Scene
Elias stood on the bridge of the Aetherion, the soft glow of starlight spilling through the forward viewport. His hands rested behind his back, posture composed yet heavy with something unspoken. Aethra’s holographic form shimmered faintly to his left, her translucent eyes shifting between Elias and Vear. Behind them, in the shadow of the command dais, a child lingered—Vear’s daughter, no more than six years old, her gaze fixed on her father with the quiet intensity only children possess.
“You carry a weight that is not yours,” Elias said at last, his voice low, steady. “The ruin of Edson was never your doing.”
Vear’s jaw tightened, his hands curling into fists at his sides. “Then whose? I was there. I failed them.”
Elias shook his head. “No. Edson’s fall began long before you drew breath. The Black Crystal has been sought before—always by those who believed they could bend its power to salvation. The last was a Shieldbearer. He swore he could protect Edson with it. Instead…” Elias’s eyes narrowed, distant. “Instead, he brought about its ruin.”
The words settled over the bridge like ash. Aethra flickered, as though the ship itself shuddered at the memory.
Elias drew a slow breath. His right hand rose to the gray crystal that hung from his neck, the facets pulsing faintly with inner light. With his left hand, he reached out and set it firmly on Vear’s shoulder. “You must understand. See what I have seen.”
The Aetherion dissolved around Vear. In an instant, he was no longer on the bridge but standing beside Elias in the vaulted halls of Castle Arden. Sunlight streamed through high, stained-glass windows, casting fractured rainbows across polished stone. At the center of the hall lay a bier draped in silken banners: King Marek, still and regal, his crown resting upon his chest.
Alara stood vigil at his side, her belly heavy with child, her face pale with both grief and resolve.
“This was the end of the last great stand,” Elias murmured. “Marek led the charge against the Authority’s remnants. They prevailed—but the king did not survive the victory.”
Vear’s breath caught as the scene shifted.
Now Alara sat upon the high seat, clad in the raiment of a queen. At her feet, a dark-haired child of two years stacked wooden blocks, giggling softly. Mirael, her loyal handmaiden, stood near, a gentle watchful presence.
The doors groaned open. A cluster of nobles entered, their expressions stricken. One stepped forward, voice trembling. “Your Grace—something is happening in the north. A wall of destruction. The land itself is unraveling, turning to wasteland. It moves steadily southward. Nothing halts it.”
“What should we do?” another asked, voice cracking under the weight of fear.
Alara’s gaze swept the hall, settling at last on her child playing at her feet. She straightened, her voice ringing with the weight of command.
“Then we will save as many as we can. If the north is lost, then every ship, every cart, every willing hand must be turned to flight. No family abandoned, no child left to the wasteland without a fight. Arden will not die in silence.”
The vision blurred and shifted again.
Now the air reeked of smoke and panic. Drop-ships loomed on a windswept landing field, their ramps crowded with desperate faces. Families clutched what little they could carry. Guards shouted orders over the din. Engines thrummed, readying for flight.
At the foot of one ship, Alara stood tall, cloak snapping in the wind. Mirael clutched Annastara, who cried out, arms outstretched for her mother.
Alara knelt, pressing her forehead to her daughter’s. Her voice was a whisper, fierce and tender. “You must go. You must live.”
“My queen,” Mirael pleaded, eyes wet. “You must come. There is space enough for you.”
Alara shook her head, her gaze steady even as her lips trembled. “I will not abandon my people. Take her. Protect her.”
She pressed Annastara into Mirael’s arms. The child wailed as Mirael carried her up the ramp, twisting to reach back toward her mother. Alara did not follow. She stood rooted as the engines roared, her face uplifted to the heavens, unyielding.
From the viewport of the rising ship, Mirael saw her queen diminish to a single figure amidst the sea of those left behind. Beyond her, the horizon cracked. A wave of annihilation thundered across Edson, forests and mountains collapsing into wasteland. The light consumed all.
Mirael held Annastara close, tears streaming as the ship pierced the upper atmosphere. The world below was swallowed whole.
The vision shattered.
Vear stumbled, breath ragged, as the Aetherion returned around him. His fists shook, his heart still thundering with the echoes of Alara’s last stand.
Elias stood unmoved, though the gray crystal at his chest dimmed, its light nearly spent. “Do you see now? The dream that destroyed Edson was never yours. Do not make it so. Leave the Black Crystal buried, or it will claim you as it claimed him.”
Vear’s eyes burned with grief and fury. “And if it is the only way?”
“Then you must choose whether you will be savior… or destroyer. For no one has ever grasped the Black Crystal and remained unchanged.”
Vear’s anger flared. He stepped closer, voice sharp. “If you saw all this—if you knew what would come—why did you not stop it? Why let Edson burn?”
For the first time, Elias’s expression faltered, shadow crossing his features. His voice was quiet, but steady. “Because I am bound. The Rule of Intent governs all who walk the threads of time. I cannot act upon what is not my own purpose. To interfere would be to break the design itself. I could only witness… and remember.”
Vear’s voice broke into a snarl. “Bound? And yet you’ve stood at every turn of my path—guiding, whispering, setting choices before me. Do not tell me you could not interfere. You already have.
Elias’s eyes darkened with something between sorrow and weariness. “You believe I’ve guided your destiny. That every step has been mine. But no, Vear. I have never written your path. I have only revealed the forks in the road. The choice has always been yours.”
Vear’s fists trembled, his voice raw. “And yet every choice leads me deeper into your web. If not you, then whose hand binds me?
Silence pressed heavy on the bridge, broken only by the low hum of the ship’s core. At last, Elias spoke.
“The Rule of Intent is older than you, older than me, older even than Edson’s fall. It binds all who walk the currents of time. I can show you what was, I can whisper of what might be—but I cannot compel what will. You mistake my presence for command. It is not so.”
His gaze softened, though his tone carried the weight of millennia. “You are not the Shieldbearer, Vear. You are not the hand that broke Edson. Y our destiny is yours—even if you refuse to see it.”
Behind them, Aethra flickered faintly, her expression unreadable. Vear’s daughter pressed her small hand into the folds of his cloak, anchoring him in the present. For a moment, all the fury, grief, and doubt coiled inside him could not eclipse the fragile weight of that touch.