The air changed two days after they left the Tower.
It smelled of ash and salt, though no sea or fire was near.
The land dipped, subtly at first, then more steeply, as if the ground itself bowed toward something sacred—or something cursed.
Mirea didn't play her flute.
Teren didn't whistle.
Frido, as always, was quiet. But his silence felt different now.
Not a lack of words.
A weight of meaning.
They all knew where they were going.
The old man from the tower had called it the place "where oaths grow like moss, and broken promises never die."
No map marked its name.
But the stories had passed through generations:
The Cemetery of Vows.
Where every unkept promise was buried.
And every kept one echoed forever.
---
The Path of Cracks
The first sign was the path.
It wasn't carved or built, but cracked — as if the land had once been whole, then splintered under the pressure of too many words.
Each crack was lined with white stones.
And on every stone, a name.
Some were simple: Yren. Masha. Ko.
Others were long and ancient, like wind across bone: Talareseth, Mar-Van'Sho, Olochaen.
Mirea bent down to read one:
"I promised I would return. I didn't."
Teren swallowed. "Feels like we shouldn't be reading these."
"No," Mirea whispered. "They want to be read."
Frido stepped ahead. He hadn't looked down once.
Not because he didn't care.
But because he already carried a vow too heavy to share space with others.
---
The Gate Without a Door
By twilight, they reached the outer boundary.
It was not a wall or a fence, but a single arch of stone—blackened and crumbling.
Above it, inscribed in a script older than speech, were the words:
> "Enter only if your soul is ready to be judged by its own voice."
Mirea paused. "What does that mean?"
Teren frowned. "Sounds like a riddle."
Frido walked forward without a word.
The arch shimmered as he passed beneath it, but did not stop him.
When Mirea followed, her chest tightened. Her breath caught—but then, like a thread pulled gently through a needle, the pressure eased, and she was inside.
Teren took the longest.
Not because he feared judgment—
—but because he already knew what it would say.
---
The Field of Stone Tongues
The inside was vast. Not a cemetery in any usual sense.
No gravestones.
Just countless flat, round stones—laid like stepping pieces across a vast barren valley.
Each bore words. Some short. Some long. Some names, others entire letters.
They whispered.
Not loud, not constant—but if one stood still long enough, they could hear fragments of the voices that had carved the vows into stone.
A child's promise to return.
A warrior's vow to never retreat.
A sister's oath to keep a secret.
So many.
Too many.
Frido knelt beside one and brushed the dirt off its edge. The words carved there were shallow, but legible:
"I will save them all."
He closed his eyes.
"I said that once," he whispered.
---
The Echo Spirit
At the center of the cemetery stood an obsidian mirror. It reflected nothing around it—only whoever stood before it.
Even then, the reflection was wrong.
Mirea saw herself… older, her hair grey, her clothes those of a widow.
Teren saw no face at all.
Frido saw himself kneeling.
Bleeding.
Smiling.
The mirror rippled, then a voice emerged—not from the glass, but from the wind and the stone beneath their feet.
"Frido, child of the Still Valley.
You have carried too many promises.
Now, you must choose which one you will keep…
And which one you will break."
Frido didn't flinch.
"I made no promise I do not intend to honor."
The voice darkened.
"That is the pride of fools.
Even silence makes promises it cannot keep."
---
Three Stones, Three Futures
From the base of the mirror, three stones rose.
Each hovered slightly above the ground, glowing faintly.
Each bore one line.
First Stone:
> "I promise to protect them all."
Second Stone:
> "I will not lose myself."
Third Stone:
> "I accept that I must die."
Frido stepped closer.
The voice returned:
> "One vow may be fulfilled.
One will betray you.
And one must be surrendered now, or it will be taken later."
Teren's hand instinctively moved to his sword. "What kind of choice is that?"
Mirea touched Frido's arm. "You don't have to play by its rules."
Frido didn't move.
He was staring at the third stone.
The one about death.
---
The Choice Frido Made
He reached out, slowly, and placed his hand on the second stone:
> "I will not lose myself."
The stone sank into the earth, pulsing once with dim light.
The other two crumbled.
The mirror flashed, and then shattered—not outward, but inward, as if collapsing into another world.
Silence fell.
Even the cemetery stopped whispering.
Teren exhaled. "That's it?"
Frido stood, his expression unreadable.
"I chose to remain… me. Even if the rest must fall."
Mirea looked at him.
She saw what he wasn't saying.
That he had surrendered his life—and his chance to protect everyone—because he feared what he'd become if he didn't stay true to who he was.
He would walk into fire, into death, into history…
But he would walk as Frido.
---
Nightfall at the Edge of Regret
They didn't speak much that night.
The cemetery's boundaries were behind them now, but its weight traveled with them.
Frido sat alone beside the fire, running his fingers along the stone he carried—still unmarked, still smooth.
He was supposed to carve a name into it.
His own.
Someday.
Mirea sat beside him, closer than before.
She didn't say anything.
Just leaned her head gently against his shoulder.
For a brief moment, the world stopped demanding answers.
Stopped weighing choices.
They just existed.
Two people beneath stars that remembered every word never spoken.
And above them, in the wind, the whisper returned—quieter now:
"He walks toward his ending.
But not alone."
---
End of Chapter 37