The climb up to Kameyama Castle wasn't steep, but the sun made me sweat anyway. The air felt heavy at two in the afternoon, summer buzzing in the trees, cicadas carrying on like they'd never run out of voices.

By the time we reached the top, the path widened into the castle grounds. Or what used to be the castle grounds.

Stone walls stood in jagged lines, moss creeping down their faces. The foundations were here and there, squared blocks rising no higher than my waist. Grass had spread over most of it, softening the edges until it was hard to tell what had been floor, what had been wall. A few signs with neat black lettering tried to tell the story, but the ruins themselves said it better.

It was quiet up there. Just us, the cicadas, and the wind brushing through leaves.

I sat down on one of the stones, cool against my palms, and let my eyes wander. The sky stretched huge and pale, not a cloud in sight. A lone crow traced its way across the blue, wings steady, the only movement overhead.

"You can almost imagine it," Merry said.

She was standing a little ways off, her shoes in the grass, the hem of her skirt stirred by the breeze. She turned in a slow circle, her gaze moving from wall to wall as though she could still see them whole.

"What it looked like, when the castle was still here," she continued. "Stone walls, gates, rooms filled with voices. Soldiers walking these grounds, banners raised against the sky. People must have thought it would last forever."

I leaned back on my hands. "Forever's a long time."

She smiled faintly at that, though her eyes didn't leave the ruins.

"The earth is covered with places like this," she said softly. "Ruins of empires that once thought themselves eternal. Cities swallowed by trees. Fortresses worn into hills. Each one once believed it would stand forever. Now they're only stones in the grass."

Her words slipped into the quiet, and for a moment I forgot the cicadas, forgot the heat, forgot even myself. I just looked at the broken lines of stone, all that was left of something that had once been called strong.

I tried to picture it — soldiers at their posts, voices echoing across courtyards, flags snapping in the wind. The sound of footsteps on stone, the clang of weapons being carried. But no matter how I imagined it, it always dissolved. The walls blurred into the grass, the banners faded into sky. The people vanished like shadows in the sun.

And what stayed were these stones. Unmoving, weathered, quiet.

Merry stepped closer, the sunlight catching in her hair, and sat down beside me. She didn't say anything else. She didn't have to.

We stayed there for a while, the afternoon stretching over us. The cicadas droned on. The crow disappeared somewhere beyond the hills. The wind shifted, carrying the scent of pine and soil.

I brushed my hand along the stone I sat on. Its surface was rough, ridged where time had chewed away at it. How many people had touched it before me? How many thought it would always be here, solid beneath their hands?

It was still here. But the ones who built it weren't.

I thought about what Merry said — about empires believing in forever, and the earth proving otherwise. And for the first time, it didn't sound sad. Just... true.

The stones would crumble someday, too. The grass would spread, the trees would claim the hill, and the memory of a castle would fold into the landscape until no one could even imagine it was here.

But for now, it was.

We sat together on its bones, listening to the sound of an afternoon that would never happen again.