Legend XXXI – Aurenia the Goldbearer

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They called her Aurenia the Goldbearer because her armor held the light like honey and made no sound when she walked. She was the last guardian of the Pillar Hall of Valis, where the shadows of the statues were longer than the days and the names inscribed on the marble steps could only be read in the moonwind. At her side walked a tomcat, flame-colored, with a white muzzle and eyes that shone with the gleam of ancient suns. His name was Cindero. They said he was woven from the remnants of a dawn when the world was young. He did not speak, but when his tail touched the air, Aurenia tasted memory—metallic, sweet, and painful. War had shaped her. But it is not the battle that breaks us, but what it leaves behind. In her heart sat the image of her brother Ilvandar, who once vanished in the hall when she first whispered. Now she did it again. The Chroniclers called to her: “The shadows are breaking free from the bases. Go, Keeper.” She pressed her forehead to Cindero’s fur and entered. The hall was cold, like a thought pushed away. Dust of bygone years lay on the steps. Aurenia wore no helmet—truth can only be heard with bare ears. Silence hung between the pillars, so thick that even her breath hesitated. Cindero followed her soundlessly—a living echo. Then the whispering began. First a tremor, then words without mouths. Darkness seeped from the statues, forming outlines of memory. A figure stood at the far end of the hall: incomplete, yet familiar. Aurenia recognized the posture—the swing of the left arm, the weight on the right leg. It was Ilvandar, her brother, no older than the day he vanished. He looked at her, but his gaze passed through her as if she were wind. She wanted to call his name, but the sound caught in her throat. Cindero leaped onto a balustrade and let out a bright, glassy cry—then the whispering broke, and for a heartbeat all seemed still. Aurenia understood: The hall held no spirit; it was a vessel for remnants of time. And she herself had opened the rift, back then, in the war, when she had tried to forget who she was. Between the pillars now stood shadows in human form—unspoken possibilities, lives left unlived. One of them bore Ilvandar's face. Aurenia raised her hand, the image mirrored it—a mirror of pain. Cindero climbed onto the pedestal of a bronze goddess and drew a fine circle of gold in the air with his tail. It was not a gateway to a place, but to an hour. The cat was more than a companion: He was the needle with which the world hemmed itself, and now he offered her the stitch. She knew what it meant. If she completed the circle, shadows would turn to stone, and Ilvandar would sink to where all unchosen paths rest—into cessation. With every choice, we kill a world. She stepped forward, touching the warm thread of light.