Cin’aed Si’rune walked alone through the empty halls of the Archive of Arandor. The lamps here were fueled by starlight and memory burning with cold, unwavering clarity. He needed it. For the image of Arthrand’s Lyrandrel would not leave him.
A Paladin of Verilion. A champion of sacred justice. Left maimed by Igenos, Lord of Elemental Flame. His body, torn and scorched, might have healed. But the Lyrandrel, his soul's anchor, had turned inward. It refused all healing. Every known rite, every touch of divine or harmonic restoration had been rebuffed.
Cin’aed had not spoken of it to the others, not yet. They saw a strange malady. He saw a crisis of essence perhaps the beginning of a greater unraveling.
And so, in silence, he searched.
He scoured scrolls etched in golden thread.In the Codex of Reflective Suffering, he found mention of “soul-locked Lyrandrels,” rare cases where overwhelming trauma had severed the organ’s ability to recognize the self.
“When fire scorches the mirror, it cannot reflect the light.”
The idea haunted him. Could a Lyrandrel become so disoriented by pain or loss that it misaligns with its bearer entirely? What, then, was the cure?
The breakthrough came three nights later.
Buried in a side-reference from the Ash-Reckoners of Nyhrel’s Descent, Cin’aed uncovered the beginning of a rite: Rulvayn's Ember-Threading, a ritual once used by the Flame-Menders of Emberdeep, a Hill Elf settlement that is said to be hidden in a caldera warmed by volcanic veins. It was designed not to heal the body, but to guide the Lyrandrel back to its harmonic signature to remind it of who it once was.
It required rare components:
Ashen Root, harvested from trees grown near death-sites of elemental upheaval.
A Mirror of Verdance, a living resonance-chime that could reflect the bearer’s soul-pattern.
The Breath of the Bound Flame, a whisper sung by the healer through a flame fed by the sufferer's blood.
Cin’aed felt both dread and awe stir in him. It was dangerous work bridging essences, reaching into the silence of another's soul. But if it meant bringing Arthrand’s Lyrandrel back into harmony, it had to be attempted.