigils none of them could read.
Kael stepped close, heart beating in his throat.
"He looks… unbroken," Sylvi murmured.
Ayra whispered, "He knew. All this time."
The king approached behind them.
"He waits still. Not for vengeance. Not for salvation. For her."
"And the Forge created this?" Graveth asked, reverently.
"Yes," Seridorn said. "Nothing else could contain time and memory together."
Sylvi lowered her voice. "Why now? Why return?"
Seridorn's voice was barely audible. "She returned to find him."
As they turned to leave the sealed chamber, Kael looked back one final time.
He thought of the battle that never truly ended. The woman lost before war. The king who gave everything. The echo of a wish turned into stone.
"I wonder," Kael murmured, "if she remembers who she was… or only what she became."
Then, from the depths of the crystal, a faint flicker of gold shimmered in the king's chest.
Sylvi saw it too.
Graveth placed his hand on the wall, then lowered it.
Seridorn whispered, "When she speaks his name again... the seal may break."