#7
One year after Ghei disappeared.
The Empyrean ruins had finally stabilized. The islands floating in the sky no longer collapsed, but froze in place — lifeless monuments to a godly kingdom that no longer existed.
Aelia decided to journey to one of these ruins: the Garden of False Dawn, where Ghei first arrived in this world after leaving the Liminal Veil.
The place where it all began.
The journey to the Empyrean was now easier — or more accurately, more possible.
With Devaros dead, the boundaries between strata had weakened. No special key was needed anymore. Only courage to climb the remaining crystal stairs — now cracked and dangerous, but still climbable.
Lyra refused to come. "Aether in the Empyrean is… sick now," she said. "Like a wound that never heals."
But Aelia insisted. She needed to see. To understand the origin of a story that had changed her life — and the lives of many others.
Kael gave her supplies: dry bread, water in a skin, and a small magical lamp that emitted silvery light.
"Don't stay too long," Kael warned. "A place like that… is full of memories that aren't yours."
"I'm used to other people's memories by now," Aelia replied, smiling bitterly, remembering a hundred years trapped.
The crystal stairs were steeper than they appeared. Some steps were missing. Others cracked, trembling underfoot. Aelia had to climb carefully, sometimes crawling.
When she reached the top — entering the Empyrean stratum — the first thing she felt was piercing silence.
Not a silence of no sound. But a silence like a vast abandoned space, where echoes lingered though their source was long gone.
She stood at the edge of a floating island. Ahead, a garden that may once have been beautiful, now withered and dead. The colorful flowers were dry, fragile, turning to dust if touched. Leafless trees, trunks bent like pleading hands. Fountains no longer flowed — their pools filled with thick, still black water.
And at the center of the garden, the crystal-bone throne where Devaros once sat.
Aelia approached.
The Garden of False Dawn.
Once, Devaros had named it so because here he "created a new dawn" for the resurrected — giving them a new day, a new beginning. But the "dawn" was false, built on the denial of the end that should have been.
Aelia sat on the throne steps, lighting her lamp. The silvery light swept across the garden, casting strange shadows among the dead trees.
She opened her notebook and began to write:
"Day 30 of the journey. Arrived at the Garden of False Dawn. Everything is dead. But not peaceful death — angry death. As if this place rejects its own demise."
Suddenly, a wind blew — though there should be no wind in the Empyrean.
And the wind carried whispers.
"…want to go home…"
"…why did you bring me back…"
"…let me go…"
Voices came from every direction. Faint. Fragmented. Like a radio tuned between frequencies.
Aelia stood, holding the lamp high. "Who's there?"
No answer. But shadows among the trees began to move — not wind, but conscious movement.
She saw faint figures. Human, or once human. Transparent. Empty eyes.
Souls that had never fully departed.
They were souls resurrected by Devaros but never fully "placed" into new bodies. Trapped in-between, forgotten in this garden.
One figure approached — a woman with a youthful face, wearing garments from a time Aelia didn't recognize.
"You… alive?" the woman whispered.
"Yes," Aelia replied.
"You can see us?"
"Yes."
The woman smiled — a sad smile. "It's been so long… no one has seen us."
Other figures began to approach. Now Aelia could count — dozens. Maybe more. They surrounded her, but not threateningly. Just… curious.
"Who are you?" Aelia asked.
"We are the left behind," the woman said. "Devaros resurrected us, but had no bodies for us. So we are here. Waiting."
"Waiting for what?"
"Don't know. Maybe bodies. Maybe death. Maybe… someone like you."
Aelia spent the night in the garden, surrounded by forgotten souls.
They spoke — or tried to speak. Their memories were incomplete. Fragmented:
A soldier who died in battle, wanting to send a message to his family but forgot what it was.
A mother who died giving birth, wanting to know if her child survived.
An artist who committed suicide, regretting not death itself but unfinished work.
A child who could not remember how they died, only the cold.
All shared one thing in common: trapped.
Devaros pulled them back from the brink of nothingness, but gave them no place. So they floated here, half-conscious, for… perhaps centuries.
"You don't try to leave?" Aelia asked.
"Go where?" said the soldier. "We have no bodies. Cannot descend to Nyania. Cannot ascend anywhere. Only here."
"And after Devaros died?"
"Everything… wobbled. But nothing changed. We are still here."
Aelia looked at them. Souls neither living nor dead. Like she once was in crystal — but sadder, for they had no vessel at all.
Morning came — or Empyrean's version of morning: light from below, from Nyania, breaking through clouds and illuminating the garden.
In that light, the souls became clearer. Aelia could see the details of their faces, their expressions. And on each face, broken peace.
"Do you want… to leave?" Aelia asked softly. "Like through the portal in Sylvain?"
They looked at one another. The soldier answered for all:
"We want… closure. Whatever that is."
Aelia nodded. She stood, approaching the throne. Perhaps here was an answer. Perhaps Devaros left something behind.
She touched the crystal-bone throne.
And the world shifted.
Flashback — Devaros' story:
He was not always a god.
Once, he was human. His original name was Davian.
A healer in ancient times, trying to save people from death — because his younger sister died young, and he could not accept it.
He experimented. Summoned spirits. Tried to create new life.
One day, he succeeded — bringing a dead bird back to life.
But the bird was not the same. Empty eyes. No song.
Yet Davian was pleased. He thought it was victory.
He continued experimenting, on animals, then humans — unclaimed corpses.
Until one night, he tried it on himself.
Drank a potion. Died temporarily.
And at the brink, he saw… something.
Power. The cosmos.
He grasped it.
And when he rose, he was no longer Davian.
He was Devaros. God of Resurrection.
With one goal: to understand why humans feared death, and give them the "gift" of a second life so they would no longer need fear.
But over time, he forgot —
Forgot that his original purpose was understanding, not giving.
Forgot that a gift unasked is a curse.
Forgot that sometimes, death is not an enemy —
But a guest who arrives on time.
Aelia staggered back, breathless. The images still spun in her mind.
Davian. Not a monster. Just a lost human, terrified of loss, who became a god and forgot his own fear.
She looked at the souls around her. They were victims of that fear — a healer's fear of death that became a cosmic disease.
The female soul approached. "You saw something."
"Yes. I saw… why you are here."
"Why?"
"Because he was afraid. And that fear made him forget to ask if you were afraid too."
The souls fell silent. Then the soldier said:
"Now he is no longer afraid."
"No," Aelia said. "Now he is gone."
"Does that free us?"
The question hung. Aelia did not know.
But she had an idea.
She remembered Ghei's Null Echo. How the power could cancel desires, magic, even reality.
Perhaps… these souls were trapped because of Devaros' frozen "desire" — the desire to make them stay.
And if there was something that could undo that frozen desire…
Aelia looked at her own hands. She was not Ghei. She had no Null Echo.
But she had something else: the frozen memories from Memory-Blood.
During a hundred years trapped, her body absorbed the energy of memories. Perhaps… it could be used.
She closed her eyes, concentrating. Searching inside herself for that feeling — the crystal feeling, the trapped feeling, the desire to be free.
Then she reached out, touching the throne.
"I have no great power," she whispered. "But I have experience. And experience says: being trapped hurts. So… if you want to leave, I will try to help."
She did not know what she was doing. Only hoped.
And something responded.
From the throne, the leftover golden light of Devaros crept out — not living light, but residue. Flowing into her hands, through her, to the surrounding souls.
The souls began to glow.
"We… feel…" whispered the woman.
"The door…" said the soldier.
In the garden, a small grey portal opened — like the portal in Sylvain, but smaller, more personal.
"It's for you," Aelia said, tears unnoticed in her eyes. "If you want."
The souls looked at one another. Then, one by one, they nodded.
They lined up — orderly, like soldiers finally allowed to go home.
The soldier went first. At the portal, he looked back at Aelia.
"Thank you," he said. "Now… I can deliver that message."
"What message?"
"I remember now. The message: 'I love you. Don't be sad.' For my wife."
He stepped through.
The woman went next. "I want to know if my child survived. Now… I will know."
She stepped through.
One by one. The child. The artist. All with relieved smiles.
Until the last — an old man who had not spoken a word.
He approached Aelia. "You… are kind. But don't be too kind. Sometimes helping people leave is the greatest kindness."
Then he stepped through.
The portal closed.
The garden was now completely empty.
Aelia sat on the throne steps, crying — not in sadness. Relief. Exhaustion.
She had done something unplanned. Freed souls she did not even know.
But it felt… right.
Like completing Ghei's work — freeing the trapped, though in a different way.
She opened her notebook, hand still trembling, writing:
"Today I realized that the opposite of forced resurrection is not death.
But choice.
And sometimes, giving choice is harder than giving life.
Because life can be forced.
Choice must be given with open hands,
and readiness to accept whatever is chosen."
The journey home felt lighter.
As she descended the crystal stairs, she looked up — at the Garden of False Dawn, now truly silent.
Perhaps, she thought, that was how it should be: the false dawn finally finding its real dusk.
And that dusk was not the end — just a transition.
Like all things.
Arriving in Sylvain, Lyra and Kael waited anxiously.
"You're three days late!" Lyra scolded.
"There was something that needed finishing," Aelia replied, tired but smiling.
She told everything. The souls. The throne. The liberation.
Kael nodded slowly. "So Ghei killed a god. You freed its victims."
"Not me. They freed themselves. I just… opened the door."
"Same difference," Lyra said. "Sometimes opening the door is everything."
That night, in her home, Aelia dreamt again.
In her dream, she saw the souls — not in the Liminal Veil, but somewhere else. A place with neutral light. They smiled. No longer trapped.
And among them, stood the shadow of Davian — not Devaros, but his original human self.
He looked at Aelia, nodded.
Then, together with the other souls, walked toward the light.
The next morning, Aelia went to the portal in the city center.
Today, no one would leave. But she sat on her bench, watching the portal.
A child — one of her students — approached.
"Teacher Aelia, does that portal go to heaven?"
Aelia looked at the child. "I don't know. But I know it leads to choice."
"I'm afraid of choice," the child said innocently.
"Me too," Aelia admitted. "But more afraid of having no choice."
The child thought, then nodded. "Like having to eat vegetables or not eat at all?"
Aelia laughed. "Yes. Like that."
The child ran off.
And Aelia stayed, watching the portal.
Perhaps tomorrow someone would choose to go. Perhaps not.
But the important thing was, the door existed.
As she had learned in the Garden of False Dawn: the most important thing is not to force people to live or die.
But to ensure that when they decide — whatever the decision — there is a path to walk through.
And that, she thought, was Ghei Niruise's true legacy — a man who only wanted to stop.
Aelia's final notes on the garden:
"The false dawn has finally sunk.
And in its dusk,
the forgotten souls
finally went home.
Sometimes justice is not about punishment.
But about opening doors that should never have been locked."