"Some places are built of stone.
Others are built of memory."
(Weeping Forest – Day Two)
The deeper they went, the more the forest bent around them.
The light dimmed.
The branches crowded low.
It no longer felt like they were walking through trees —
it felt like they were walking through someone's memory.
Alberta's skin prickled.
Not from cold — but from the feeling that something was watching through time itself.
Not eyes.
Not trees.
But something that once whispered her name and never let go.
Francesca, frowning, broke the silence:
"Why did Duke Aslac ask you to come here?"
Cornelius, eyes fixed ahead:
"He said... there's a secret buried in this forest.
One the world tried to forget."
Francesca narrowed her eyes:
"And he trusted you with it?"
Cornelius' mouth tightened:
"He didn't give me a choice.
But maybe he knew I wouldn't flinch when the past speaks."
Dantes, trailing behind, remained quiet.
But Alberta noticed how his fingers brushed the hilt of his sword —
like someone reaching for something real
in a place that felt less and less like the present.
She turned slightly, voice low:
"You've seen this place before."
Dantes' voice came distant:
"I've seen ruins. Graves.
But this...
this feels like a memory trying to claw its way back into the world."
(The Forgotten Path – Near Twilight)
The trees parted—
and before them stood the remnants of a palace.
Vine-choked columns.
Shattered windows.
A rusted gate bent open like a mouth mid-scream.
Cornelius stared:
"What is this place?"
Dantes answered, low:
"Caelis Hall.
A place built for silence."
(Inside the Ruin)
Time had curled into every crack.
The floor was thick with moss.
The wind moved like it was remembering.
Every footstep echoed —
like someone else had already walked it before them.
One hall still bore fragments of its former grandeur—
tattered curtains, a cracked chandelier overhead,
gold-leaf scrollwork half-buried beneath ivy.
At its center, still hanging, was a portrait.
A young man.
Draped in ivory and gold.
A sun circlet on his brow.
Eyes that burned with vision.
And loneliness.
He stood in painted light—
a figure built of fire and silence.
The figure wore sorrow like regalia.
His eyes held kingdoms—
and something lonelier than exile.
It wasn't just a painting.
It was a wound hung on the wall.
Alberta stepped closer, breath catching faintly.
Her voice was soft, uncertain:
"Is that... my father's portrait?"
She shook her head:
"No.
He looks like...
he looks like Cornelius."
Behind her, Dantes shifted.
Not loudly.
Not enough for the others to notice.
But Alberta caught it —
the way his jaw tightened,
the way his hand brushed his coat sleeve,
the faint catch of a breath he didn't quite release.
He said nothing.
But something burned in the silence he left behind.
Cornelius, staring at the portrait, said quietly:
"He looks like my father."
Francesca, tilting her head:
"King Conrad."
There was a pause.
Then Dantes, too casually:
"Prince Edmund."
The name hit the room like a dropped blade.
Cornelius turned sharply, voice tight:
"What did you say?"
Dantes shrugged, lazy:
"I read a lot.
Mercenary campfires are terribly dull."
Francesca didn't buy it.
Cornelius didn't trust it.
Alberta looked back at the portrait, voice quiet:
"He was... beautiful.
He looks like someone who wanted to save everything.
And couldn't."
Again, Dantes' stillness cracked slightly —
a flicker in the way his shoulders set too rigid,a breath too shallow drawn between clenched teeth.
Silent.
Bleeding.
Cornelius, gentler now:
"If he'd lived... maybe Jesmeurdam wouldn't have fallen."
Francesca, murmuring:
"Maybe we wouldn't have burned."
Dantes' voice cut through —
low, bitter:
"Or maybe he would've died sooner —
trying to carry a kingdom full of hypocrites."
The others turned to him, startled by the venom in his voice.
Alberta, softly:
"You speak like you knew him."
Dantes, voice quieter now:
"Maybe I did."
The rain threatened above them, thick and heavy in the air.
The sky had dimmed to a bruised violet.
Wind clawed gently at the broken curtains.
Alberta drifted away from the others,
down a hall where dead vines curled through shattered archways.
She ran her fingers along crumbling stone,
feeling the weight of memory breathe through the ruins.
Behind her, she heard footsteps —
someone lingering —
but when she turned, there was nothing but shadows.
The ruins watched her.
The storm coiled over the rooftops.
And somewhere deep beneath her ribs,
the first crack of thunder bloomed.
It wasn't just the sky breaking.
It was the memory inside her —
and the storm in someone else's heart —
waiting to be unleashed.
"Some storms come from the sky.
Others rise from the places we bury our longing."
— End of Chapter 34: THE HALL STOPPED THE TIME —