The first time Eliora saw the temple, it wasn’t there.
Just an empty hillside.
Just wind slicing through tall grass.
Just the whisper of something half-remembered.
But by the time she returned — three years older, three heartbreaks heavier, carrying a regret she never talked about — the temple stood tall and waiting, as if it had sprouted from stone the moment her shadow touched the earth again.
The villagers of Ardan said the structure had always been there, in the way legends are somehow always old: timeless, immovable, unquestioned. A ruin of ancient beauty. A monument built before anyone kept written records.
But they also said, in hushes softened by superstition:
“It only opens its doors for those who carry regret.”
Which sounded poetic until you realized regret was the one thing most people never wanted witnessed.
Especially by a structure rumored to listen.
Eliora climbed the hillside slowly, boots crunching the brittle frost. Winter had laid its first thin breath across the valley, tinting everything in silver-blue. Her breath fogged in front of her as she tightened her scarf.
She hadn’t planned to return to Ardan.
She hadn’t planned much of anything lately.
But the letter from her childhood friend — the one she’d left behind — had been short and urgent:
Eli,
Come home if you can.
There’s something you should see.
— Rami
Something.
Not someone.
She’d known what he meant the moment she read it.
The temple.
The place she once told him she wished she could enter — joking, half-curious — before she ruined everything between them.
Three years had passed since she left him standing beside the riverbank with words he deserved to hear but she hadn’t been brave enough to say.
Three years since she chose escape over honesty.
Three years carrying the ache of a goodbye she never voiced.
And the temple, the villagers claimed, had a particular fondness for that kind of ache.
At the hilltop, Eliora froze.
It was magnificent.
Not weathered as she expected — not crumbling like ancient ruins usually were — but alive with an almost breathing stillness.
Stone columns rose like carved moonlight.
Vines wrapped around its archways, but not in decay — they glowed faintly, silver-green, as though nourished by something deeper than sunlight.
The entrance was sealed shut by two massive doors engraved with swirling patterns that shifted if she looked too long.
It was too real.
Too present.
Too aware.
She reached out.
The moment her fingertips brushed the door, the carvings brightened.
A low hum vibrated the air, deep and resonant, like a heart waking.
The doors parted.
Just slightly.
Just enough to say:
We see what you carry.
We allow you in.
Eliora exhaled shakily.
“Well,” she whispered, “I guess that’s my answer.”
She pushed.
The doors opened silently.
The interior was vast.
And strangely warm — not in temperature, but in atmosphere, like stepping into a memory softened by forgiveness.
Light pooled in gentle gold along the floor, radiating from no source she could identify. Soft drifts of dust danced upward rather than falling, shimmering as though weightless.
But the strangest thing was the walls.
They moved.
Not physically — but imagery swirled across them like watercolor paintings, forming and dissolving.
Moments.
Lives.
Choices.
She stepped closer to one wall, drawn by instinct.
The image sharpened.
A woman stood by a window, her hands clasped tightly, her face hollow with unspoken words. A man was leaving through the doorway behind her, suitcase in hand. He paused, waiting. Hoping.
The woman didn’t turn.
The moment froze, then dissolved back into shifting color.
Eliora swallowed hard.
“Regret,” she murmured. “It shows regret.”
A voice echoed behind her — soft, familiar.
“It shows what we haven’t forgiven in ourselves.”
Eliora spun.
Rami stood in the entryway, snow dusting his dark hair. He looked older than she remembered — broader shoulders, rougher hands, eyes touched with gentleness she once knew well.
Her breath hitched.
“Rami.”
He smiled — small but warm. “I knew you’d come.”
“You wrote only three words.”
He shrugged lightly. “That was enough.”
She looked away.
The air between them thickened with everything they hadn’t said.
Rami approached one of the walls, watching the shifting images.
“The elders say the temple appears differently for everyone,” he said. “It listens. It responds. It reveals what you need in order to leave lighter.”
“Lighter?” she whispered.
“Yeah.” He turned to her. “Eli… what are you here to let go of?”
Her heart stumbled.
“Maybe nothing,” she said too quickly.
He held her gaze calmly.
“Then why did it open for you?”
She couldn’t answer.
They walked deeper into the temple, silence warming slowly into presence.
At the chamber’s center, a pool of still water lay like a mirror, reflecting the golden ceiling.
Rami stood beside it.
Eliora joined him.
“The keeper appears here,” he said softly. “If you’re willing to face what you came for.”
“Keeper?”
He nodded toward the water. “Watch.”
As they stared into the pool, the reflection shifted.
Light gathered.
Shape emerged.
A figure rose from the water — a woman woven from pale luminescence and flowing script. Her eyes shimmered like stardust.
She looked at Eliora.
And when she spoke, her voice echoed inside Eliora’s chest as much as in the air.
“What weighs your heart?”
Eliora’s breath hitched.
“I… I don’t know.”
The keeper tilted her head.
“Then let the temple show you.”
The water rippled.
A memory surfaced, clear as morning frost.
Eliora by the riverbank.
Rami standing beside her.
A moment years old.
A conversation they never really finished.
He had said, “I think I—”
And she had cut him off.
Not out of cruelty.
But out of fear.
Fear of loving him.
Fear of being loved.
Fear of losing something too precious.
She remembered stepping back.
Breaking the moment.
Breaking him a little too.
And walking away.
The reflection showed Rami sitting by the river after she left, head bowed.
Eliora’s chest tightened painfully.
“I didn’t know,” she whispered. “I never knew you stayed there.”
Rami’s voice was quiet. “I hoped you’d come back.”
She covered her mouth with her hand as tears pricked her eyes.
“I’m sorry,” she choked. “I thought if I left fast enough, the feelings wouldn’t follow me. But they did. All this time, they did.”
The keeper’s eyes softened.
“Regret is not punishment,” she murmured. “It is the heart asking for truth.”
Eliora’s tears fell freely now.
“I hurt him,” she whispered. “I hurt myself too.”
Rami took a step closer.
“Eliora,” he said gently, “I didn’t ask you to come here to apologize. I asked because… I wanted you to stop carrying something alone.”
She wiped her cheeks. “I never stopped caring about you.”
He exhaled shakily. “I know.”
The keeper raised her hand.
Light flowed across the pool.
“Then release what keeps you apart.
Let regret become remembrance.
Let remorse become understanding.
Let truth become choice.”
The temple hummed with warmth.
Rami extended his hand.
Not a demand.
Not a plea.
An offering.
Eliora stared at it — at him.
Her heart thudded.
Then she placed her hand in his.
A small miracle.
A beginning disguised as an ending.
The keeper smiled, dissolving into soft light.
The water stilled.
The temple’s golden glow dimmed into a gentle dusk.
“You did it,” Rami murmured.
“No,” she corrected softly. “We did.”
The doors of the temple opened behind them, inviting them into the cool evening air.
They walked out together.
Side by side.
Lighter.
Not because regret had disappeared —
but because it had been seen.
And sometimes, that was the first step toward healing.