“..........

  ………

  …………………

  ………..”

  Ariel stood slowly, her body still trembling from the power she had unleashed. Her breath came in uneven waves, every inhale burning faintly in her chest. She could still feel the echo of fire inside her veins. Distant now but not gone. The heat had sunk into her bones, a quiet hum beneath her skin. Her eyes lifted toward the radiant beings before her, and awe swept over her like a tide.

  They were unlike anything she had ever seen. Towering shapes of light, humanoid yet ethereal, their forms shifting like reflections in rippling water. They didn’t walk so much as glide across the marble floor, their radiance soft but immense. For a moment, Ariel thought she could see constellations moving within their bodies; tiny pinpoints of light forming patterns she didn’t recognize.

  Fornaskr stepped up beside her, his usual steady demeanor faltering. His mouth hung open slightly, eyes wide.

  “I’ve seen the forges of the Myndsmidr at their hottest,” he murmured, “but never light like this.”

  Ariel nodded faintly. “They’re beautiful.”

  Shika gave a low growl, the fur along her back bristling. She stayed close to Ariel’s legs, head low, eyes darting between the luminous figures. The red panda’s instincts were sharp. She didn’t trust what she couldn’t understand.

  The radiant beings turned toward the trio. Their movement was unnervingly synchronized, each motion mirrored with absolute precision. When they began to approach, the air seemed to vibrate with quiet music. A harmonic resonance that made the stones beneath Ariel’s boots hum faintly.

  Fornaskr shifted his weight, weapon at his side but ready. “What are they?”

  Ariel swallowed. “I don’t know.”

  The beings halted in a perfect semicircle, their eyes, or what resembled eyes, shining with steady, emotionless light. When they spoke, they spoke together. The sound was a chorus of layered tones, each voice identical, overlapping in perfect harmony. It was not the sound of something human. It was mechanical, deliberate. Measured.

  “We are the Ljó?sbera.”

  “Designation: Recorders of the First Age.”

  “Query: State the circumstances of awakening.”

  Ariel and Fornaskr froze. The cadence of their speech carried a strange rhythm, almost like clockwork, every syllable spaced evenly apart.

  Ariel hesitated, unsure whether to answer, but their unwavering gaze offered no patience for silence. “You were… trapped,” she said softly. “In an illusion. I think for a very long time. I can’t say how long.”

  The beings tilted their heads in eerie unison. Their lights flickered once... twice... pulsing in quiet acknowledgment.

  One of them lifted gracefully from the ground, rising higher until it hovered several body-lengths above them. Its arms spread outward. Rings of golden light expanded from its chest, rippling through the air like waves through water. The others dimmed as if funneling their energy into it.

  Ariel shielded her eyes against the radiance. The air thrummed with power.

  “What’s it doing?” she whispered.

  Fornaskr squinted up. “Familiarizing itself with the landscape, maybe? I’ve never seen anything like this.”

  The waves continued, expanding outward until they brushed against the distant walls of the plaza. The air shimmered wherever they touched, leaving behind faint golden trails.

  When the last pulse faded, the hovering Ljó?sbera lowered back to the ground. For several seconds, nothing moved.

  Then the voices came again, but this time, faster. The words blurred together, their tone higher, almost as if their conversation were playing in fast-forward. The sound echoed and looped, a mechanical choir conversing with itself. Ariel couldn’t understand a single syllable.

  Finally, the noise stopped. All twelve turned their heads toward her.

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  “Designation recognized.”

  “Minnisvie Protokollr.”

  “Memory Protocol — active.”

  Ariel blinked. “Memory Protocol?” she repeated under her breath.

  The beings’ light brightened in response, as though affirming.

  “We are the Ljó?sbera. Recorders of all things. Created by a being of supreme authority. Directive: preserve memory of this realm.”

  “Directive two: activate failsafe in the event of Gloymr’s awakening. Containment of oblivion.”

  A chill rippled through Ariel.

  “Then Tyna trapped you here,” she murmured. “You were supposed to stop Gloymr, but she made sure you couldn’t.”

  The beings pulsed in rhythmic unison, the air vibrating with the power of their synchronization.

  “Oblivion occurred.”

  “Containment failed.”

  “Directive incomplete.”

  Ariel took a step forward, voice low, thick with emotion. “It happened a long time ago. The world you knew... it’s gone. You’ve been lost in this illusion for ages.”

  There was silence. Then, for the first time, the chorus carried a subtle undertone of sorrow, like fading bells.

  “Acknowledged.”

  “Failsafe reinitialization commencing.”

  Fornaskr looked at Ariel sharply. “Failsafe?”

  “I don’t know,” she said, her throat tightening. “But I think we’re about to find out.”

  The Ljó?sbera began to move, bodies shimmering as they took position around the obelisk at the plaza’s center. Their radiance grew until the light obscured their forms, leaving only silhouettes of brilliance.

  Ariel and Fornaskr backed away, shielding their eyes.

  “They’re activating something,” Fornaskr muttered. “The runes... look!”

  The carvings along the obelisk’s base flared with golden light, each line igniting like molten metal. The air filled with a deep, resonant hum, the same harmonic rhythm as the beings’ voices.

  They began to rotate around the obelisk, slow at first, then faster, their movements forming concentric rings of light. As they spun, their unified voice rose into a chant. The words were foreign and ancient but warped by an inhuman accent. It was not meant for mortal tongues.

  The sound grew louder, reverberating through stone and bone alike. Ariel pressed her hands over her ears, but the vibration wasn’t something she could block. It lived in the air, in the ground, in her heartbeat.

  The rotation quickened. The chant deepened. The light climbed higher into the air until it licked the clouds above. Shika whimpered and buried herself against Ariel’s leg.

  Then came the crescendo.

  The Ljó?sbera’s lights merged into one blinding pulse. A single, pure tone rang out: a note of impossible pitch that shook the world.

  FLASH.

  Ariel stumbled, nearly falling. Fornaskr caught her shoulder. The brilliance faded slowly, leaving ghostly trails behind her eyelids. When she blinked the light away, the Ljó?sbera were gone.

  In their place, the obelisk glowed brighter than ever. Intricate runes pulsed along its sides, each one alive with golden fire. The stone slab before it blazed with a radiant sigil: the Hugteikn, etched into the surface like molten glass.

  Ariel stared, breathless. “What… what just happened?”

  Fornaskr shook his head, eyes wide. “I think… they finished their directive.”

  Before Ariel could reply, the air began to hum again. Softer this time, but building fast. The wind picked up, swirling around them. Dust and leaves whipped through the air. The ground trembled beneath their feet.

  “Ariel!” Fornaskr began, but his words were drowned out by the rising wind.

  The glow above the obelisk brightened, spiraling upward until it formed a small vortex of light. It spun faster and faster, twisting reality itself. The sound deepened into a low, harmonic roar.

  Ariel raised a hand to shield her eyes. “Not again…” she muttered.

  The vortex widened, light spilling out like liquid sun. Within it, movement stirred.

  Two arms emerged first: slender, radiant, feminine. Then two legs, bare and luminous, stepping out of the storm of light as if descending from another plane. Her body followed: graceful, aglow with life and power. The vortex shrank, folding itself into her until only a soft corona remained.

  The woman who stood before them was unlike any being Ariel had seen.

  Her skin shimmered faintly, pale as moonstone, with veins of gold that pulsed softly beneath the surface. Her hair cascaded in waves of silver-white, each strand glinting like woven starlight. Her eyes were vast and shifting, containing the deep blue of the ocean and the violet of twilight in equal measure. She wore flowing garments of light and silk, their edges dissolving into faint motes of luminescence. She hovered an inch above the stone, her presence bending the air in quiet reverence.

  Ariel couldn’t breathe. Her pulse thundered in her ears.

  The wind calmed. The light dimmed.

  The being gazed down at her with eyes filled with understanding beyond measure. When she spoke, her voice was warm and layered, like a thousand harmonies whispered at once, each word threaded with music.

  “Minnidottir.”

  Ariel froze. The voice was unmistakable. Her throat went dry. “W–Wisp?”

  The radiant woman smiled softly, inclining her head. “That name served its purpose. But I should introduce myself properly.”

  Light swirled gently around her hand as she extended it toward Ariel.

  “I am Saga.”

  The name echoed through the plaza like a bell tolling in heaven, and when the sound faded, a stillness settled over the city in a reverent silence heavy with recognition.

  The light had remembered.