Echo of Kaelen

Intro Veilrend 44: "The Voice in the Glass" The shard was quiet now. Not the peace of rest, but the silence of drowning. Time was soft here, like silk wrapping tighter with every breath. Seris floated in that dead crystal light, where nothing moved except memory and the ache of regret. He had seen the city fall—seen the Mirrored One rise, seen Vael run, seen Rhen unravel. He had watched it all through a fogged pane of existence, helpless. A ghost of himself. A prisoner not just of the shard—but of his own failure. And then… A voice. Gentle, low—like water over stone. “You never knew when to give up.” He turned. The crystal world shifted like glass bending in heat. And there she stood. Kaelen. Her hair was longer than he remembered. Her eyes softer. She wore the old cloak, frayed at the edges. The same one she’d worn that day they’d argued in the snow. Before she vanished into the madness. “You’re not real,” Seris whispered. But he didn’t step away. His voice cracked like frost. “Neither are you,” she said with a wry smile. “But here we are.” He wanted to run. To scream. To fall into her arms and beg for forgiveness. But something darker stirred behind her voice. A ripple. A distortion. A presence. Was it Ith’rael, wearing Kaelen’s face? Was this a cruel fragment left behind in the shard’s design? Or had Kaelen left something of herself, one last ember, to guide him home? She stepped closer and touched his chest. “You’ve always carried too much weight, Seris. It’s time to let it go.” “What if I don’t know how?” Her eyes gleamed with something ancient. “Then let me help.” The shard around him cracked—not physically, but existentially. A tear through its containment. He felt her voice reach into the root of his being. Into the broken halves of himself. Into the half that was still Thar’Zul. The shadow. The wound. He screamed. A soundless, searing unraveling. And then—