The Citadel of Refrain stood silent, an eternal monument to a forgotten time. Its spires twisted upward, reaching into the void, where even the stars had long since fled. A hollow emptiness seeped from the walls, as if the very foundation of the citadel itself was built on the remains of something that had died long ago.

  Ascheritt moved through the abandoned halls, his steps silent on the broken stone floor. The air was thick with the absence of life, the weight of silence pressing in on him from every angle. Yet, it was not the silence of peace. It was the silence of something lost, something broken beyond repair.

  The deeper he went into the heart of the citadel, the stronger the pull became—a sense of familiarity, of belonging. It was as if the citadel itself was calling to him, urging him to uncover its secrets. His mind echoed with fragments of memories that felt like they belonged to someone else, glimpses of a life he had never lived but somehow knew.

  At the end of the long corridor, he found it. A door, ancient and carved with symbols that flickered and shifted, as though they were alive. The door was sealed with chains of blackened metal, pulsing with an eerie glow.

  Without hesitation, Ascheritt reached out and touched the door.

  The chains recoiled, their grip weakening as his touch resonated with the pulse of the citadel. The door creaked open, and a flood of cold air rushed past him, carrying the scent of forgotten dreams and broken promises.

  Inside, the room was vast and empty, save for a single figure kneeling at the center. Her long, silvery hair cascaded down her back like a waterfall of starlight, and her eyes—those endless, infinite eyes—were locked on him with a gaze that held no surprise, only quiet understanding.

  She was the girl.

  The one he had seen atop the cathedral spire.

  The girl who had smiled faintly before disappearing into the mist.

  And now, here she was.

  She rose slowly, her movements graceful but tinged with a sadness that seemed to stretch across lifetimes. Her lips parted, and her voice—soft, like a whisper carried on the wind—echoed through the emptiness of the room.

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  “You’ve come.”

  Ascheritt’s voice caught in his throat. He had questions—too many questions—but none of them seemed to matter now. The moment he looked into her eyes, he knew. This was the one he had been searching for.

  The one who wept beneath the citadel.

  “You know me,” he said, his voice barely above a whisper.

  “I do,” she replied. “And you know me, too. Or you will.”

  Ascheritt took a step forward, his heart pounding in his chest. He had to know. He had to understand.

  “Who are you?” he asked.

  She looked down at the floor for a moment, as if gathering the weight of a thousand unspoken words. Then, her gaze lifted once more, and she spoke, her voice trembling with something that was neither fear nor sorrow.

  “I am the Keeper of the Forgotten Tapestry. The one who weeps for what was lost, and what should never have been.”

  The words hung heavy in the air.

  “Why are you here?” Ascheritt asked, his mind racing with the implications of her words.

  She stepped closer, the space between them crackling with energy, a tension neither of them could escape. Her hand reached out, and with a gentle touch, she placed it on his chest.

  “I was left behind,” she said, her voice barely audible. “Just like you.”

  Ascheritt’s eyes widened, but before he could speak, the room seemed to shift. The walls around them trembled, and the air grew colder still. The pulse of the citadel grew louder, more insistent.

  “You must understand,” she said, her voice growing more urgent. “The world you know is not the world it should be. The gods—your gods—they’ve rewritten everything, and now… now they are coming.”

  Ascheritt’s heart skipped a beat.

  “Who is coming?” he asked, his voice shaking.

  “The ones who erased us. The ones who cast us into this place,” she said. “And they will stop at nothing to destroy what remains of the truth.”

  The room seemed to contract, the walls closing in on them. The air felt thick with the weight of inevitability. A force greater than either of them pressed down on the citadel, shaking it to its core.

  “I don’t understand,” Ascheritt said, his mind reeling. “What truth?”

  The girl’s eyes locked onto his, and for a moment, he could see the entire expanse of eternity reflected in their depths.

  “The truth of who you are,” she whispered. “And the truth of what you will become.”

  Before Ascheritt could respond, the world around them shattered. The citadel cracked, its walls crumbling into nothingness as a dark, oppressive force poured in from every direction.

  The girl’s form flickered, her presence fading as the darkness consumed her.

  “You must leave,” she said, her voice now a mere echo in the void. “The time has come for you to face what lies ahead.”

  And then, just as quickly as she had appeared, she was gone.

  Ascheritt stood in the empty room, the weight of her words pressing down on him. The citadel was gone. The world around him was fading into nothingness, as if it had never been.

  And yet, he could still hear her voice.

  “You must become what you were always meant to be.”

  With those final words lingering in his mind, Ascheritt took his first step into the unknown, the truth of his existence unfolding before him like a story that had yet to be written.