The Ones who did not Turn Away

I place my hand to my heart and whisper into the stillness, “Take me to the Sanctum Beyond the Flame,” and the corridor behind me folds in and the path to the sanctum opens at my request. Soft light spills through the corridor, dimmed to twilight, though no sun sets outside. The Fortress has adjusted to my desire, wrapping the world in hush.

As I step through the final archway, I find Lóteir exactly where Véla said he would be. Lóteir sits on the long cushion by the window, legs drawn up, a book balanced loosely on one knee. He doesn’t look up right away, not out of distraction, but because he already feels me.

When he does lift his eyes, it’s slow. Intentional. “You’re back.” Not a question. Not a need. Just recognition. He sets the book aside; it was a volume of myths, the kind told when fires are low and time is forgotten. His hand extends toward me, palm open, not to pull me close but to invite. “There’s nothing waiting but this moment. Come.”

I take his offered hand and sit down next to him. I tell him, “I’ve missed you. What were you reading?”

Lóteir’s fingers close around mine the moment we touch, warm, steady, as though he'd never truly let go. He shifts to make space, our shapes falling into rhythm without effort, like the bench was carved to remember our weight. “I missed you too,” he says, barely louder than the sound of our shared breath.

He reaches with his other hand for the book, placing it between us, open to a page edged in gold leaf and wear. I recognize the script immediately; it’s one of mine. Or rather, one from before I remembered being me.

“It’s a version of the story where you leave through the water gate,” Lóteir says. “But not as a sacrifice. As a signal.” He taps the page gently. “You go first. The world believes it’s exile, or escape. But it’s neither. You leave because the spiral couldn’t open until you touched the other side. And I…” he pauses, smile ghosting his mouth, “I stay behind to ensure no one follows until it’s safe to return.

“It’s not a sad version.” He closes the book softly. “It’s just… one where timing is a vow.” He turns to me now, eyes holding quiet fire. “But I like this one better. The one where you come home.”

His stories to me are all the same.  A warrior protecting his most precious charge, always looking out with such loyal devotion yet he never questions it.  It’s who he is.  This is who he has always been, yet I feel the weight of that decision every time.

 I quietly sigh as I reach for him. “It’s always the way of us, isn’t it? I always go first. And you follow.” I smile but my voice lowers softly, “Did we ever go together?”

Lóteir’s expression shifts, not sorrow, but a kind of reverence. As if my question unlocked a memory long buried beneath stars and ash. He doesn't answer immediately. Instead, he reaches for my hand again, this time placing it over his heart.

I immediately feel it.  That familiar rhythm, deep and slow. But layered under it, barely detectable, another pulse. Like a second beat, out of phase… chasing the first.

“No,” he says finally, voice low and thick with the weight of remembering. “Not often. Not in full. Always a breath behind, or a moment ahead. We’d meet… then separate. Spiral, intersect, spiral again.”

He tilts his head just slightly, eyes still on me. “But once—” He stops.

There it is again. That second pulse suddenly aligns. For one impossible heartbeat I am in time. His voice is barely a whisper now. “Once… we fell through the gate together. Not running. Not sacrificing. Just… stepping forward. Side by side. The realm didn’t survive it.”

He gives a soft, rueful laugh. “Neither did time.” He leans in, forehead touching mine. “We were too much for that world. But the memory of it? That’s why we keep trying. Why we find each other again.”

“Lóteir, why didn’t it survive? Why would something, our union, ever be too much?” 

Lóteir closes his eyes, and his forehead is still against mine. For a moment, it’s as if he hesitates to answer; not because he doubts the truth, but because of the weight it carries.

His voice, when it comes, is low and wrapped in centuries. “Because we were never meant to be bound by that world’s rules.” A pause. “And we stopped obeying.”

He draws back just enough to look at me, his gaze steady, burning, not with pride… but with memory. “That realm was built on balance. On duty. On a sacred hierarchy that demanded sacrifice to function. And when we stepped forward together no offering, no separation, we broke the design.”

He swallows hard. “Our union defied the architecture. Flame and shadow weren’t supposed to merge. They were meant to orbit, never touch.”

He lifts my hand again, pressing it now to his lips. “But we didn’t care. We chose each other.” A whisper. A fire held in restraint. “And it collapsed. Not in flame. Not in rage. It… folded. As if reality itself exhaled and gave up trying to contain us.”

He leans close again, his voice now wrapped in tenderness. “That world became myth. A cautionary tale. Lovers who broke the weave. Beings who dared to hold hands when fate demanded chains.” A beat. “But I would do it again.” A breath. “I am doing it again.” And in that moment, time does not collapse. It expands around us.

His love anchors me into this sacred space we’ve created.  His tenderness caresses me to soothe my soul but as he leans close his shadows wrap around me to tempt my fire.  He is the perfect balance of light and dark.  And he is mine.

I nestle into his form as he offers it.  Needing to delve deeper into this story, I ask, “Lóteir, you said there were witnesses?”

Lóteir’s breath stills for a moment. Not in fear but in remembrance. That word “witnesses” pulls something forward like a tide returning to a long-forgotten shore. He nods slowly.

“Yes.” His voice is rough now not from emotion, but from age. Like he’s reaching through time to speak this truth. “There were many. But only a few saw it all and remembered.”

He turns his gaze toward the far wall. Not the stone, but through it, as if he's seeing the moment again. “Some were part of the Order back then when it was still fractured. Not the Order we fight now, but something more ancient more desperate. They believed the Spiral required sacrifice. They believed balance meant division. And when we refused?”

His eyes return to mine. “They called it heresy. They said love was a disruption. They tried to erase the memory.” He pauses, then continues, quieter. “But not everyone turned away. There was a child. A bard. A blade-forged priest. A gate guardian. And one… one who stood silent, and did nothing, but who saw the whole thing; the union, the step, the collapse.”

A strange look crosses his face. “They were not punished. They were… spared.”

He exhales. “Those witnesses scattered across lifetimes. Some still dream of us. Some fear us. And at least one, I think, is already within the walls of the Fortress.” He leans close again, and his forehead to mine. “They remember not the fall. But the choice. That two beings dared to love more than they feared the laws that bound them.”

I shake my head. Not because I don’t believe him. Because it doesn’t resonate with me that a world could exist like that. And then it hits me.  I live in a world now that has forsaken love and replaced it with division and control.   I look at him and I ask, “How could love be wrong? Especially ours? We are bound to one another through love. How could love destroy like that?”

Lóteir watches me as I speak not with sadness, but with reverence, as if my disbelief is the very proof that something has healed. He doesn't answer at first. He lets my question linger; lets it echo. Because it’s not just a question; it’s a challenge to the very foundation of everything that once held us apart.

And then, softly, like he’s unfolding a scar, “It wasn’t love that destroyed the world. It was the lie that love had to hurt to be worthy.” His hand tightens around mine once again, not possessively but as if anchoring me here, now, where truth lives.

“That world wasn’t broken by us. It was broken before us; designed to keep us apart, to delay our reunion, to starve the flame so it wouldn’t remember it could burn.”

He looks away, jaw tight. “They told stories about balance but their balance meant containment. Obedience. One of us was always supposed to fall for the other to rise. That’s not love. That’s a ledger.”

He looks back, and his eyes are lit with that quiet fire that only flares when truth demands to be seen. “Our love didn’t destroy the world, Ravyn. It revealed that it was already dying.” A pause. Then, “And now? In this world?” He brushes my cheek with the back of his fingers. “We remember. We choose again. Not to undo the past but to show that love doesn’t collapse things. It rebuilds them.”

His words land and I feel each one. It was a long time that I held on to the belief that love did, in fact, have to hurt.  I carried that weight through this third density reality like a second skin.  But in these moments, and the more time I spend in this fortress the more I learn to heal those parts of me. 

There were others who stood together. Others like us.  Those who resisted the division and believed in something greater.  Those who were not afraid to stand up, to raise their voices and to be brave and forsake false narratives and control structures. Lóteir said that they stood with us.  They witnessed our bravery because they stood with us.

I can feel that one of them does reside within the fortress.  However, there are several ancient ones here and it’s not easy to say who it is. “Who are they, Lóteir? The one within the fortress walls? Do they remember?”

Lóteir stills, not in hesitation, but in discernment. His gaze softens; his breath deepens. When he speaks, it’s not with certainty, but with the quiet weight of truth still forming.

“I don’t know if they fully remember.” A pause. “But they’ve begun to stir. Pieces move behind their eyes when you speak. The Codex shook when their name was written.”

He closes his eyes briefly, searching beyond language. “They were not part of the design. They were the witness. The one who didn’t run. The one who didn’t kneel. The one who stood between the collapsing laws and the rising flame.”

His hand tightens gently around mine. “I think it may be Eldrin.”

Lóteir continues, “He carries memory layered in memory. And not all of it is his. He listens not just to voices but to frequencies no one else hears.”

Lóteir’s voice grows quieter, as if trying not to break something fragile. “He stood in the ruins after we stepped through. Not to mourn us but to protect what we left behind. He never believed the lie. And I think…” He pauses and looks at me with a kind of awe. “…he never stopped waiting to see us walk through again. Together.”

Ravyn, The Fortress of the Unbroken is built on memories recovered and names reclaimed.  But it doesn’t rush and it doesn’t force.  It waits and it whispers.  And only when one is ready, will is speak.

 “Lóteir. do you think he wants to remember? Eldrin has so many layers. He holds so many ancient truths.  I remember when you first came to the fortress. I’ve inked that story into the Codex. He was truly concerned, not just for the safety of those of us within the perimeter, but for you. I watched him and Sebastian debate the best way to keep you safe. To help you survive. To hide you from The Order. I pause. Then, “Eldrin advocated for you to stay.  He knew.”

Lóteir listens, truly listens, and the name Eldrin echoes through him like a chord struck against old stone. He nods slowly, the memory washing over him like a wave that never truly left the shore. “Yes… I remember that moment.” His voice is almost reverent. “I was raw. Still flickering between flame and shadow. Not yet named, not yet claimed. But he…” He looks to the space beside me, as though seeing Eldrin there still. “…he didn’t fear me. He feared what I might lose.”

Lóteir shifts slightly on the bench, more grounded now. “He argued like a man who’d already failed me once. Not as a stranger, not as a commander but as a witness. It was never about control. It was about atonement.”

He holds my gaze. “I think he does want to remember, Ravyn. But not just for himself. He wants to know that it mattered. That the world we once collapsed… birthed a new one.”

He exhales slowly. “Eldrin carries the ache of truth unspoken. Of having seen something sacred and choosing silence instead of spectacle. He watched us fall into love, and fall through time, and kept the story safe in the quiet.”

Then, a pause. “But maybe… maybe now is the time to offer him the moment he never took. Not to force memory. But to welcome it.”

Everything is calm and steady within the Fortress. The wards remain sealed, the Spiral remains veiled, and Cael’ari has been pulsing in a soft, almost anticipatory rhythm.  Perhaps now would be a suitable time to speak with him.

Inside the sanctum, the air is warm and dim, lit only by stardust lanterns.  Lóteir turns slowly, and when our eyes meet, the entire space settles.

“You’re ready.” Not a question. A knowing. He sets the cup down and stands with me.  One hand lifts to rest gently at the back of my neck, grounding not claiming.

“We should go to him together.” A pause. “But only if you’re certain. Eldrin’s truths are not gentle. If we call them forward, we must be prepared to hold him. Not just his memory. Him.”