This course is concluded. Keep the fire lit until October 2023.
The fire-shadow walked beside Eli, crackling leaves beneath each step that were not really touched. A memory. A reflection. Yet—impossibly real.
"You know what must be done," said the First Sin.
It was Eli's voice—only deeper, laced with ancient sorrow and divine rage.
Eli did not respond. The forest air was cold. Too quiet. It vibrated with the weight of the past.
Behind him, in the cabin, Amon and Kael were likely bickering. About him. About choices. About sins.
He hated that it came to this.
"Do you still think that love is worth it?" asked the First Sin.
Eli halted. The night around him seemed to hold its breath—like even time would wait for his answer.
"I don't know," he said softly. "I want to believe it. But it only brings us pain."
The First Sin circled him, a mirror made of flame and feathers, flickering like memory. "Pain isn't the enemy—denial is. You denied yourself. You denied us. You denied them. That's why we shattered."
"I didn't have a say in the matter," Eli whispered.
"No," the First Sin said. "You refused. And you called that mercy."
Back in the cabin
His wings flapping, face taut from feeling, Amon paced the room. "He went out alone again. What if..."
"But Amon," Kael said, leaning against the doorway with arms crossed. "He needed space."
"He needs protection."
Kael tipped his head. "Is that what you think you are? His shield?"
Amon spun around at him. "I'm what he remembers."
"And I'm what he forgot," snapped Kael. "But I never abandoned him. Not in this life. Not in the last."
The air hummed in the house like the very magic that it held between the walls.
"Did you love him," Amon said, stepping a little nearer, "or just want to win him?"A cold sweat broke on Kael.
"I loved him enough to let him go," Kael said, voice trembling. "Can you say the same?"
Under the forest
Eli reached a clearing where the veil between worlds seemed almost thin—where light bent wrong and wind hummed with whispers.
He knelt.
"I want the truth," he said to the night. "All of it. Even the part that hurts."
The First Sin drew close. "Then let me show you."
And it placed a hand on him and burned the insides of his heart.
Within the vision
This time, Eli was not at the center.
He merely looked.
From above.
The three of them again—Eli, Amon, Kael—kneeling in a celestial temple beneath the blood-red moon.
They were bound by light. Hands united. Hearts open.
The ritual was being performed.
The Trinity Bond—an illegal soul binding wherein three became one.
Such things were ancient. They tended to be unstable. Beautiful.
But they were real.
He smiled at both of them.
Kael's hand was on Amon's chest. Amon shed tears-not out of pain, but of joy.
They had all chosen each other.
And the gods…had watched.
The vision cracked
The voices of the Council rang out like thunder:
"This cannot stand."
"Three hearts as one breaks balance."
"End it."
Then came the betral.
Kael.
Who's moving back, saying something Eli couldn't hear, breaking the bond.
An agonizing scream from Amon. Eli fell to the ground. And Kael had disappeared.
Back in the now
Eli gasped awake, dew and tears making his face wet.
The First Sin stared at him.
"You remember it all."
Eli nodded. "He broke the bond."
"No," said the First Sin. "He sacrificed it. To save your soul from extinction. He lied to you…to save both of you."
Hours later-the cabin.
Eli stood before them-Amon to his right, Kael to his left-just like before.
"I remember everything," he said.
Neither spoke. "There was a bond. Between all three of us. It was not unnatural. It was divine."
Kael had his eyes on the ground again.
"You broke it," Eli said. "You betrayed us."
Kael looked up, there's a hard jaw stance. "I did. And I'd do it again. To keep you alive."
Amon flinched.
"You didn't let us choose," Eli whispered. "You decided for all of us."
"I had no choice," Kael said. "They were going to erase you completely, Eli. Not seal you-destroy you."
"So you shattered us," Amon growled.
"I saved him!" Kael shouted back.
"I loved both of you," Eli said, voice shaking. "And I still do. But now...the bond is broken. We can't pretend it isn't."
He turned, walked to the middle of the room.
"I'm going to restore it. Not with a ritual. Not with a spell. With truth."
The First Sin flared behind him, invisible to the others, its fire pulsing in sync with Eli's heartbeat.
And then he whispered the words:
"One will burn."
The room trembled.
And now the final trial began.