The morning light in Atlantis came not from the sun, but from the gently pulsing glow of the suspended Heart.
It bathed the palace in waves of soft luminescence, like a breath inhaled and exhaled by the city itself. Even the volcanic ash that still drifted faintly through the sky seemed subdued, as if nature itself mourned with them.
A knock echoed on the thick stone door.
Skuld groaned from her corner bed, buried under blankets like a hibernating creature. Kurai stirred but said nothing, her back turned to the room, still facing the wall.
Helios blinked awake, lids heavy, before the knock came again—this time softer.
"Kurai? Skuld? Helios?" Kida's voice, calm and low. "Apologizes for waking you. Although I have yet to thank you for your help in aiding my rescue, I must ask you to accompany me. It's time."
Helios sat up slowly. No wisecrack, no wry grin. Just a slow breath, a rub of his eyes, and the weight of the day settling on his shoulders.
They dressed in silence.
Kurai's outfit seemed to have a darker shade today. Skuld adjusted the ceremonial sash given by Kida over her chest, brushing away imaginary dust. Helios simply dressed as normal and glanced at the mirror, not for vanity—but to see if the young man staring back looked capable of pretending to hold grief without showing cracks in his mask.
They emerged into a city hushed by reverence.
Atlantis had gathered.
Thousands stood across the central platform where once the crystal had risen to choose a new host. Today, it hovered higher—unbound yet watchful, the guardian of its people.
At the center of the plaza lay the robes of King Kashekim Nedakh, they were royal blues and silver etchings. As his body had vanished and his heart floated away, his clothes were the only thing to lie atop an altar of carved basalt, surrounded by white stones etched with Atlantean runes.
No casket.
No pyre.
Atlantis buried no kings.
They remembered them.
The ceremony began not with speech, but with silence.
Kida stood beside the altar, flanked by Milo and several council members, her expression composed yet fragile—like crystal under pressure.
She wore no crown.
Only the bracelet and her ceremonial robes.
After a few moments, she stepped forward. Her voice, when it came, echoed gently across the plaza.
"My father… was many things. A king. A scholar. A warrior. And for a time, even a man who feared change."
She looked up, meeting the eyes of her people.
"But more than anything, he was ours. And he never stopped trying to protect us—even when the world asked too much of him."
Milo stood beside her. "He gave Atlantis one last gift," he said quietly. "Time. Time to undo what he started."
Kida stepped away, her hands trembling slightly, and took from a waiting priest an object wrapped in velvet.
A chisel and hammer.
Helios, Skuld, and Kurai watched from the edge of the plaza.
Skuld leaned into Helios slightly. "Are they going to…?"
"Yes," Helios said, arms crossed, his voice respectful. "This is how Atlanteans preserve the souls of their rulers. Not in tombs. In memory. In stone."
As Kida approached the massive slab of uncarved basalt standing at the plaza's far end, Milo stepped beside her.
The two knelt in front of it.
Together, they began to carve.
Each movement was deliberate.
Every strike of the chisel echoed like a drumbeat against grief.
They didn't try to recreate his youth or his grandeur.
They carved the truth—the weary but wise lines of a king who had carried too much for too long and never complained. The deep-set eyes. The long-bearded jaw. The stern brow that had softened only in his daughter's presence.
Around them, the crowd remained still.
No one dared interrupt the sacred labor.
Even Kurai, ever distant, stood quietly, her eyes fixed on the chisel's rhythm.
When the last line was carved, the wind shifted.
The stone face shimmered blue faintly—then slowly, impossibly, rose.
It hovered upward, drawn by a force unseen, and ascended into the sky.
Higher.
Up past the city's broken spires.
Up toward the great crystal of Atlantis.
And there, it took its place.
Among the circle of faces.
The kings and queens of old.
Kashekim joined his ancestors—not buried, but witnessed.
Kida stepped back, her face pale with effort, but her eyes clear.
Milo reached for her hand. She didn't pull away.
Instead, she looked skyward and whispered, "Goodbye, Father."
The crystal above pulsed once—soft and blue.
A heartbeat.
Later, as the crowds dispersed and the sky began to dim into the hush of evening, the trio lingered.
None of them spoke for some time.
Skuld finally broke the silence. "He must have been proud. Seeing the woman she's become. Since he watched her grow up. Every step of the way."
Helios nodded. "From cradle to crown."
Kurai, arms crossed, eyes sharp, said quietly, "A king who died to save a future he'd never see. As always, humans are foolish, and I will never understand what drives them."
Helios glanced at her. "The best ones always are. Foolish, I mean. Take me, for example, aren't I the biggest fool you know?"
Kurai didn't respond, but her gaze lingered on the floating ring of stone faces.
Maybe wondering if anyone would carve hers someday in the future. Before, when she cast away her true form to become a True Darkness, there were no cravings, and she saw it as unimportant, but it was different now that she had regained a form. Now she saw some point in remembering and being remembered.
As the ceremony faded into memory and stars blinked into existence, the last whisper of King Kashekim's legacy settled over the city like mist—gentle, enduring, and utterly unforgettable.