The Kingdom of Lothric rose over the same lands where once stood Lordran. Prosperity here was a visible dogma, in other words, testimony of the First Flame's grace and the wisdom of its ancient gods. The very air thrummed with being: the ring of hammers in the forges, the murmur of voices in the squares, the solemn peal of bells exalting the name of Gwyn and his line. Everywhere, the signs of Fire—on velvet standards, on the shields of guards in gleaming mail, upon the façades of noble houses.

And the statues. They stood everywhere, countless likenesses of Gwyn, Lord of Cinder, captured in the moment of the Great Kindling.

In the palace alcoves stood effigies of queens and princes of ages past, their visages frozen in expressions of indestructible resolve or devout sorrow. And, of course, the statues of the living heirs. Among them, none drew the eye more than the likenesses of Prince Lothric. His idealised form—youthful, far-seeing, with a cold, piercing gaze and a sacred sword in hand—looked down from pedestals. They proclaimed: the dynasty endures, the Flame's succession remains unbroken. The kingdom was preparing for the coming Kindling.

The Garden to which you and Lorian withdrew was a place of harmony.

Yet even here, the Fire made itself known. Amid rows of lilies and bellflowers stood graceful bronze figures, smaller than those in the squares yet no less eloquent. Gwyn, blessing the harvest. Gwyn, trampling dragons beneath his feet. And once more—Prince Lothric. His sameness by the fountain, itself carved in the shape of flame, was touched with rare lyricism: the scholar-prince bent over a scroll.

You knew how heavily that statue weighed upon Lorian, that cold, alien ideal his brother had never been.

The elder prince walked beside you. He wore no gleaming armour, no heavy mantle stitched with flame, nor the dread sword steeped in the essence of Chaos—only a modest doublet of deep blue velvet, which drew the eye to his towering frame, still imposing, though time had dimmed its strength, and soft boots that made no sound.

He remembered how you, his friend since the cradle, would tremble before the emblems of martial might and the cruelty that his great feat had wrought: the slaying of the Demon Prince. He remembered the horror in your eyes when you saw him in that hour, bathed in ash and another's blood. Since then, in your presence, he had cast off the scorched armour, seeking to be only Lorian.

"Read," he rasped.

His voice—once, it thundered across parade grounds, stirring the hearts of valiant knights and flattering the pride of courtiers—was now like the creak of a taut string, ready to snap. Deep, yet frayed with a hidden rasp, as though embers smouldered within, burning away his strength. Lorian spoke but little. Words came with effort; each one weighed like gold. And now it was the weary plea of an elder prince to the only one who had known him before the glory, before the encroaching frailty.

"…and lo, his breath was bitter frost, that did wrap the world in a winding-sheet of silence for a thousand years."

Lorian listened, yet his gaze rested not on you, nor on the book. He looked through the orchids, past the bronze effigy of Gwyn.

You knew his thoughts.

The Flame. The ceaseless agony of a world kept alight by the toll of countless tormented souls.

Lorian and Lothric. Aye, their statues stood side by side, their names spoken as one—heralds of hope. Yet in secret, in the deep hush of libraries and within these gardens, the twin princes had begun to whisper of another path. A path where no more pyres would burn, where Flame would no longer command the fates of men. A path into Darkness? Perhaps. But into freedom—from the helix of flame.

"Nay, not so," said Lorian. "As it ought to be."

You closed the book and turned to face the prince.

"Wilt thou burn in the Flame's embrace? Or shalt thou tread into the Dark?" he asked, his voice low. "But… Every flame, howe'er bright it burneth, shall in time be quenched. And Darkness—'tis neither good nor evil, but only the name of the inevitable."