The descent into the Stoneheart Cavern felt less like entering a place and more like slipping into a memory—one that wasn't entirely Caelen's, yet bound to him by blood and burden.
The air thickened with magic as he passed through the final arch, the walls etched with names too old for language. His footsteps echoed not just in stone but in time, each one stirring the dormant whispers of Ashbound long passed.
He reached the sanctum—a vast, circular hall deep within Aerthalin's marrow. A pool of mirrored obsidian rested at its center, rimmed by stone thrones. And upon those thrones, they waited.
The Ashbound.
They bore no flesh, only forms of mist and fire and sorrow, shaped by the centuries of pain they had carried. Their eyes glowed not with life, but with experience—a weight that neither death nor time had stripped from them.
The largest among them rose, his form veined with golden fire. "Caelen of Hearthollow," the spirit intoned. "Bearer of the Blade. Heir of our oath. Why have you come?"
Caelen's voice trembled, but held. "I came to understand the curse. To know why we were chosen to carry it. And to ask if it must always end in sacrifice."
The chamber stirred, the echoes whispering across the pool like wind on glass. Another Ashbound leaned forward, her voice as soft as broken glass. "You have suffered. And yet you live. Few before you have lasted so long without being hollowed."
"I didn't endure alone," Caelen said. "I had love. And I chose to feel—even when it burned."
A third spirit, younger and shaped like a child, stepped down toward him. "Then we will test you, Caelen. As we were once tested. Walk the River of Echoes. Let it reveal your truth."
Without waiting for consent, the child touched Caelen's forehead.
The sanctum vanished.
He stood upon the riverbank again—but this time, not the River of Names, but its source: the River of Echoes. It wasn't water that flowed here, but memory, carved from every soul who had borne the curse. As he stepped into it, the current didn't wet his skin—it bled into his soul.
He felt his mother's scream the day he was marked. He felt the tremble of the priest who etched the first rune into his blade. He saw every soul he had failed to save. Every child whose pain he had held. Every time Elira had reached for him when he pushed her away out of fear.
It crushed him. Bent him.
But he did not break.
"Why do you persist?" a voice asked—a mirror of his own, cold and sharp. His reflection stood at the far end of the river, a version of him untouched by pain, untouched by kindness. "You could let go. You could live without feeling. No more burden. No more grief."
Caelen looked into his double's eyes. "Because feeling is the price of love. And love is the reason I still stand."
The reflection smiled bitterly. "Then prove it."
With a roar, it lunged, and the river became a battlefield. The two Caelens clashed—steel against resolve. The Weeping Blade met its mirror. The true Caelen faltered, bruised and bleeding, but never stopped moving forward.
At last, he knocked the blade from his double's hand and pressed his to the doppelgänger's heart.
"I don't hate you," Caelen whispered. "I pity you. You were me—the part that wanted escape. But I no longer need to run."
The reflection blinked… and smiled. Not bitterly this time, but peacefully. "Then be free."
It vanished.
The river faded, and Caelen returned to the sanctum, gasping. The Ashbound watched in silence, their eyes bright.
"You are the first," the eldest said, "to face the Echo fully… and not lose yourself."
Caelen knelt, breath shaking. "Will it always be like this? Must every bearer carry the same pain?"
The child spirit stepped forward again. "Not anymore. You have changed the legacy. You have made feeling a weapon. And a gift."
Caelen stood, the Weeping Blade humming at his side. "Then I ask this: let me be the last Ashbound. Let the curse pass no further."
Silence.
Then, slowly, the eldest nodded. "It is done."
The runes on the walls glowed gold. The air filled with warmth, with tears not of sorrow, but relief. And Caelen felt the curse shift—not end, but evolve. It was still with him, but it no longer devoured. It resonated.
A final voice echoed: "Return to her."
He staggered out of the chamber, light bathing the corridor.
And at the surface, Elira waited—eyes red, blade in hand, heart open.
He collapsed into her arms. "It's over," he whispered.
She kissed his brow. "Then we begin."
Together, again.