## CHAPTER 66: _"The Soul in the Shattered Sky"_
The storm had not passed—it had only taken a new shape.
When Arien opened his eyes, the sky was no longer the same. It cracked like glass, jagged lines of silver slashing across the heavens, bleeding faint threads of starlight. The Shattered Sky was no myth. It lived, it breathed, and it watched.
Lysia lay beside him, her body caught in a trance. She whispered the same name over and over again—not his.
> "Erythion… Erythion… Erythion."
Sairen and Elithra had set up wards around their new camp at the edge of the Shattered Vale. The veil between worlds had grown thin here. Every breath tasted like memory. Every shadow looked like someone lost.
---
**I. The Echoes That Remember**
Arien walked alone into the mirrored forest, his thoughts heavy.
The trees here reflected not his face—but his fears. Every step forward showed him a different self: one who had failed Lysia, one who had burned Elira to ash, one who never learned to love.
He gritted his teeth.
> "You won't break me with doubt."
But the forest did not listen. It merely showed him one more reflection: Lysia, holding a baby. Then Lysia, dead in his arms.
He ran from it.
---
**II. The Fractured Mind**
Lysia's soul had not returned whole.
Elithra worked tirelessly to mend her. She used runes carved from moonstone and the blood of a phoenix. But magic cannot fix what love had cracked open.
Lysia remembered pieces: her name, the pain, the fire. But not Arien.
> "Who are you?" she asked, tears in her voice.
> "I'm the one who waited."
> "Did I love you?"
> "Yes. You died for it."
> "Then maybe I still do."
And her fingers brushed his.
---
**III. The Trial of Fireblood**
A voice from the sky summoned Arien.
Not thunder.
A song.
A melody only sung by the gods when they demanded proof of lineage.
He followed it to the Summit of Veyra, where fire bloomed from stone.
There he met The Flamekeeper: a woman cloaked in burning ash, eyes hollow, voice like kindling.
> "You bear the mark of the first blood. But do you bear the soul?"
He was stripped of his magic, his sword, even his name.
To earn it back, he had to walk into the Flame of Remembering—naked in truth.
He walked.
He burned.
He emerged.
> "You are not your father," the Flamekeeper said. "You are better."
---
**IV. The Hollow Sovereign**
Lysia, still half-dreaming, was drawn to the mouth of the rift—the center of the Shattered Sky.
There, she met *it*.
The Hollow Sovereign.
A being that had no form, only voice.
> "Love is the original sin," it told her. "Will you deny it?"
> "No," she said. "I will burn for it."
And it showed her everything: her past lives, the curse's origin, and the truth—
The gods didn't curse her.
She cursed *them*.
---
**V. Reunion at the Edge**
Arien returned just as the rift began to close.
He pulled her into his arms, her tears still glowing silver.
> "You remember?"
> "Enough," she whispered. "Enough to choose you again."
And the Shattered Sky began to mend.
---
**VI. A New Name**
Arien carved her name in the new altar with his blood.
Lysia carved his in the wind.
Elira would remember them.
But they would no longer be remembered for their curse.
Only their choice.