Chapter 8 - Silence After the Storm
The silence that followed was absolute.
The roaring wind died down to a gentle breeze. The glowing runes along the mountain's face slowly dimmed, settling back into ancient, dormant stone as the fortress of Ouros locked itself away once more. The massive Colossus stood frozen in its eternal pose, its stone sword resting against the bedrock, its hollow eyes once again dark and quiet.
On the summit, the dust slowly settled.
Kellan hovered for a brief second longer before his feet touched the basalt floor. The moment his soles hit the stone, the blinding golden symbols across his skin faded away, sinking deep beneath the surface until only a faint, warm glow remained beneath his collarbones.
He staggered forward, his legs suddenly feeling like lead, and collapsed to his knees.
He was just a boy again. Ten years old. Exhausted, bruised, and covered in soot and dried blood. But he was alive.
A few yards away, High Priest Oakhaven lay flat on his back, staring up at the quiet, starlit sky with empty, hollow eyes. The absolute authority of his order was gone, broken along with the golden staff and the ten-century lie.
"You... you closed the sky," Oakhaven whispered, his voice dry and raspy. He didn't try to get up. He looked smaller somehow, stripped of his grand robes and his divine pretense. "The debt... the quarantine... it's over."
Kellan didn't answer right away. He just breathed in the cool, clean night air, tasting freedom for the first time in his life.
"It was never a debt," Kellan said quietly, his voice carrying a lingering, resonant echo of the power that had just flowed through him. "It was a prison. And you were the wardens keeping the door locked from the inside."
Oakhaven closed his eyes, a bitter, defeated tear slipping down his weathered cheek. "What happens to Aethelgard now? What happens to us?"
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"We rebuild," Kellan said, pushing himself up with trembling arms. "Without the lies."
He turned his back on the ruined altar and began the long walk down the mountain switchbacks toward the sleeping city below, ready to face whatever morning came next.
