Chapter Nine: Tears of Healing
The memory was harsh, real, and undeniable. Everyone at the Crossroads of Memories saw what had happened a thousand years ago: fear turning to cruelty, love turning to separation, a family turning into jailer and prisoner.
The Queen stood before the World Tree, now half-melted, half-alive, her first real tears in centuries streaming down her cheeks. But this time, the tears were warm.
"You have seen," she said, her voice bearing ancient weariness. "I was not imprisoned because I was dangerous. I was imprisoned because you feared what you were becoming."
The old man from Elidor, holding the glass scepter, was pale. Around him, the people of Elidor exchanged glances. This was the first time they had seen the unfiltered, un-separated truth.
"We didn't know..." whispered one of them, a young woman with green eyes.
"You didn't want to know," said the Queen. "You separated emotions so you wouldn't have to face the contradiction within yourselves. To be grateful and afraid at the same time. To love and hate in the same moment."
Elara stepped forward, the lost pilgrims around her. "But we... those who remained on the Path... we learned to live with contradiction. With hunger and fullness. With hope and despair."
"Because you didn't separate," said the Queen, looking at them with gratitude. "Because you accepted being lost, instead of pretending you had found the way."
Kairn, now fully human, let his tears flow freely. "Mother... I'm sorry. I—"
"Do not be sorry," she said, reaching out to touch his face. "You preserved my memory when everyone else forgot. You sacrificed your warmth to preserve my cold."
Then she turned to the people of Elidor. "And now... what will you do? Will you return me to prison? Or will you learn from what you have seen?"
The old man looked at his scepter, then threw it to the ground. The glass shattered, the ice melted. "We have no more need of this."
But from their ranks, a younger man stepped forward. "No! This is heresy! We must preserve purity!"
The Queen looked at him. "Purity... is the most deadly illusion. Because nothing in the universe is pure. Everything is mixed."
"We are human!" the man shouted.
"And I am half ice. And my son is half ice, half human. And my grandson..." she looked at Sion, "carries both in his blood. Which of us is less? Which of us is more?"
Sion stepped forward. "The time for choosing has come. But not the choice between ice-folk and humans. The choice between fear and acceptance."
Silence.
Then, one by one, they began to move.
First, the young woman with green eyes. She stepped forward and bowed her head before the Queen. "I apologize. For my generation. And for every generation that feared you."
Then another. And another. Until the man who had initially protested looked around, saw he was alone, and fell silent.
But the Queen shook her head. "I do not want an apology. I want... change."
She raised her hand toward the World Tree. "This tree once connected all worlds. My tears froze it, made it a path instead of a bridge. And now..."
She pressed the spot where the pendant had been. And the tree completed its transformation.
It was no longer an ice tree. Nor a wooden tree. It was something new. A material that shone with the color of silver under the moonlight, its leaves made of thin glass swaying in the breeze.
"Now it will become a bridge again. Between Elidor and the Path. Between humans and ice-folk. Between the past and the future."
She looked at Sion. "And you must decide what to do."
"Me?"
"You are the only one who has lived in both worlds. You who guarded the prison then freed the prisoner. You who know both sides."
Sion walked toward the tree. He touched its trunk. The material was warm and cold at once. Solid and flexible. Changing and constant.
"I will build..." he said, realizing the truth as he spoke it. "I will build a new place. Not a glass city that separates emotions. Not an icy path that isolates travelers. A place... that accepts contradiction."
"What is its name?" asked the Queen.
Sion thought. He looked at Elara and the pilgrims, at the hunters who had removed their masks, at the Frozen Ones who had become human again, at the people of Elidor who had learned the truth.
"I will call it... the Confluence."
"And the rules?"
"Only one rule: whoever comes must bring their contradiction with them. And not try to separate it."
The Queen smiled. "Then... I will be the first to come. For I am a queen without a kingdom. A mother without children. An ice-being searching for warmth."
She knelt before him. Not as a subject, but as a person acknowledging a new authority. "And I promise you: my tears will no longer make paths. They will make... bridges."
---
End of Chapter Nine
The decision was made. The Confluence would be built. And the new tree would be its heart.
But before construction could begin, before the old wound could heal...
A sound came from afar. The sound of a bell.
Not an ordinary bell. A bell from Elidor. Sounding a warning.
And the messenger who arrived spoke words that froze everyone anew:
"The pendant... was not the final piece of the Queen's memory."
"There was a second part."
"And it has been stolen."
"And whoever stole it... does not want reconciliation."
"They want to destroy everything."
---
Chapter Ten: "The Shadow Within the Memory" Coming soon... 🌉❄️👑