I crossed the courtyard slowly, my eyes fixed on the petrified figure of the Guardian behind me. Even from a distance, I could feel the weight of his presence. Or perhaps it was just the weight of the promise I had made him.
"I'll try," I had said.
But how?
I knew nothing. I remembered nothing. I didn't even understand what it meant to be a "Guardian". Yet, here I was, in a dead kingdom, with only a spirit's voice as a guide and an inexplicable light in my hands.
I shook my head. There was no point thinking about it too much. One step at a time, as Aura kept saying.
The opposite side of the courtyard led to what must once have been a garden. I recognized the shape - raised flowerbeds, gravel paths, stone arches that must have supported climbing plants. But now it was all... nothing.
The flowerbeds were full of gray, dry earth. The paths were covered in dust. The arches were bare, the plants that adorned them long dead, reduced to fragile twigs that crumbled at the touch.
And everywhere, statues.
More statues. Always more statues.
But here they were different from those in the palace. These were smaller. Children. At least a dozen of them, scattered throughout the garden in various poses. Some were running. Others were hiding behind the flowerbeds. Still others were sitting on the dead grass, hands outstretched as if picking flowers that no longer existed.
They were playing, I realized. When the curse struck them, they were simply playing.
My chest tightened again. How old were they? Seven? Eight? Ten? They were all so small. Too small to be turned to stone, frozen in a moment of joy they would never know again.
I approached the nearest one - a child with arms raised, as if about to catch something thrown toward him. A ball? A toy? Impossible to say.
I touched his arm, and again the light in my hands pulsed. For an instant, I saw color. Red hair. Green eyes. A wide smile on his face. Then it returned to gray.
"I'm sorry," I whispered, though I didn't know why I was apologizing or to whom.
I continued walking among the statues, trying not to look too much at their faces. It was easier to think of them as decorations rather than real people. Easier, but not right.
At the center of the garden, I found a fountain. It was large, elaborate, with statues of fantastic creatures - dragons? lions? - pouring water from gaping mouths. Or rather, that had poured it once. Now the basin was empty, the bottom covered with a layer of gray dust.
But there was something at the center of the fountain. A small object, almost hidden under the dust.
I climbed over the edge and descended into the empty basin. The dust rose around my feet, creating small gray clouds that floated in the dead air.
I bent down and picked up the object.
It was a teddy bear.
Small, perhaps the size of my hand. It was made of fabric - or what had been fabric. Now it was stiff, gray, fragile. One eye was missing. The other hung from a thin thread. The arms were worn, one almost detached.
But I could still see what it had been. A beloved toy. Held tight. Carried everywhere.
"Mine..."
Aura's voice, so close I almost turned expecting to see her there.
"Yours?" I asked, staring at the teddy bear.
"I liked to play... here... among the flowers... papa chased me... he laughed... I laughed... it was... before..."
Her voice broke. Not in tears - could spirits cry? - but in something similar. Nostalgia so strong it hurt.
"Before you got sick," I said quietly.
"Yes... everything changed... papa didn't laugh anymore... didn't play anymore... he looked at me as if... as if he'd already lost me..."
I squeezed the teddy bear in my hands. The fabric crumbled slightly under my fingers, but I held it gently. It was all that remained of a happier time.
"Elias loved you very much," I said. It wasn't a question.
"Too much... he loved too much... when I got sick... he couldn't accept it... he sought every cure... every medicine... every magic... but nothing worked... and I... I told him it was okay... that it wasn't his fault... but he... he wouldn't listen..."
"And then you died."
A long silence. Then:
"Yes."
I looked at the teddy bear. I imagined a little girl - small, blonde, with golden eyes - holding it while she slept. Carrying it everywhere. Telling it secrets.
And then I imagined that same little girl sick. Pale. Weak. And the teddy bear still there, on the bed beside her, silent witness to a tragedy it couldn't stop.
"What did your father do? After?"
"He went mad... not immediately... but slowly... day by day... shutting himself in the library... studying forbidden books... talking about things I didn't even understand... the Eighth Artifact... the power to weave reality... to change the past... to bring back... the dead..."
"And did he find it?"
"Yes... it took him years... but he found it... and when he used it..."
She didn't finish the sentence. She didn't need to. I looked at the gray garden, the statues of frozen children, the dead kingdom around me.
"...all this happened," I completed for her.
"He didn't want to... he didn't want to destroy... he only wanted... me..."
"I know." And I truly knew. Despite all the horror, despite all the destruction, I understood. I didn't approve. I didn't justify. But I understood.
Love can make people very brave.
Or very foolish.
Sometimes, both at once.
I carefully placed the teddy bear in my pocket. It was fragile, almost disintegrated, but I wanted to keep it. I didn't know why. Perhaps as a reminder. Perhaps as... a connection? With Aura. With the little girl she had been.
"I'll carry you with me," I said to the air. "You and your teddy bear. Until the end."
I felt more than heard a whisper that might have been "thank you".
✦ ✦ ✦
I climbed out of the fountain and continued across the garden. Beyond the children's statues, the path led to a smaller building, connected to the main palace by a covered corridor.
The windows were tall and narrow, some still intact, others shattered into a thousand pieces of gray glass on the ground. Through the intact ones, I could see the interior. Shelves. Many shelves. Rising from floor to ceiling.
A library.
The door was ajar. I pushed it. The hinges creaked - a sharp, annoying sound that broke the silence like a scream.
The interior was larger than it seemed from the outside. The main room was circular, with shelves arranged in concentric circles. At the center, a large wooden table, covered with open books and scattered papers. A spiral staircase led up to a second floor, and probably more floors above.
The air here was different. Not just dead and empty like in the rest of the palace. There was... a smell? Hard to say. Old paper? Faded ink? Perhaps just dust accumulated for years.
I approached the nearest shelves. The books were in various conditions. Some were perfectly preserved, as if they had been placed there yesterday. Others had fallen to pieces, the pages reduced to fragile fragments. And still others were completely illegible, covered with a gray patina that had erased every word.
I took one of the preserved books. The cover was leather - or something similar - with symbols engraved in gold. Real gold, not the dull gray that had invaded everything else. As if this place had been somehow... protected? Or perhaps simply forgotten by the curse.
I opened the book at random.
The pages were covered with writing. But it wasn't a language I recognized. The symbols were strange - not completely foreign, but not familiar either. Like looking at text through distorted water. Almost comprehensible, but not quite.
I tried to focus on a single word. The symbols glowed faintly when the light from my hands touched them. And then, as if a fog had lifted...
I could read it.
"Sum."
I blinked. I tried another word. Again, the symbols became clear.
"Sequence."
And another.
"Balance."
Was it a mathematics book? No, not exactly. It was more... philosophy? Theory? It spoke of numbers not as quantities but as... entities? Living concepts?
It was strange. Fascinating. And completely beyond my understanding.
I closed the book and put it back on the shelf. It wasn't what I was looking for. Not yet, anyway.
I moved to the table at the center. The books here were different. More personal. Some had notes written in the margins. Others had bookmarks. And one - a large volume bound in dark leather - was open halfway, as if someone had been reading it and had to stop suddenly.
I bent down to look more closely.
It wasn't printed like the others. It was handwritten. The calligraphy was elegant but hurried, as if whoever was writing had too many thoughts and too little time to put them all on paper.
And at the top, on the first page, a title:
"Research Diary - Master Elias, Guardian of Numeria"
My heart raced.
This was Elias's diary. His research. His thoughts.
The answers I was seeking.
With trembling hands, I turned the page.
✦ ✦ ✦
Extract 1 - Unknown Year, Day 1
"Today Aura turned five. We had a party in the gardens. She laughed so much she got a stomachache. I watched her play with the other children and thought: 'This is all it takes to be happy. This moment. This smile.'
But I am also a Guardian. And Guardians see patterns. See connections. See... possibilities.
And I saw something in her. Something subtle. A shadow in the light. A discord in the harmony.
I hope I'm wrong."
✦ ✦ ✦
Extract 7 - Unknown Year, Day 47
"I wasn't wrong."
"Aura is sick. The doctors say it's rare. Incurable. She has perhaps a year. Perhaps less."
"I asked them: 'Why?' But they don't know. No one knows. It's just... bad luck. Randomness. The chaos of the universe arbitrarily deciding who lives and who dies."
"I don't accept this answer."
"I am a Guardian. My task is to maintain order. Protect balance. And if balance itself can be unjust, then perhaps balance must be changed."
✦ ✦ ✦
Extract 15 - Unknown Year, Day 89
"I have explored every text in the library. Every spell. Every magical cure. Nothing works."
"Aura is getting worse. She doesn't play in the gardens anymore. She can barely stand. And I... I am powerless."
"What kind of Guardian am I if I can't protect the one person who truly matters?"
"I've heard of an artifact. The Eighth Artifact. They say it's a myth. A legend whispered by the oldest Guardians. A power that goes beyond the seven known arts."
"The power to weave reality itself. To change not only the present, but the past. To modify events that have already happened."
"If this power exists... I must find it."
✦ ✦ ✦
Extract 23 - Unknown Year, Day 134
"Aura asked me today: 'Papa, when I die, where will I go?'"
"I didn't know how to answer. I told her she won't die. I lied to her."
"She smiled. That small, sad smile that breaks my heart every time."
"'It's okay papa,' she said. 'It's okay to be afraid. I'm afraid. But you're here. And that's enough for me.'"
"But it's not enough for me. It will never be enough."
✦ ✦ ✦
I stopped. My hands were trembling as I held the diary. Elias's words - so full of love, of desperation, of determination - hit me like punches.
I could see him. This father who loved his daughter more than life itself. Who would do anything - anything - to save her.
And when he couldn't save her... when she died despite all his efforts...
What could he do, if not try to bring her back?
I turned more pages. The extracts became more frantic. More desperate. The handwriting harder to read.
✦ ✦ ✦
Extract 40 - Unknown Year, Day 201
"She's dead."
"Aura is dead."
"I held her in my arms. I watched her close her eyes. I felt her stop breathing."
"And I couldn't do anything."
"Nothing."
✦ ✦ ✦
Extract 41 - Unknown Year, Day 202
"No."
"I don't accept this."
"The Eighth Artifact exists. I know it. I feel it. And I will find it."
"It doesn't matter how long it takes. It doesn't matter what I have to sacrifice."
"I will bring my daughter back."
✦ ✦ ✦
The following pages were full of diagrams, schematics, incomprehensible notes. Elias had clearly spent months - perhaps years - searching for this mythical artifact.
And in the end...
✦ ✦ ✦
Extract 89 - Unknown Year, Day 847
"I found it."
"The Eighth Artifact. The Fabric of Reality."
"It is hidden in the Stellar Tower, beyond the five kingdoms, in a place that exists between what is and what could be."
"Tomorrow I will leave to retrieve it. Tomorrow, everything will change."
"Wait for me, Aura. Your father is coming."
✦ ✦ ✦
And there, the diary stopped.
There were no more pages. No final extract. Just those last words, written with such hope, such determination.
And then... nothing.
I closed the diary slowly. My hands still trembled. Not from fear. From something else. Empathy? Compassion? Horror at what I knew would come next?
Elias had found the Eighth Artifact. He had used it. And instead of bringing Aura back...
He had destroyed everything.
"He didn't understand..."
Aura's voice, so sad it almost broke me.
"What didn't he understand?" I asked the void.
"That I was already... at peace. That I didn't want... to return. Not like this. Not at this price."
"Did you tell him? Before?"
"I asked him... to be happy. To let me go. But he... he couldn't..."
I stood there, in the silent library, holding the diary of a desperate father who had loved too much and too well.
And I wondered: if I had been in his place... what would I have done?
I couldn't find an answer.
✦ ✦ ✦
A noise.
Subtle. Distant. But unmistakable in that absolute silence.
It came from below. From the direction of the stairs going down.
Under the library.
I carefully put down the diary and turned toward the sound. There was an opening in the floor, in the farthest corner of the room. Stone stairs descending into darkness.
The noise came again. It wasn't threatening. It wasn't even particularly loud. It was just...
Out of place.
Like an echo. Or a whisper. Or the sound of something moving where there should be no movement.
"Don't go down..."
Aura's voice, suddenly urgent.
"Why?"
"It's not... safe. Not yet. You're not... ready."
"Ready for what?"
But Aura didn't answer. Or perhaps couldn't. I felt her presence pulling away again, as if something down there was repelling her.
I looked at the stairs. Part of me wanted to go down. Wanted to discover what it was. But another part - the part that had learned to listen to that spirit voice - said to wait.
"Okay," I said to the darkness below me. "Not today. But soon."
The noise stopped.
As if whatever was down there had heard. And understood.
✦ ✦ ✦
I left the library as the silence returned. Aura's teddy bear was still in my pocket, a small weight reminding me why I was here. Elias's diary was still on the table, full of secrets I would have to discover.
And under the stairs, something waited in the darkness.
But for now, I had learned enough.
Elias had loved his daughter.
His daughter had loved him.
And that love - that impossible, unshakeable, mad love - had destroyed an entire kingdom.
The question was: could I save it?
And the answer...
The answer had to be yes.
Because if love could destroy, perhaps love could also heal.
One step at a time.
END OF CHAPTER 3
Continues in Chapter 4: "Growing Mastery" Complete Levels 1-5 to unlock Code 2001 unlocks Chap 1-5