The Healing Shrine was hidden deep in the wetlands, wrapped in vines and soft mist. They traveled by foot and raft, cutting through thick reeds and silence.
Unlike the other shrines, there was no grandeur here.
No glowing statues.
No echoing chambers.
Just a clearing surrounded by weeping trees—and in the center, a single, low stone slab barely rising above the ground.
It pulsed softly beneath the moss. A slow, rhythmic beat. Like a wounded heart.
Emma was the first to step forward.
The others held back.
She knelt beside the stone.
Something in the air shifted—gentle, but heavy.
She reached out, fingers brushing the moss, and suddenly her breath caught.
She didn't move. Didn't speak.
Tears welled in her eyes—not from pain, not from memory. But from something deeper.
A grief without shape.
"I don't know what this is," she whispered, voice trembling. "But it feels like... loss. Like something beautiful that died a long time ago."
No one interrupted her.
They didn't dare.
Even Cyrus fell silent.
Rai stood just outside the circle of trees, hand resting against the bark.
The air buzzed through his bones. His wrist throbbed. His chest felt hollow and too full all at once.
Each shrine had done this to him—but this one was different.
It cracked something open.
He didn't speak.
He couldn't.
His knees gave out.
And for the first time, without understanding why—
Rai cried.
Not loud. Not broken.
Just quietly.
Like a dam had ruptured somewhere deep inside him, and he had no control over the flood that followed.
They stayed by the shrine until nightfall.
Emma didn't say anything when Rai returned to camp with red eyes.
She just sat beside him.
Not close. Not far.
Just enough to be there.
That night, the dreams came again.
Emma saw the forest from above—golden leaves turning to ash. A voice in the wind, soft and sad:
"We must do it for him."
Owen saw mountains break open.
Marin saw waves freeze mid-fall.
Cyrus saw fire collapse into itself.
Iris saw the sky tear.
And Rai?
Rai saw it clearly.
No more blurs. No more pieces.
He stood in a vast, silent hall.
Statues of the five elemental deities surrounded him—cracked, but intact. Fire. Water. Earth. Air. Healing.
And in the center stood a sixth figure—faceless, cloaked in shifting light.
One by one, the deities stepped forward.
And laid their power at its feet.
"For the war to come," they whispered, one after another.
"For the balance that was broken."
"For the one who will remember when all others forget."
"We give our strength... to him."
The cloaked figure looked up.
And Rai saw himself.
He woke gasping, drenched in sweat.
And Suimidhi's words echoed in his mind—something she'd said weeks ago, barely audible:
"You're not meant to inherit power, Rai... You're meant to carry it."