Far from mortal dominions and forgotten thrones, beyond the reach of time's linear leash, the Guardians stirred.
They did not slumber as mortals understood it.
They waited — between pulses of fate, in the cracks of reality where memory had no name and light had no direction.
There were Seven in the beginning.
Now, only Four remained.
In the obsidian heart of Noctyrian's Hollow, where sound itself dared not echo, the Celestial Lion opened its eyes.
Once, it had been a beacon — blazing with golden truth, roaring judgment across the skies of dying realms. But now its mane shimmered not with light, but dusk. Burned too many times by prophecy, betrayed by too many hands that claimed to wield justice.
It rose slowly, bones echoing like thunder across endless stone. The air shifted around it — heavy with purpose.
"The child has seen the Vault," the Lion growled.
A whisper answered from behind a veil of pale flame.
"Yes," said the Ash-Wyrm, second of the guardians. Its voice was dry, rusted with the weight of timelines lost. "And the girl… begins to remember."
The Lion lowered its head, eyes narrowing. "It begins again."
"But not as before," came a new voice — this one sharp, serrated with sorrow.
From a mirror made of moonglass stepped the Gilded Mirror, the third Guardian. She wore no form, only reflection — always appearing as what you feared most… or loved last.
"They are not merely heirs. They are consequences," she said. "Left behind not as weapons — but as apologies the universe never dared to speak aloud."
High above them all, at the edge of the unformed realm — where time was still dreaming — the Hollow Stag stood in frozen silence, its antlers woven from branches of withered stars.
It had not spoken in an age.
It did not need to.
For the sky itself bent when it moved.
Now, it turned its gaze southward.
Toward Kaelith.
Toward the Threadsinger awakening.
And for the first time in eons, its eye trembled.
Back in Noctyrian's Hollow, the Celestial Lion looked toward the dying sun above and whispered the name none of them had spoken in ages:
"Ashardio Vaes'Theron."
The very cavern around them seemed to recoil at the name.
"His gate opens," the Ash-Wyrm murmured. "But not to power. To grief."
"To memory," the Mirror replied. "And beneath that — something older."
The Hollow Stag's shadow passed across them all like a storm.
And the Lion finished:
"To choice."
Somewhere, far below the mortal world, a thirteenth sigil pulsed.
Once dead.
Now breathing again.
And the Guardians, for the first time in a thousand years, stepped forward from their thrones.
Not to intervene.
But to witness.
The Weave would not survive this unbroken.
And maybe… it wasn't meant to.