The snow had stopped falling over Braelor, but the weight in the air felt heavier than ever.
Quiet wind pushed through the broken windows of the ruined village. Each breath of it carried ash — and memory.
Sakamoto knelt before the old tree just beyond the gates. His eyes traced the carving again, as if hoping it had changed. It hadn't.
Lucis.
Three letters. A name. And yet, it felt louder than a scream.
> "Lucis," he said aloud, tasting it.
Niris trembled in her sheath. Not violently. Not with fear. Something deeper. Older.
> "You said… he wasn't supposed to come back," Sakamoto murmured.
> "He wasn't," she answered, her voice no longer the cold hum of steel, but something breathier — closer to human.
"Because Lucis Valtaris died before Aevum was even crowned. And still… his name returns."
Sakamoto's hand hovered above the carving. His fingers didn't touch the bark. He didn't want to. Some things weren't meant to be held again.
---
Back inside Braelor, Ravian stirred for the first time since the soulbind.
He gasped, sat up — then immediately fell back, groaning.
> "Good morning to you too," he muttered through a cracked grin.
Sakamoto returned to his side just as the healer tightened the final wrap around his ribs.
> "How does it feel?" he asked.
> "Like I swallowed fire and washed it down with a regret potion," Ravian said, then added quietly, "But I'm alive. That means it worked."
> "It shouldn't have worked," the healer interjected.
"He should've bled out a hundred times over. That bond... it's holding more than his soul. It's holding fate itself together."
Ravian looked up at Sakamoto.
> "Guess I'm stuck with you now."
> "Guess I'll have to keep giving you reasons to stay."
---
Eira stood on the far roof, arms wrapped tightly around herself, staring into the clouds. Her fingers traced the glyphs on her forearm like prayer beads. But each time she circled back to the center mark, it pulsed — and a voice echoed inside her skull.
Not her voice.
Not Sakamoto's.
Not even Aelira's.
Someone ancient. Faded.
> "The world only remembers those who are burned into it."
She clenched her jaw and squeezed her eyes shut. And yet… the vision came again.
A castle aflame. Sakamoto, taller. Crownless but blazing. Holding Niris. Holding a girl with silver eyes.
Her.
No — Aelira.
But they were one.
And neither survived.
Eira gasped and stumbled backward, catching herself on the roof's edge.
> "I'm not her," she whispered to no one.
"But I remember what she never got to say."
---
Later that night, by the old inn's firepit, Niris appeared beside Sakamoto again — not as a weapon, but as a silhouette. A girl's shape. Faded, fragmented, and full of regret.
> "I remember Lucis," she said without being asked.
> "Tell me."
> "He wasn't like you," she replied.
"He smiled without guilt. He fought without needing a reason. He was what Aevum wanted to be… before the world broke him."
> "And now he's alive?"
> "If his name is here, carved in wood by hands not yours, then yes. He lives. Somehow."
> "Is he dangerous?"
Niris turned slowly.
> "He was the only one Aevum feared."
"Because Lucis never died in the way we thought.
He gave himself to something."
> "What?" Sakamoto whispered.
> "The mirror side of the Crown."
---
In Arkenvale, in a chamber no one had entered in years, a man unwrapped bandages from his face.
His eyes were burned out, but he didn't need them.
He was feeling again.
Lucis.
> "The Ash Crown walks," he whispered.
"My brother… finally became me."
The flames beside him danced violently, as if trying to run.
He smiled.