I felt more than heard the scream that tore from my lungs and clawed from my throat. My fist slammed against the tiles, shattering my brittle bones like dry twigs, yet I did not feel the pain, could only stare on as with  that disembodied eye I beheld Or'do's death.

Ashen One! The Keeper's voice was urgent. Use the Pearl! 

"I thought you hated him." I whispered, not grasping the meaning of her words.

What I said was wrong, Aleorn. You did not unleash the Void nor did your empty worlds tempt it. The Void did not even invade your worlds, but those that were home to Ashen, seeking prey not empty land. I was wrong, Aleorn! There are only two warriors that could possibly vanquish the Void, Aleorn. Your powers are beyond reckoning, as are his. Raise your head, Ashen One. Your friend needs you.

I felt a surge of fire in my veins, my heart blazing with furious heat. The Pearl of Light captured from its prison in flesh creatures I once thought Dark, yet through Or'do had realized to be the Deep. He had spared me the knowledge, perhaps he still thought I might quail at the thought, or perhaps he wished to protect me from the terror of facing creatures such as these. Or perhaps his past is painful, perhaps he once revealed the place's nature, and the nature of the powers he derived from it, to his comrade's dismay and rage. It matters not.

I seized the Pearl with my shattered left hand and cast it into the air, snatching it with my right and flinging it into the darkness beyond my lips, crushing it between my molars. Horrible pain roared through me, filling my veins like a river of molten steel, turning my flesh to slag, my bones to ash. This was a more intense Light than any Ashen was meant to touch much less wield. I fell forward on hands and knees, rivers of white radiance shining through me, illuminating my veins like serpents slumbering beneath my smouldering skin. Filaments of incandescent light rose like supplicant hands, writhing from countless wounds slashed by their passing. My breath glowed as it fled my lungs, my blood was cold and pulse uncertain in spite of the thunderous storm inside me.

The cage of stone he had built around me fell away as if forged of sand, flowing over my shoulders as I stood, my eyes shining like stars, the Cinder a radiant blaze within my chest.

Or'do clasping my shoulder in that strengthening way, smiling that infectious smile. The memory burned through me, as clear now as it was on the day it was forged. "You will never again have to face the world alone." He promised. "You have suffered, Aleorn, stumbled in that same bleak hopelessness that all Ashen bear; never again, Aleorn. You will never again be without purpose, without hope."

"Or'do!" I shambled forward a pace, swaying like a drunkard, falling prone with a melancholy thud.  

"You will never again be without hope." Primal and wordless, a scream that shuddered with anguish tore from my beleaguered throat, spraying marbles of blood across the stones.

Or'do falling, the Champion's spears slowly retreating into its mottled flesh. He whispers something: "Forget me."

"Never." I slammed an iron palm against the earth. "I can never forget you." I surged to my feet, standing in spite of agony's leaden mantle. Stumbling, weak, on the precipitous brink of collapse I strode on all the same. "I will never forget you!" My steps left smouldering traces upon the stones, melting the very ground on which I stood. Then, the fire in my heart died, and my quaking legs surrendered. I fell, my vision dark and mind quiet before I struck the glowing tile.

These memoirs contain not mere words, but memories. I prayed as consciousness deserted me that Or'do would not read them. He need not know that I perished trying to save him.