Chapter 25: Remembrance and Ruin

It began with a statue.

Erected in the capital of Myrrhal, the monument stood thirty feet tall, depicting Kael with a radiant Seedstone in his chest, arms raised toward the heavens, eyes aglow with wisdom. Beneath it, etched in golden lettering, were the words: The God Who Remembered. Crowds gathered to kneel, not out of reverence—but out of instruction. A newly crowned king, Alveron Vire, had declared the First Day of Memory a national holiday. Schools now opened their sessions with chants praising Kael. Coins were minted in his name. And temples—once ruined and left behind—were being reconstructed with new banners and scripts, rebranded not as relics of forgotten gods, but as symbols of Kael's legacy.

And Kael?

He was horrified.

From the balcony of the Skyhall, he watched the flickering illusions below: children parading with his image; soldiers with Seedstone symbols etched onto their armor; politicians arguing over which ancient truths should be emphasized to "guide the next era."

"This isn't what I wanted," he said, quietly, almost to himself.

Aesthera stood beside him, arms crossed. "It's what always happens. You restore power, and someone finds a way to own it."

Reyan, leaning against the railing, gave a humorless chuckle. "Welcome to being a god."

"I never claimed to be one," Kael said, jaw tight.

"Doesn't matter," Reyan replied. "They've already decided you are. And now they're rewriting you in their own image."

Kael turned away from the balcony, heart heavy. It wasn't just worship. It was weaponization. Across the lands, rulers had begun selecting memories—truths—to elevate or bury based on their convenience. Whole wars were being justified with long-lost grievances that Kael had helped restore. Nations that once allied were now fractured over which version of history to follow. The Archive had become the battlefield.

"They're picking truths like weapons," he murmured. "Turning memory into a sword."

Aesthera walked beside him through the hall, whispering spells to dispel the wards of echoing. "This isn't just about you anymore, Kael. You gave them knowledge. Now they're deciding how to wield it."

"Then I should take it back."

Reyan raised a brow. "Can you?"

Kael stopped walking. His hand went to the Seedstone, now embedded within him, still pulsing like a second heart. "I don't know. But I can't let the Archive be used to justify more blood."

Later that night, Kael called for a Gathering of Memory.

Only once before had he invoked such an act—when sealing Nyharis.

This time, the stakes were different.

Kings and scholars, clerics and rebels, all were summoned to the Hall of Concord, a neutral land carved in ancient marble. Hundreds came, cloaked in suspicion and armed with words as sharp as blades. They expected commands. Instead, they found Kael sitting alone in the center, no throne, no crown.

"I called you not to rule you," he said, voice echoing through the chamber. "But to ask you one question."

The crowd fell silent.

"What will you do with the truth?"

A scholar stood first. "Truth must be preserved."

A soldier next. "Truth must guide strength."

A queen. "Truth must unite."

A priest. "Truth must serve the divine."

Kael listened, and then he raised his hand.

"No," he said. "Truth must heal. Or it will destroy us."

He stood, and the Seedstone brightened.

"You don't need a god to tell you which truths to follow. You need the courage to hold even the painful ones. To remember without hate. To forgive without forgetting."

Some bowed their heads.

Others scowled.

And one man stood.

King Alveron.

"We are building a new era," he said coldly. "And in this new world, power comes from remembrance. If we control what is remembered, we control the future."

Kael looked him in the eye.

"Then you are no better than Nyharis."

A hush fell.

Kael stepped down from the platform.

"This Archive does not belong to kings. It belongs to all. If it cannot be shared with honesty, it will not be shared at all."

The Seedstone flared—and vanished from view.

He had hidden it.

From everyone.

The disappearance of the Archive sent tremors across the known world. In the span of hours, communication between great cities faltered. The Memory Wells—those luminous pools of knowledge tied to Kael's power—dimmed and turned opaque. In monasteries, ancient texts rewritten by the Seedstone faded back into indecipherable ruin. Some called it a divine punishment. Others called it treason. But to the ones who had grown fat on truth as a weapon, it was a disaster.

Kael had vanished.

Not in a burst of light or with a declaration, but silently—like a page turned in the night.

In Myrrhal, King Alveron raged. He tore down the statue he'd raised in Kael's image and declared the Archive stolen by rebels. Across the seas in Senvira, scholars burned entire libraries out of fear that Kael's departure had cursed the written word. Even the god-revering city-state of Vel Tarren fell into panic, their sacred records now crumbling like sand.

But while nations reeled, Kael walked.

Cloaked and unnamed, he crossed forests and villages, deserts and ruins, no longer radiating divinity. His power still lived within him, but hidden—like a candle tucked in a coat pocket. Where once his footsteps changed the land, now they passed quietly over it. He was no longer a symbol. He was simply a man.

And that was his purpose.

To see what the world did without the Archive.

To see if they remembered not because they could, but because they chose to.

In a village deep in the Ashglow Valley, Kael came upon a child drawing names in the dirt—names of people long dead, etched in rows, messy and misspelled. She looked up as he passed, suspicious.

"My father says remembering hurts people now," she said bluntly.

Kael crouched. "Do you think so?"

She shrugged. "I just want to remember what my brother sounded like."

Kael didn't reply, but his hand moved over the soil, shaping one of the names gently—correcting a single letter. Her eyes widened.

"That's right," she whispered.

He smiled and stood. "Then never stop writing."

He moved on, but his heart burned.

This was why he had hidden the Archive. Not to hoard truth—but to protect it. From those who sought to claim it. From those who would turn memory into doctrine, pain into power, and truth into a leash.

But even in hiding, Kael could feel the world pulling at the tether between them. The Seedstone pulsed. The buried voices within it stirred. And something else moved too.

Deep within the Ironcrag mountains, a council of surviving gods—those who had never bowed to Kael, nor allied with him—gathered. Led by Veyrus, the God of Binding Iron, they spoke of control. Of fear. Of what happens when memory walks the world unbound.

"He risks unraveling the fabric of reality," Veyrus growled. "He chooses who remembers what. That is power beyond divinity."

"He has hidden the Archive," another said. "We cannot touch it."

"Then we must touch him."

A silence fell over the gods.

They would not dare attack the Archive.

But Kael—now human in form, walking among mortals?

He was vulnerable.

Meanwhile, Kael reached the ruins of the Temple of Thren, once home to a sect of pacifist monks who recorded oral history and refused to transcribe it, believing written truth could be corrupted. He found a lone elder sitting amid crumbled stones, humming songs to the wind.

"You carry weight," the man said as Kael approached. "Like a story that's never been told properly."

Kael smiled faintly. "Maybe that's true."

The elder's eyes opened. Pale blue. Wise. "You are him, aren't you?"

Kael hesitated. "If I am, would you curse me or thank me?"

"Neither," the man said. "I'd ask you—why give the world memory if it only uses it to hate?"

Kael sat beside him. "Because even hate is a form of memory. And if they can learn to remember without it, maybe there's hope."

The old man nodded slowly. "Then I pray they do. Before you're gone."

That night, Kael dreamed.

Of fire in the sky.

Of chains being forged.

Of a voice—Veyrus—declaring judgment.

He awoke in cold sweat.

It had begun.