The foothills east of Thalara welcomed them like an old story: quiet, slow to speak, and filled with hidden warmth. They made camp in a natural hollow where the roots of three ancient trees curled into a soft basin of moss and wildflowers. A brook curved lazily past it, and the breeze smelled of lavender and damp stone.
Kaelen had barely spoken since they left the grove.
He didn't know what he could say that wouldn't sound too heavy or too strange. The echo shard he carried pulsed faintly at his side, warm one moment, cold the next, like a heartbeat that wasn't his own. The memories from the archive haunted him, not as ghosts but as… questions. Who had he really been? Why had he chosen to forget? What would remembering cost?
Nyessa had said nothing either, though her silence didn't feel cold. It was the kind of stillness between people who trusted each other enough not to fill every space with words.
By noon, she was reclining on a sun-warmed boulder with her boots off and her eyes closed. A breeze stirred her hair across her face. Kaelen sat nearby, legs stretched, watching the brook.
They had agreed—without saying it—to take the day to rest. No training. No maps. No ancient prophecies. Just one day to be **still**.
Kaelen leaned back, pulled the small wooden flute from his pack, and turned it over in his hands. It was a simple thing, carved from night-bark and smooth to the touch, gifted to him by a root-singer in Thalara. He hadn't planned to play it—but something about today, this strange and gentle silence, made him want to try.
The first notes were clumsy, breathy and thin. He winced, glanced at Nyessa. She opened one eye and smirked.
"I heard that."
"I'm trying," Kaelen muttered.
"You're succeeding in scaring off the birds."
He rolled his eyes, adjusted his grip, and tried again. The second note was better—smoother, less like a wheeze. A third followed, then a fourth, until a slow and uncertain melody began to thread its way into the air. He didn't know the tune. It felt like something rising from inside him, unformed but familiar, like the way dreams return in pieces.
Nyessa sat up, arms wrapped around her knees, listening.
The melody meandered, soft and simple. It shifted in tone—sometimes wistful, sometimes strong—until it came to rest on a single note that lingered, clear and bright in the still air.
When he lowered the flute, Kaelen was surprised to realize he was holding his breath. So was Nyessa.
She looked at him a long moment. "Where did you learn that?"
"I didn't," he said. "I just… knew it."
"Aravel?"
"Maybe. Or something older."
She shifted closer to him on the moss. "That kind of song doesn't just come from memory. It comes from soul. You sang part of the Thread."
He blinked. "That wasn't magic."
Nyessa tilted her head. "Wasn't it? Magic isn't always lightning and fire. Some magic is just remembering who we really are."
Kaelen leaned back, resting his head on his hands. The sky above was blue and cloudless, birds circling high above the treetops. The world felt… gentle for once. As though the weight of prophecy had paused for breath.
"Do you remember much of her?" he asked softly. "Seraine?"
Nyessa didn't answer right away. When she did, her voice was low, thoughtful.
"Pieces. Impressions. Her voice during war. The way she smiled when no one else was looking. The pain in her eyes when the blade struck the roots of the Crown Tree." She paused. "And her love for you. For Aravel. For what he stood for. It was fierce. Raw. Not perfect, but... real."
Kaelen nodded slowly. "Sometimes I think I remember her more clearly than I remember myself."
"That's not a bad thing," Nyessa said. "Sometimes we need someone else's memory to find our way back."
They spent the rest of the afternoon walking through the woods near the camp. Kaelen found strange patches of old glyphs carved into tree bark—symbols half-swallowed by growth, like the forest itself was keeping its secrets. Nyessa showed him how to listen for ley-hums in the roots. The Song of the land, she called it. Faint, but always there.
At one point, they found a glade ringed with white stones. In its center, a single tree bloomed pale flowers despite the season.
Kaelen approached it and felt a whisper brush his mind—not words, but a feeling. Safety. Sadness. Waiting.
"Memory grove," Nyessa murmured. "Places like this hold echoes. You sang earlier. The land might have heard you."
"Is it responding?"
"Or remembering. Or both."
They returned to camp by twilight. Nyessa kindled a small fire while Kaelen sat against one of the great tree roots, flute in hand. This time, he didn't play. He just held it and listened—to the fire, to the birds, to the gentle hum that had begun to live beneath his skin.
As the stars came out, he asked quietly, "Do you think we'll survive this?"
Nyessa looked up from where she sat, silhouetted by firelight. "I don't know."
"But you're still here."
"I chose this," she said. "Not because of fate. Not because of who we were. But because of who we might still become."
Kaelen nodded. "Then so did I."
She smiled—not with certainty, but with peace.
They didn't speak again that night. They watched the stars in silence, and for the first time since the ritual, Kaelen felt like something inside him had begun to heal. Not completely. But enough.
Enough to keep going.
And somewhere in the night, hidden in wind and starlight, the echo shard pulsed once, softly.