The first thing Elara noticed when they stepped back through the gate was how heavy the air felt in her own world.
It wasn't just the familiar chill of the crater at night. It was something deeper—like the atmosphere itself had thickened with the knowledge of what lay beyond. The stars seemed dimmer, the wind colder, the silence more complete. Even the dragons felt it. Kael landed heavily beside them, wings folding with a sound like distant thunder, while Nyx coiled in on herself, smoke curling tighter than usual.
No one spoke for a long minute.
Thorne was the first to break the quiet. He didn't look at the gate. He looked at her.
"You okay?"
Elara nodded once, but the motion felt mechanical. "I don't know what okay feels like anymore."
Mira stepped up beside them, staff tapping once against the frozen ground. "What did you see?"
Elara exhaled slowly. The breath clouded in front of her face.
"The source," she said. "It's... wounded. Bleeding across every world. The Keepers showed me the First Purge—not ours, the one before history. Some tried to own it. They failed. And now the wound is spreading."
Kael's silver eyes narrowed. How bad?
"Bad enough that if we don't heal it, the veils fall. All worlds bleed into one. Chaos. End."
A ripple passed through the dragons. Nyx hissed softly. Vyrath's projection flickered into existence above them, larger than before, as if the news itself had given him more substance.
How do we heal it?
Elara met his golden gaze. "We gather the fragments of the First Accord. Seven pieces, scattered across different realms connected by the veil. Each guarded. Each with a trial."
Thorne's hand tightened on hers. "And the trial we just passed?"
"Memory," she said quietly. "We faced what we buried.
Accepted it. That was the first."
Silence again.
Then Mira, voice low: "So there are six more."
"Six more," Elara confirmed.
No one asked how long they had. They all felt it—the pull growing stronger, the veil thinning like skin stretched too tight.
They made camp that night at the crater's edge, fires burning low. No one slept much.
Elara sat apart for a while, staring at the gate. The light beyond had changed—less chaotic, more steady. Almost... expectant.
Thorne eventually came to sit beside her. He didn't speak at first. Just put an arm around her shoulders and pulled her against his side.
After a long moment he said, "You don't have to carry this alone."
"I know." Her voice cracked. "But I feel like I do."
He turned her face gently toward him. "Then let me help carry the weight."
She leaned her forehead against his. "I'm scared, Thorne. Not of dying. Of failing. Of her growing up in a world that falls apart because I wasn't enough."
His thumb brushed her cheek. "You are enough. You've always been enough. Even when you thought you were broken."
She closed her eyes. "I don't want to lose you."
"You won't."
"You can't promise that."
"I can promise I'll fight like hell to stay."
A small, broken laugh escaped her. "That's not the same thing."
"It's what we have."
They sat like that for a long time, wrapped in each other, listening to the faint hum of the gate and the breathing of dragons overhead.
Eventually she whispered, "We start tomorrow. First fragment. The frozen city."
He nodded against her hair. "Then tomorrow we start."
Morning came too soon.
The party gathered at the new gate the Keepers had opened for them—a smaller arch of light within the larger one, leading to the Realm of Endless Winter.
Before they crossed, Elara knelt in front of the main gate. She placed her palm against the metal. It was warm, almost alive.
"Thank you," she said aloud, though she knew the Keepers could hear thoughts. "For trusting us."
A gentle pulse answered—like a heartbeat acknowledging her.
Then she stood, took Thorne's hand, and stepped through.
The cold was immediate and absolute.
They emerged in a city carved entirely from ice.
Towers rose hundreds of feet, delicate and deadly, their spires catching the pale light of a sun that never climbed higher than the horizon. Streets wound between buildings like frozen rivers. Statues of people and dragons stood everywhere—frozen mid-step, mid-roar, mid-flight. Time had stopped here long ago.
No wind. No sound except their breathing and the crunch of boots on ice.
Mira's voice was hushed. "This place remembers everything that was ever hidden. Every secret, every shame, every regret."
Kael's wings twitched. And it will make us face them.
They moved forward carefully.
The deeper they went, the colder it became—not just temperature, but something that seeped into the soul. Memories began to surface unbidden.
Thorne saw his family burning again. Saw himself too small, too late.
Mira relived the purge—her clan screaming as flames took them.
Kael remembered his wings being clipped by hunters when he was barely fledged.
Nyx saw centuries of hiding, of fearing the light because light had always meant death.
Elara...
She saw her mother.
Not the gentle woman she remembered from childhood stories. The real one. The one who had stood over infant Elara's cradle, tears in her eyes, and deliberately placed the suppression seal on her tiny throat.
"I had to," the memory-mother whispered. "They would have killed you otherwise. The rhythm in your blood... it was too strong. They feared what it would awaken."
Elara staggered.
Thorne caught her before she fell.
She looked up at him, eyes wide and wet. "She did it to protect me. Not to hurt me. She was terrified."
He pulled her close. "I know."
The city responded.
The statues began to move.
Not aggressively. Slowly. They formed a circle around the party—frozen figures of people and dragons from every era, every war, every betrayal.
A voice echoed—not from one statue, but from all.
To claim the fragment, you must forgive what cannot be undone.
One by one, the statues stepped forward, offering memories like gifts.
Elara's mother stepped out first.
The vision played again—younger, terrified, placing the seal. But this time Elara saw the rest: her mother weeping afterward, alone, whispering apologies to the sleeping baby. Saw her argue with the council, fight to keep Elara alive when others wanted her "corrected" permanently.
Saw her die young—heart broken by guilt.
Elara fell to her knees.
"I'm sorry," she whispered to the statue. "I hated you for so long. I thought you hated me. I was wrong."
The statue bowed its head.
Light gathered in its chest—then flowed into Elara's palm. A small glowing shard.
The first fragment.
The circle parted.
But the voice spoke again.
Forgiveness is given. But the wound is not healed. Six remain. And time grows short.
The gate reopened behind them.
They stepped back through—exhausted, changed.
Elara clutched the fragment like it was the most precious thing in the world.
Thorne pulled her into his arms the moment they were through.
"You did it," he whispered.
She shook her head against his chest. "We did it."
But as they turned to leave the crater, a new sound echoed from the main gate.
Not chains this time.
A voice.
Familiar.
Angry.
Vesper.
Alive.
And he had found the gate.
And behind him, the sound of many footsteps.