The night deepened. The singing stopped. The sanctuary slept. But Seong and Varen remained beneath the tree.
"I did not come only to talk," said Varen finally. "I came to warn you."
"Warn me of what?"
"There are others. Others like me. But they are not watchers. They are... destroyers. They have been watching you too, but not with curiosity. With hunger."
"What do they want?"
"They want the meeting places. They want the tree. They want the memories you have collected. They want to burn it all and watch the ashes scatter."
"Why?"
"Because they believe that memory is the source of all pain. That if they erase every story, every tear, every moment of connection, they will erase suffering forever."
"That is madness."
"Is it? You have seen what memory can do. The queen's tears created a road of ice that lasted a thousand years. Kalib's anger consumed him. Kaien's cold nearly killed him. Memory can be a prison as easily as it can be a key."
"But without memory, we are nothing."
"Exactly. And that is what they want. Nothing. A world without pain. A world without joy. A world without anything at all."
Seong stood. "When will they come?"
"I do not know. But they are gathering. In the places where light does not reach. In the spaces between roads. In the silence between heartbeats."
"Then we must prepare."
"Yes. But there is something else."
"What?"
Varen stood as well. For the first time, the shadowy cloak fell back, revealing a face. Not young. Not old. A face that had seen too much and felt too little. A face that was learning, for the first time in centuries, how to be human again.
"I want to help you. Not as a watcher. As... a man. As the man I was before I became this. If you will have me."
Seong looked at Varen. Looked at the tired eyes, the trembling hands, the fragile hope that was beginning to bloom like a flower through cracked stone.
"Welcome to the Seventh Meeting Place," said Seong. "You are no longer a watcher. You are one of us."