Kaelith wanders not as seer, but as shadow.
Gone are the golden raiments, the opaline circlets, the reverent murmurs that once parted before him like waves before a god. Now, his cloak is midnight threadbare, his name spoken only in whispers—if spoken at all. The lands he crosses are quiet and forgotten, dust-choked ruins and deep woods where time sleeps uneasily. But even here, the air bends to him, heavy with something half-remembered.
His words still ensnare. His visions still torment.
But he speaks them only to the wind, to the trees that do not judge. No longer does he warn of doom—he sings it, soft and low, as if coaxing it into bloom. Each step forward is a quiet rebellion, each breath a vow reforged in silence.
Yet beneath the serenity lies a growing fracture.
In the hours between starlight, when sleep will not come and silence weighs too heavily, Kaelith feels it—that crack within. The echo of laughter turned to accusation. The warmth of trust now curdled into ache. His memories are not ghosts. They are chains.
And he does not wish to shed them.
He wears them like silk spun of razorwire, coiled about his spirit. Each knot pulls tighter with remembrance. The moment he was named traitor. The eyes of Saelinne, cold and glittering with fear. Viremon's voice, heavy with judgment. The silence of friends who looked away.
Pain is truth.
Pain is clarity.
A low purr breaks the stillness.
From the shadows draped beside him, a sleek figure unfurls—elegant, ethereal, and wrong in a way that is hard to name. The Lunavynx moves like smoke given shape, its fur a shifting palette of night sky and violet gleam. Twin eyes of silver-blue regard Kaelith with something between devotion and amusement.
"You dream again, Kaelith," it speaks—not aloud, but into his mind, with a voice like crushed velvet and distant thunder.
"I remember," he replies, not looking away. "I always remember."
The creature stretches, talons glinting for the briefest moment. "Then the chain grows heavier. How long before it drags you under?"
"Let it," he says simply. "Let it pull me into the deep. What remains above is worse."
The Lunavynx circles him once, brushing against his legs like a cat, but its form shimmers with hints of something far less benign. It is not comfort it offers—but companionship in ruin.
"You could still turn back," it murmurs, almost idly.
Kaelith turns, finally, his gaze distant and sharp as cut obsidian. "No. There is no path back. Only forward. Through ash. Through silence. Through them."
The Lunavynx smiles—if such a thing can be said of it—and settles beside him as he continues down the worn path, away from moonlight, deeper into the vale.
And overhead, the stars tremble.
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