The city of Aethelgard was not built. It was grown.

I say this to you, dear brother, as if you could see it. As if your eyes, clouded now by the mists of the old age that claims us all, could still trace the lines of the Great Wall. I remember it when it was whole. I was seven then. You were five. We were small things, dust motes dancing in the amber light of the High Keep. The Wall stood between us and the void. It was a cathedral of stone and iron, a vertical ocean of grey that scraped the sky. It did not just enclose the city. It defined it. It was the spine of our world.

We believed it was eternal. That was the first lie. We believed it was solid. That was the second.

The priests told us the Wall was the skin of God. They said if we kept our faith, if we kept our silence, the skin would hold. The void outside was not empty. It was hungry. It was a silence that had teeth. We were the flesh. The Wall was the barrier. We were not citizens. We were organs.

I remember the day the first crack appeared. It was a hairline fracture, no wider than a whisper. It ran from the base of the North Tower up to the third tier. The priests said it was a scar. A mark of our past sins. They told us to kneel. To apologize. To press our foreheads against the cold stone and beg the Wall to forgive us for our weakness.

I did not kneel. I watched the crack. I felt it. It hummed. It was not a wound. It was a breath. The Wall was trying to speak. But we had no ears for it. We had only our fear.

You were with me. You were brave, Thomas. You were always brave, in the way that children are brave, because they do not yet know the weight of things. You ran to the crack. You placed your small hand against it. You pressed your palm flat against the stone.

"Does it hurt?" you asked.

I did not answer. I could not. To say yes was to admit that the divine could suffer. That was heresy. To say no was to lie. So I said nothing. I watched your face. You looked at me, and your eyes were wide. They were dark pools with no bottom. You saw something I did not. You saw the truth.

The crack widened. It was not fast. It was slow. It was the speed of tectonic plates shifting. It was the speed of a heart breaking. But it was relentless.

The High Priest came. His name was Aldric. He was a man of iron will and soft hands. He wore robes of white so pure they seemed to glow in the dim light of the Keep. He looked at the crack. He looked at us. His face was a mask of pity.

"Children," he said. His voice was soft. It was the voice of a father. It was the voice of a jailer. "You have disturbed the sanctity. You must leave. The Wall is in pain. It needs rest."

We were sent away. We were sent to the Lower Districts. The place where the light did not reach. The place where the air tasted of rust and old blood. We were cast out. Not by the Wall. By the people who claimed to love it.

I remember the walk. The streets were narrow. The buildings were leaning in, as if they were conspiring. The people watched us. They did not speak. They did not look at us directly. They looked at the ground. They looked at their hands. They were ashamed. They were afraid. They thought we had broken the Wall. They thought our presence was the cause.

This was the misunderstanding. This was the bias. They believed that purity required isolation. They believed that the sacred could not touch the profane. They did not know that the Wall was already broken. That the break had been there for centuries. That we were not the cause. We were the symptom.

We lived in the shadows. We lived in the dark. We grew. I grew into a young man. You grew into a young man. We were different. You were quiet. You were still. You spent your hours by the old ruins. The places where the foundations of the old city lay exposed. You touched the stones. You listened.

I tried to pull you back. I tried to bring you into the light of the Lower Districts. I wanted to protect you. I wanted to keep you safe from the priests. I wanted to keep you safe from the void. But you did not want safety. You wanted truth.

"You hear it, don't you?" you said one night. We were sitting on a pile of rubble. The moon was full. It was a pale, cold eye. "The Wall. It is singing."

I looked at you. I saw the hunger in your eyes. It was the same hunger I had seen when you were five. But now it was sharper. It was focused.

"I hear nothing," I said.

"You are deaf," you said. It was not an insult. It was a fact. "You are deaf to the world."

I was angry. I was afraid. I did not want to hear it. I did not want to know that our god was dying. I did not want to know that we were the ones who had to let it go.

The second turn came in the spring. The Wall collapsed.

It did not fall all at once. It fell in pieces. Large slabs of stone and iron. They crashed into the streets. They crushed the houses. They crushed the people. The sound was a roar. It was a scream. It was the end of the world.

The priests ran. They ran with their white robes stained with dust and blood. They ran from the sacred. They ran from the divine. They ran from their own making.

We did not run. We stood. We stood in the path of the falling stone. We looked at the gap. The void was there. It was not empty. It was full. It was full of light. It was full of wind. It was full of life.

You ran toward it.

I shouted your name. I reached for you. But you were already gone. You were already in the light. You were already part of it.

I did not follow. I stayed. I stayed because I was afraid. I stayed because I was bound. I was bound to the city. I was bound to the memory of the Wall. I was bound to the lie.

The city changed. The people changed. The void came in. It filled the streets. It filled the houses. It filled the hearts. It was not death. It was freedom. It was the end of the cage.

I lived for ten years in the new city. I lived in the ruins. I lived in the light. I watched the people build new things. They did not build walls. They built bridges. They built open spaces. They built for the wind.

I was happy. I was free. But I was alone.

The third turn came in the winter. I found you.

You were in the center of the city. You were sitting on a stone. The stone was from the Wall. It was cracked. It was broken. But it was still there.

You looked at me. You did not smile. You did not frown. You looked at me with a calmness that was terrifying.

"You stayed," you said.

"I had to," I said.

"You could have come," you said.

"I was afraid," I said.

"You are still afraid," you said.

I looked at the stone. I looked at the crack. I saw it now. I saw the truth. The crack was not a wound. It was a door. The Wall was not a barrier. It was a shell. We were the seed. We were meant to burst. We were meant to grow.

I was the one who was broken. I was the one who was stuck. I was the one who could not let go.

"I am sorry," I said.

You nodded. You did not speak. You reached out your hand. You touched the stone. You closed your eyes.

The light around you began to change. It was not the light of the sun. It was not the light of the moon. It was a light that came from within. It was a light that came from the void.

You began to dissolve.

Not into dust. Not into ash. Into light. Into wind. Into the air. You were becoming the city. You were becoming the void. You were becoming the truth.

I reached out. I touched your hand. It was warm. It was solid. For one moment, you were there. For one moment, you were real.

Then you were gone.

I was alone.

The fourth turn was the silence.

The silence that followed was not empty. It was full. It was full of your presence. It was full of the truth. I could feel you in the wind. I could feel you in the light. I could feel you in the stone.

I was not sad. I was not angry. I was free.

I walked to the edge of the city. I looked out into the void. It was vast. It was infinite. It was beautiful.

I understood. The cycle is not a trap. The cycle is a gift. We are not meant to stay. We are meant to go. We are not meant to hold on. We are meant to let go.

The Wall was not a prison. It was a cradle. And we had outgrown it.

I was the last one. I was the last one to let go. I was the last one to understand.

I stood at the edge. I looked at the void. I took a step.

I did not fall. I flew.

I became the wind. I became the light. I became the truth.

I am here. I am everywhere. I am the city. I am the void. I am the break in the Wall.

Do not mourn for me. Do not mourn for Thomas. Do not mourn for the Wall.

Let it go.

Let it go.

Let it go.