The Whithered Sea was not made of water, but of salt and bone and silence. Once a vast inland ocean, it had long since dried under the weight of ancient curses—its bed cracked into endless white flats and jagged salt pillars that reached like fingers toward a bleeding sky.
Ashen and Caelara stood at its edge, cloaks whipping in the windless air. Behind them, the Harrow's storm had begun to encroach upon the world, swallowing forests, villages, even stars. Time seemed slower here. Or perhaps it was faster—everything felt wrong, unmoored from reality.
"This place is dead," Ashen said, the ember at his chest dimming slightly.
"No," Caelara replied. "This place remembers death. That's different."
They walked in silence, their path winding between sunken shipwrecks and half-buried statues of gods long forgotten. Each step echoed with the weight of millennia. The Source, the place where the Harrow first touched the world, was said to lie at the heart of this desolation—a wound in reality that had never fully healed.
As they journeyed deeper, illusions haunted them. They saw loved ones lost, mistakes relived, triumphs turned to ash. The Sea showed them truths twisted into lies, testing their resolve.
Ashen saw his mother, reaching out with eyes hollowed by flame.
"You let me die," she whispered. "And now the world will burn for your sins."
He clutched his head, trying to drown her voice. Caelara gripped his arm tightly.
"Don't listen. It's the Sea. It feeds on guilt, but it can't know your heart. Only you can."
When her words pierced the mirage, the vision shattered. Ashen took a shaky breath. "Thank you."
They came upon a great basin in the Sea's center—a crater scorched black and still smoldering after centuries. At its heart stood a monolith of obsidian, cracked and weeping red light. The Source.
As they approached, the wind screamed—and the Harrow descended.
It came not as a beast, but as a presence. A massive rift tore through the air, and from it poured creatures made of fire and shadow, their forms half-born nightmares. Ashen ignited with light, the ember pulsing wildly.
"I can feel it," he said, eyes glowing. "This is what it wants. This is where it began."
Caelara stepped beside him, blade in hand, her eyes burning silver. "Then let's end it where it began."
The battle was chaos. Ashen unleashed waves of starfire, disintegrating monstrosities with sweeps of his hand, while Caelara moved like wind, her blade cutting through darkness with prophetic precision. For a moment, it seemed they might hold their ground.
But then the Harrow itself stepped through.
It took Ashen's form—taller, more terrible, eyes blazing suns and mouth a furnace. It spoke in his voice, deeper and colder.
"You are a flicker, Ashen. I am the flame. You were forged to fall into me."
Ashen stood firm. "Maybe. But I chose differently."
They clashed—Ashen against the embodiment of his own destruction. Fire against fire. Light against abyss.
Meanwhile, Caelara climbed the obsidian monolith, the Seers' crystal in hand, preparing the binding spell they had prepared with the Council. It would take all her sight, all her essence, but it would seal the Source—and the Harrow with it.
But as she reached the summit, the monolith pulsed—and showed her a final vision.
Ashen dying. The Harrow reborn through his fall. The world ending in silence.
"No," she whispered. "That is not the only path."
She had a choice: complete the ritual and sacrifice herself, or guide Ashen to become the seal himself, risking everything on his strength.
She looked down—and saw him struggling, his flame flickering.
"I believe in you," she whispered.
Then she broke the crystal.
A beam of silver light lanced into Ashen. His body seized. Then the ember at his chest expanded—surging outward, not to destroy, but to contain.
The Harrow screamed.
Ashen's fire burned hotter than it ever had, and this time, it did not consume him. He was no longer resisting the Harrow. He was containing it, shaping it. His eyes, once gold, now blazed white.
And then, with a cry that echoed across the realm, he thrust his hand into the Harrow's chest—and dragged it back into himself.
There was silence.
The rift closed.
The wind stilled.
The Source crumbled.
Ashen collapsed.
Caelara rushed to him. He was breathing—barely. But in his chest, the ember had become a steady flame.
"It's done," he whispered.
Caelara smiled through tears. "No. It's just beginning."
Far above, the first star pierced the stormy sky.