Silas's voice seemed to seep into the stone walls of the great hall. Elara still hadn't moved. The magical essence gathered in her right hand trembled faintly at her fingertips. Neither activated nor dispersed—suspended in that middle ground, she remained standing in the center of the hall. Kael was on one knee. His right hand, gripping the hilt of Frostbite, pressed against the floor. The wound shouldn't have been deep, but the encroachment of dark magic was gradually dimming the blade's white radiance. The light wavered as if worn thin. Mira stood against the wall. She held the chain of her rotating lantern in her grip, unable to move. One of the fragments had fallen from the chain and rolled across the floor. The small sound of it clattering echoed far louder than expected in the silence. That was all that moved. Silas didn't rush. Speaking as if from a lectern, he continued quietly from the depths of the hall. "Let me explain the structure of the ritual more carefully." There was no pressure in his voice. Only the weight of something built up over time, being spoken aloud. "The catalyst cannot be just anything. Sorrow alone is insufficient. Hatred cannot substitute for it. What is necessary to bind the dead to this world is—magical essence spun from the memory of lost love. Nothing else will do." Elara's right hand trembled slightly. Lost love's memory. Those words touched something deep in her chest. The memory that had flowed in when her consciousness wavered near the seam—a memory of someone trying to make someone else laugh, the sensation of a hand extended toward someone, the phantom of a love whose name had been forgotten. She felt that was the root of the light. A line from her mother's journal surfaced in her mind. Light does not grow stronger through loss. The meaning of those words was beginning to take shape in a different form as she listened to Silas speak. —Then Kael tried to shift his stance. Adjusting his weight while on one knee, he attempted to step forward with his right foot—but the floor slipped. His injured right arm couldn't support him, his body tilted slightly, and his knee slid. He coughed once and tried to adjust his posture as if nothing had happened. The tension in the great hall wavered for just a moment. Elara's lips moved ever so slightly. Not quite a smile. But something loosened. This man, even injured, even with his balance broken, tried to appear composed after revealing such a version of himself. Silas continued. Though he must have seen Kael's movement, his gaze had returned to Elara. "I had a daughter." His voice changed. It was no longer the voice from the lectern. "On the night of the plague twelve years ago. My daughter called my name one last time. She reached out her hand. Her fingers touched my hand—and that was the end." The great hall fell silent. Elara didn't move. But something stirred deep in her chest. What Silas had spoken of was something he must not have told anyone in twelve years. The quality of his voice said so. The morning of the day she lost her mother surfaced at the edge of her consciousness. A house at the eastern edge of the village. The place closest to the forest. Her mother had held her left hand—the one marked with a star-shaped birthmark. The fingers that should have been warm gradually grew cold from before dawn. Elara hadn't cried. She couldn't cry. She only continued to receive that coldness in her palm. The birthmark on her right arm began to carry heat quietly. Not pain. A sensation like the temperature of memory—as if the memory of those fingers growing cold was returning as heat. (This person's sorrow is real.) That's what Elara thought. At the same time, she was thinking something else. (Being real and heading in the wrong direction—can coexist.) The voice of someone bearing sorrow being genuine and that sorrow destroying something are not contradictory. What Silas spoke was likely truth. And yet the meaning that this ritual would shatter the continent's balance didn't disappear. Both were true. The moment Elara tried to pull back the magical essence in her right hand, there was movement at the edge of her vision. Mira stepped forward from the wall to provide support. Her foot nearly stepped into a gap in the ruined floor. There was a creaking sound, and Mira barely shifted her weight backward. A movement like treading on thin ice, a chilling moment. "Mira." The voice came naturally. A reflex of concern. "I'm fine." Mira replied curtly. But her face was slightly strained. In the serious atmosphere, a laugh that couldn't be laughed passed through for an instant. Elara looked back into the depths of the hall. Silas was waiting. Kael was trying to stand. Even from a distance, she could see his right arm trembling. The heaviness in Kael's body movements reached Elara's eyes. Twelve years of weight was in that movement. As if he'd been dragging something heavy from even before the wound—and it showed in his body. Elara hesitated. 　　　◇ While Silas continued speaking, the birthmark on Elara's right arm kept carrying heat. It was the first time someone else had put into words the nature of her magical power. Not sorrow from loss, but spinning magical essence from the memory of love for the lost—those words kept overlapping with a line from her mother's journal. Light does not grow stronger through loss. Silas believed the opposite and had spent twelve years on it. (But this might be empathy designed as a trap.) Elara was thinking that too. It was natural for the words of someone bearing sorrow to move the heart. That's precisely why moving and moving in the direction one was moved were different things, and she had to keep them separate somewhere. Her left ear was growing distant again. The black magical fog filled the great hall. The concentration of magical essence was high. The sensation of her left ear's hearing sinking into the haze—she understood it was the progression of ashen transformation. Understanding didn't stop it. Then. She heard it. Before Silas's voice—Kael's ragged breathing. It reached her right ear clearly. As her left ear grew distant, there was sound reaching her right ear. In the fog, at a distance, yet still reaching her. Elara realized. What she was trying to listen to now. "If you offer your magical power to the ritual," Silas's voice continued. "What Kael has lost might be restored." The great hall fell silent. Something shook violently within Elara. She looked at Kael, on one knee. That low body temperature. The quality of that silence. The full scope of what he'd carried alone for twelve years—tonight, for the first time, Elara was receiving it head-on. If she offered herself, Kael's twelve years might be rewarded. But. The birthmark on her right arm continued to carry heat. Within that heat was something she'd felt all night. That premonition she'd almost touched near the seam—the premonition that lost love's memory becomes the root of light. The way to use that light shouldn't be to keep losing something. Her mother's words from the journal reached her completely as her own for the first time. Light does not grow stronger through loss. To restore lost love by continuing to lose something else—that wasn't the way to use light. Passing through as a conduit and burning away as a furnace were different. Elara quietly controlled the heat of the birthmark on her right arm. She pulled back the magical essence—by her own will. And she moved. Toward Kael. She knelt beside his faltering form and gathered light in her right hand. Magical essence close to healing—gently rearranging atmospheric essence, she applied it to the body being encroached upon by dark magic. Frostbite, whose white radiance had been dimming, recovered a faint gleam. Kael's azure eyes were looking at Elara. Then—Silas moved. Not an attack. His body simply stopped. Elara's magical essence light's color—had struck his memory. Silas's reddish-brown eyes were seeing the color of the light. Seeing it, he couldn't move. Because it was the same as the color of the magical power of the woman he once loved—Elara didn't know. But she saw the moment something peeled away from Silas's face. For the first time, agitation showed on that face. Kael slowly stood up. Not completely. His right arm still trembled. But he could stand. Without fully grasping the situation, Kael looked down at Elara. "...Why are you here?" His voice was hard. The kind of voice where consciousness still lingered in fog. "I said I wouldn't go." She replied curtly. A repetition of words she'd spoken before stepping into the ruined fortress. Against the wall, Mira turned her face away. "Are you asking that now?" Quietly, but clearly audible. The conversation between Kael and Elara that didn't quite connect slightly shifted the taut air of the great hall. Mira's voice rolled into that gap. Laughter that couldn't be laughed in the tension. 　　　◇ Silas didn't attack. Not only because Elara's magical essence light's color had struck his memory. He understood that striking this light would negate the very foundation of his ritual. He stepped back. There was the presence of cult members in the depths of the hall. One of them—the sound of them moving away—heading somewhere. The premonition that Thorne might be cutting them off grazed the edge of Elara's mind. The three moved. Kael took the lead. His right arm wasn't completely recovered, but he could grip Frostbite. The white radiance of Frostbite cut through the black fog, wavering as it carved a path. Mira swung her rotating lantern, drawing arcs of light along the walls. Elara kept magical essence light burning in her palm while checking behind them. Silas didn't follow. By the time they descended to the first floor above ground of the ruined fortress, the fog was thinning. The stone floor began to transmit the cold of the outside air. The outline of the exit became visible through the fog. The three emerged outside. They stood at the edge of the black fog. The ashen spire—the ruined fortress standing in the deepest part of the Morine Great Forest—sank behind them. The surrounding fog drifted as if returning to the spire's outer walls. The sky before dawn was beginning to pale faintly above the forest canopy. The edge of the eastern sky was shifting from gray to pale blue, from that blue to faint orange. Not yet dawn. But the end of night was mixed into the air. The needled branches of the conifers, catching that light just slightly, were beginning to regain their outlines in dark green. Kael continued walking without saying anything. Elara fell into step beside him. Their strides were different. Kael's was faster by one step. Yet naturally, they walked side by side. Mira walked slightly behind. She gathered the chain of her rotating lantern in her hand while watching the backs of the two ahead. For a while, no one spoke. The calls of birds before dawn began to mix into the forest. Distant. Just one call from some branch. When it faded, silence returned. Kael glanced at Elara's right arm for a moment as he walked. The birthmark still carried faint heat. No light emerged. But there was heat. Kael's azure eyes fell on that right arm—then returned to the front without saying anything. It was a nameless consideration. Elara looked at her own right arm. She touched her right arm with her left hand, as if to confirm the heat of the birthmark. (It's not fear.) For the first time tonight, she felt that. The birthmark on her right arm carrying heat had always frightened her. Because there was a premonition of power she couldn't control. But tonight's heat—felt like proof of a choice she'd made. Not proof that she hadn't been moved by Silas's words. But proof that even while being moved, she'd turned toward the voice she was trying to listen to—proof of that. Kael's breathing reached her even