Kael stood at the edge of the pine line, where the last trees gave way to the white, open breath of Mt. Silver. The wind howled across the rocks like it was chasing something — or warning it away.
He adjusted the straps on his pack and tightened the fur-lined collar of his coat. The pages of his journal were secure in the inner pouch. Galen's Pokégear rested close to his chest, no signal, but still blinking. Still waiting.
Echo padded beside him, her pawsteps silent in the snow. Her fur shimmered like it carried light from a colder moon, and the mark on her shoulder pulsed in time with the wind.
They didn't speak as they climbed.
There was too much to listen to.
Hours passed.
The sun disappeared behind thick clouds. The snow thickened. They climbed narrow ridges and descended frozen ravines. No Pokémon stirred—not even a stray Zubat or Sneasel. It was as if the world had paused to watch them.
Then he heard it.
"Kael…"
The voice curled between the snowflakes, soft as smoke. Familiar.
He stopped.
Echo stopped, too. "You heard it."
He nodded slowly. "It was him."
"No," Echo said, more firmly. "It wants to be him."
His chest tightened. "It sounded right."
"It will always sound right."
He looked out over the edge of the slope. Down below, the forest of Yukari was a distant smear of grey and white. Somewhere down there, Elder Saki still kept her silence. But up here…
He was being remembered.
They set camp beneath a jagged outcrop, sheltered from the worst of the wind. Echo curled against the wall of the tent, her eyes half-closed but vigilant.
He lit the small camp lantern and pulled out Galen's journal.
The last few pages were sparse—fragmented notes, rushed sketches. Maps with entire sections crossed out or redrawn. And one symbol that had appeared again and again since the Dragon's Den:
❂
Not the crescent eye. Not the inverted seal.
This one looked like a sun cut in half.
He traced it with his gloved finger.
"What does this one mean?" he asked.
Echo stirred. "The Eye watches. The Threshold chooses. But the Sun…"
She hesitated.
"…the Sun remembers."
He frowned. "That doesn't make sense."
Echo turned her head toward the firelight. "Memory is not always a gift."
Later that night, the whisper returned.
This time closer.
"Kael… you're almost there."
He sat up sharply.
Echo was already awake. Her eyes glowed faintly in the dark.
The voice came again. Not from the wind. From the shadows near the cliff.
"I left it for you. The last piece."
He stepped toward the edge of the tent flap, heart pounding.
Echo didn't stop him. Just followed.
Out in the snow, a figure stood.
Human.
Familiar.
He took a step forward before he realized something was wrong.
The figure had no shadow.
And its feet didn't leave prints.
"You're so close."
It raised one hand.
"Come see."
He stopped, fists clenched.
"That's not him."
The figure smiled.
It was Galen's face.
But it didn't blink.
And when it moved… the wind stopped.
"Echo," he said quietly. "What happens if I follow it?"
"You won't come back the same," Echo said. "If you come back at all."
The figure began to fade into the snow.
Not vanish.
Just become part of it.
Like a stain that never washed out.
The rest of the night passed without sleep.
He kept the fire alive, hands shaking only slightly as he wrote in the margins of the journal.
"It knows what he looked like. What he said. Even how he stood. But it's wrong in ways I don't have words for. Amaranth isn't pretending — it's remembering. And it's remembering him through me."
Echo sat beside him, quiet, tail wrapped around her paws.
"It's getting bolder," she said.
He nodded. "Because we're closer?"
"No," Echo said. "Because it's waking up."
At sunrise, they broke camp in silence.
The clouds above were bruised grey, and the peak of Mt. Silver still loomed high above them, wrapped in storm and shadow. Somewhere past the next ridge was the final path. Somewhere out there was the monolith.
And maybe the truth.
Not the one he wanted.
But the one he needed to see.