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The castle had not changed, and yet it was unrecognizable.
The Champion moved quietly through the high corridor, where light no longer pooled golden on polished stone. Silence had replaced the music of footsteps and voices. The air, formerly perfumed with old wood and vanilla, now carried only the faint scent of ash and ruin. Tapestries still suspended from their mounts—shreds of them hanging loose like decadent prayers—and the old carpet still lined the floor, worn into grey threads by time and weather yet still red beneath, if one looked closely.
He remembered. Not just the patterns or the colours, but how it had felt beneath his boots when he was summoned here in youth, how the hall seemed impossibly long, and how she had waited at the end of it, always a little restless, always impatient for ceremony to be over. She hated formality. He had come to know that.
The once-proud bastion of the kingdom had become a tomb, a bleak obituary telling of a brutal invasion. On either side, the skeletal remains of bookshelves slumped in shadow. Broken drawers jutted from walls where decorative cabinets erstwhile waited. Ornaments long since reduced to splinters or claimed by the tangible malice that tainted this place begged at the feet of decrepit tables and time-eaten chests. It was quiet, save for the faint hum in the Champion’s chest. His trusted blade, one forged to cut through darkness, seemed to know what lay ahead. He could feel its powerful thrum, reassuring him of both its divinity, and his duty.
A hundred years had passed, yet the castle still held her shape, and with it the echoes of what once was. He walked through memory now, not rubble. His guilt did not allow him to mourn.
At the end of the corridor stood the final gate, old and worn. Its lines were still straight, its carvings still visible. Intricate swirls blessed the tall doors with symbols of an ancient Kingdom. Before it, he paused. Not out of hesitation, but in reverence. Beyond it lay his purpose.
He tightened his vambraces. He could not afford to lose. Then, with the calm of one who has already given everything, the Champion entered.