## CHAPTER 91: _"The Grave of Names Unspoken"_
The path to the Ruined Altar was littered with bones—not of flesh, but of memory. Names carved into the wind, forgotten by tongues too afraid to remember.
Arien held Lysia's hand, but it felt like holding time itself—fragile, impossible to stop, and always slipping forward.
"What happens when we reach the altar?" Lysia asked.
Echo, walking slightly ahead, did not answer immediately. Her footsteps were silent, not out of stealth, but reverence.
"We speak the names," Echo finally said. "All of them."
"And if we forget?"
Echo turned, her eyes glowing with an inner storm. "Then we become the next names to be buried."
—
The trio arrived at the Altar just as dusk tore the sun apart. The horizon bled gold and crimson, painting the world in finality.
Before them stood a stone monument etched with languages older than gods.
Lysia stepped forward.
"I am Lysia. Daughter of None. Heir to Silence. Bearer of the Flame That Consumes."
The stone trembled. The air thickened.
Arien followed. "I am Arien. Son of Sorrow. King of What Remains. The Curse and the Key."
And then Echo.
"I am Echo. Not born. Not made. Remembered."
The altar lit.
—
Their memories rose from the ground like smoke. Ghosts of laughter, screams, kisses in shadow, betrayals sealed in tears.
A child crying over a broken doll.
A queen whispering her true name into a coffin.
A soldier burying hope beneath a battlefield.
Each image was a story.
Each story, a soul.
And the altar drank them all.
—
A portal opened. Not like a door—but like an idea. Shimmering, uncertain, asking for belief.
Beyond it? A world undone. A version of Elira that had never known curses. Never known war. Never known them.
A world of peace.
"Is this... salvation?" Arien whispered.
"No," Echo said. "It's temptation."
Lysia stepped back. "Then why show us?"
Echo smiled, sad and knowing. "Because every hero must choose what they could have had, and still walk away."
They stood before the portal.
Breath held.
Choices looming.
And then—Lysia reached for Arien, kissed his forehead, and turned her back to paradise.
"We write our story, not borrow one."
The portal screamed—and vanished.
The altar crumbled.
Their names remained.
Etched into sky.
Into sea.
Into memory.