"A quiet heart is not an empty one."
The light collapsed around Aarav like a second skin.
Not blinding.
Not warm.
Just _complete_—a silence so deep it devoured breath, a brightness that held no color.
Then the world returned.
Not all at once, but in slow, deliberate pieces.
Stone beneath his feet.
Wind brushing his arms.
A sky so pale it looked washed clean of emotion.
Aarav inhaled sharply.
He stood on a cliff overlooking a wide, fractured plain. The terrain stretched endlessly—vast, barren, broken in ways that felt too purposeful. Craters pocked the ground like fingerprints pressed into dried clay. Shards of crystal jutted out in spiraling ridges, their surfaces reflecting faint ripples of fading resonance.
A dead world.
And a familiar presence behind him.
Aarav turned.
The King stood there.
Not the version from the Vale.
Not the one shaped by centuries of grief.
Younger.
Sharper.
Fire still in his eyes.
His shoulders unbent, his posture still carrying the weight of someone who believed control was the natural order.
He didn't look at Aarav.
He didn't know Aarav existed.
This was a memory.
Aarav stepped back, breathing shallowly as he watched the King clasp his hands behind his back, gaze locked on the horizon with a tension that made the air vibrate.
Then—
a voice.
Quiet.
Human.
Warm.
"You're trembling again."
Aarav spun.
A man stood beside the King.
The First Anchor.
Not a silhouette.
Not a shadow.
Not a shape of grief.
A person.
His hair was dark, tied loosely behind his head. His eyes were a deep, gentle brown—the kind that saw people fully. His jacket was worn, sleeves rolled up, exposing arms marked with faint resonance lines. His stance held none of the King's rigid poise—he stood like someone comfortable with imperfection.
The King spoke without turning.
"I am not trembling."
The First Anchor smiled.
"You shake when you're pretending everything is fine."
The King's jaw tightened.
"Everything is fine."
The Anchor's smile faded into quiet concern.
"You haven't slept."
The King didn't answer.
The Anchor's voice stayed gentle.
"Come sit."
The King still didn't look at him.
Aarav watched the scene unfold, heart pounding as he realized:
this wasn't just the moment of the King's fall.
This was the moment before it.
The moment someone should have saved him.
The moment someone almost did.
The Anchor stepped closer, placing a hand on the King's arm.
"You don't have to shoulder this alone."
The King's breath caught.
Aarav saw it—the faint tremor in his shoulders.
The flicker of fear in his eyes.
The moment of almost leaning in.
Then the King pulled away.
"No."
The word cracked like brittle stone.
The Anchor stepped back, hurt flashing across his face, but he softened it quickly.
"Then at least talk to me."
The King's eyes closed.
"I cannot."
"Why?"
"Because if I say it aloud," the King whispered,
"it becomes real."
The Anchor's throat bobbed.
"You're afraid."
The King didn't deny it.
The Anchor stepped closer again, insistence muted by tenderness.
"I'm here. You're not losing me."
The King looked at him then—really looked at him.
Something fragile flickered across his features.
"This world is breaking," the King said.
"And I am breaking with it."
The Anchor reached out, cupping the King's face with both hands.
"Then let me hold the pieces with you."
Aarav's chest tightened painfully.
This moment was raw.
Intimate.
Honest.
The moment the King needed saving.
The moment the Anchor tried.
The moment that failed.
The King whispered, barely audible:
"I am afraid you will not survive me."
The Anchor's thumb brushed his cheek.
"Then let me choose you anyway."
Aarav felt the air shudder around them.
The King flinched.
The Anchor's expression softened further, voice quiet as falling ash.
"You don't have to be strong for me. Not here."
He leaned forward, forehead resting against the King's.
Aarav's breath caught.
This—
This was the moment the King lost himself.
Not from a fight.
Not from betrayal.
But from love he couldn't hold without crushing.
The King whispered, raw.
"If you stay… the world will end."
The Anchor answered without hesitation.
"Then I stay."
The wind stilled.
The land trembled.
The King stepped back suddenly, breaking the contact.
And for the first time since Aarav had met him, the King looked _small._
"If you stay," he warned,
"I will break you."
The Anchor stepped forward again.
"If you leave," he said softly,
"you will break yourself."
Tears slipped down the King's cheek.
"I would rather break alone."
The world cracked beneath their feet.
"No," the Anchor whispered.
"I won't let you."
He reached forward—
And the King recoiled as if burned.
"STOP!"
The shout shook the air, resonance rippling outward in violent rings.
The Anchor froze.
For a moment, the world stilled.
Then the King whispered:
"If you hold me…
I will never let go."
The Anchor's eyes widened.
Not with fear.
With understanding.
"You're not meant to be held," the Anchor said softly.
"You're meant to be seen."
He stepped backward.
The King's breath shattered.
"No."
The Anchor kept stepping back.
"I'm not leaving you," he whispered.
"I'm stepping out of your collapse."
He turned.
And walked away.
The King's knees gave out.
The sky darkened.
The ground cracked in a spiderweb around him.
Aarav felt his own throat tighten.
This—
this was the moment the storm was born.
The King reached toward the Anchor's retreating form, voice breaking.
"Please—don't—"
The Anchor looked back once.
His face full of sorrow.
Then he kept walking.
The world screamed.
The King's voice tore through the land.
"DON'T LEAVE ME!"
Resonance exploded outward.
The sky shattered.
And the memory tore loose from itself.
Aarav stumbled as the vision dissolved in a burst of light.
The last thing he heard was the King's broken whisper:
"I warned you…
I warned you not to hold me."
Then everything went dark.
And Aarav was ripped back toward the Vale.
"The silence settled around him, warm instead of hollow."