The Wardens moved as one — silent, slow, yet undeniably certain. Cloaked in grey and green, their robes hung like lichen, and the faint light of the crystal veins reflected off masks carved from petrified wood and ancient bone. Their eyes burned behind those masks: not with malice, but with memory.

Bedwyr lowered his lyre slowly, hand hovering near the hilt of his silver blade. "They are not ghosts."

“No,” Galahad said, shield raised. “They are echoes made flesh.”

The lead Warden stepped forward and struck the stone floor with an obsidian staff. The sound reverberated like a gong. The chamber responded in kind — a deep harmonic tone that resonated in their bones.

“They’re measuring us,” Skif said, wings twitching. “Like we’re... dissonant.”

The Warden spoke, but the words emerged not in sound but through the stone. A voice in the marrow.

“You tread the paths of memory. You bear light. You bring fire. Will you add to the ruin, or do you seek to know what was lost?”

Gwyn stepped forward, sword still sheathed. “We seek the source of the corruption. We don’t want a fight.”

“All who enter say the same. Most bring blade before song.”

Galahad moved beside her. “If it’s a song you need — let him play.”

The Wardens stood still. A moment passed. Then Bedwyr, heart pounding, stepped towards the centre of the chamber. He placed his lyre on the ground. Not as a weapon. As an offering.

He began to play.

It was not a performance. It was an answer — to the echo, to the sorrow in the walls, to the question hidden in the stones. Notes of dusk and loss, of forest fires and songs left unfinished. The air shimmered with memory.

When he finished, the room was silent.

The Wardens did not bow. But they parted.

All but one.

The largest Warden stepped forward and shed his cloak. Beneath it stood not a fae, but something older — a figure made of stone and bark, etched with countless names in forgotten runes. His voice was thunder wrapped in grief.

“One must be tested.”

Gwyn drew her blade. “Then test me.”

The Warden raised a hand, and the stone floor cracked into a duelling ring, encircled by glowing runes. A heartbeat later, his greatsword emerged from earth and memory.

Gwyn stepped into the ring. The moment her foot crossed the boundary, her aura ignited — golden, fierce, tempered by pain. The Warden’s aura was weight itself — old battles, ancient vows, the burden of standing long after time should have buried you.

The duel commenced in silence.

No call to arms. No signal. Only the shift of breath and the slow lowering of the Warden’s greatsword, carved from the very stone of the singing chamber itself. Its edge hummed — not sharp, but heavy, as if it intended not to cut but to remember what it touched.

Gwyn struck first.

Her blade, wreathed in golden light, cleaved through the air with righteous fury. The Warden parried with one hand, the impact sending a shockwave through the ring that cracked the outer runes and scattered dust from the high arches.

Gwyn adjusted her stance, sliding back on bare stone. He was stronger than he appeared. Slower, but not by much. She feinted low and spun, aiming for his flank. This time, the Warden didn’t block — he turned into the blow, allowing the steel to scrape across his stone-carved ribs.

He wanted to feel it.

“Why aren’t you striking?” she hissed.

The Warden’s voice echoed into her mind.  

“You are not here to be broken. You are here to be seen.”

He attacked then — a broad swing that forced her to duck, followed by a sudden stomp that sent a pillar of earth surging beneath her feet. She leapt over it and drove her blade into his shoulder. Sparks flew. The wound glowed briefly before sealing over with moss and memory.

She was panting now. Her aura flared — that same blinding fire that had nearly consumed her in the glade. She could feel it rise, hungering, wanting to burn this stone figure down to ash.

But she remembered the Wight. She remembered the guardian. She remembered her trial.

Gwyn pulled back.

Instead of attacking, she planted her sword and stood tall. Her aura shimmered, still radiant — yet calm. “I am not your enemy,” she said aloud, voice ragged but resolute. “I don’t need to win this. I just need you to know I understand.”

The Warden stepped forward, raising his greatsword for a final strike.

And stopped.

The runes on the ring blazed bright. Then vanished.

The Warden knelt.

“Then pass, Ray of Dawn.”

He offered her the hilt of his sword. She placed her palm upon it — and felt, for a heartbeat, the weight of ten thousand years of duty.

Then it, too, crumbled to dust.