Date: February 15, 542 since the Fall of Zanra the Dishonored.
The February blizzards in the North were never just weather — they were a test of the right to breathe. A gray haze enveloped the caravan of surviving knights of the seventh squad, turning the world into an endless canvas of snow dust and sharp ice needles. The horses moved heavily, their breath instantly turning to frost on the bits, and the people... the people were silent. In this silence, broken only by the crunch of snow and the howl of the wind, each of the thirteen survivors fought their own battle with the shadows of the Temple.
Kaedan walked at the front, his new silver greaves rhythmically pressing the ice into the ground. The Pillar rank, which he had so yearned to achieve over these past six months, now brought him none of the elation he had imagined in his dreams. On the contrary, the new power within his Vessel felt like a lead weight. Each step echoed in his mind with the question: was this silver of his armor worth the seven lives left behind in the obsidian dust of the Central Nexus?
"I am a Pillar," Kaedan thought, looking at his hands. "I completed my Armor. I have a helmet that should protect, and vambraces that should crush. But what did I protect there, under the dome? Seven people. Seven knights of the Order who believed in Iskon and me. We were their spearhead, their shield, but in the end, we just stood and watched as the Place of Power chose us, while others turned to nothing."
The youth recalled the oath at the Old Pine. To build a "Better World" where no one would be abandoned. But the reality of the North and the Temple of True Balance proved far more cynical than childhood promises. His silver Armor now seemed to him not a symbol of triumph, but a burial shroud forged from the pain of his comrades. He felt his inner essence, now frighteningly dense, pulsing in rhythm with his guilt. Kaedan understood that in the Order, they would now consider him a hero, a young genius who had risen to the Pillar rank at such a young age. But for himself, he remained that five-year-old boy thrown from a cart into the mud — alone and unable to understand why strength always had to be paid for with love and closeness.
Beside him, on the flank of the column, Iskon moved. His face, half-hidden by his hood, remained a mask of icy indifference, but the amber nebulae in his eyes betrayed the storm raging within him. Iskon felt the Shadow of Balance, now sleeping in his Vessel, qualitatively changing the very structure of his existence. He, too, had become a Pillar, and his power was now greater than that of any knight his age. But Iskon did not deceive himself.
"Mirza..." the Orc Harbinger's name surfaced in his consciousness again and again. "He defeated us without even using his Spirit to its full potential. We became Pillars, we received the Temple's recognition, but we are still children. We are merely survivors of a massacre instigated by giants. Seven deaths — that is not the price of power. It is the price of our inexperience and pride. I wanted to become the head of the Order, I wanted to lead people forward... but where will I lead them, if my very first campaign ended in a memorial?"
Iskon tightened his grip on his sword hilt. His coldness was now not just a character trait, but a way to hold the fragmenting reality together. He did not allow himself to grieve openly, considering it a sign of weakness, but each time his gaze fell on the stretchers covered with gray cloaks, something inside his renewed Vessel broke. He understood that from this day forward, he would never be the same again. The Temple had not just given him power; it had burned out of him everything human that hindered him from becoming the Order's perfect blade.
Grak Axe closed the column. The commander, whose Harbinger power was the foundation of this group, now seemed to have aged a decade. He looked at the backs of Kaedan and Iskon, and within his soul, two conflicting feelings battled. On one hand, as an officer of the Order, he was obliged to be glad — two young Pillars, one of whom carried the Spirit of the Temple itself, were an invaluable acquisition for "Lonely Peak." On the other hand, Grak was the man who had led these people to their deaths.
"Seven letters..." this thought gave him no peace. "Seven families who will wake up tomorrow and not see their fathers. I am a Harbinger; I should have foreseen it; I should have protected them. But the Temple... this place is above our ranks. It mocks our titles. Kaedan and Iskon — they are now our future. But will they be able to bear that future on their shoulders without breaking under the weight of these seven bodies?"
Grak felt his own inner power slowly circulating through his channels, warming his body, but his heart remained cold. He understood that this campaign would become a legend, but a bitter and terrible one.
Liana and Elwin walked in the middle of the formation. Liana barely lifted her eyes from the ground. Her "Guiding Branch," which always pointed the way to the light, now seemed a useless thread. She had seen Kaedan and Iskon rise, becoming Pillars, and felt the growing chasm between them.
"They are different now," Liana thought. "Their essence has become heavy, like this cursed northern stone. Kaedan... he hugged me by the fire, but his hand was cold. Not from the frost, but from the silence that has settled in his soul. We survived, but we lost our squad. We lost that lightness with which we once trained in the smithy. Now we are just thirteen survivors, united by a common wound that will never heal."
Elwin, meanwhile, suffered most of all. His Spirit, "Tenacious Memory," gave him no respite. Elwin's memory had turned into a torture chamber, where he relived the wounding of his friends over and over. For him, the return journey was not a march, but an endless viewing of the chronicle of their fall.
When the sharp spires of "Lonely Peak" appeared on the horizon through the ragged clouds, no one cried out for joy. The silence in the squad's ranks only grew thicker. The Citadel, their home, now seemed alien to them — too clean, too orderly for those who had just emerged from the chaos of the Central Nexus.
At the approach to the gates, they were met by an honor guard. Hundreds of knights and initiates lined the walls, frozen in silent salute. A bell tolled. Its slow, resonant peal spread across the valley, announcing the return of the Seventh Special Squad.
The knights entered the gates, and Kaedan felt hundreds of eyes upon him. The initiates looked at his silver Armor with awe, whispering the news of his new rank. But the youth did not see their faces. He saw only the seven pairs of stretchers swaying rhythmically behind him. Each "bravo," each admiring breath was a lash on an open wound.
He dismounted onto the icy cobblestones of the courtyard. The sound of his silver greaves on the stone echoed like a sentence. The story of the Temple of True Balance had ended, leaving behind only bitter ashes in the souls of the survivors. They returned as Pillars, they returned as heroes, but that night, each of the thirteen knew: the true price of their elevation was only beginning to be realized. Ahead lay the longest night of their lives — the night when they would first sleep in the fortress where their friends were no more.