When the light faded, Nythralis was gone.
Only a field of silver dust remained where the city once stood, glowing faintly beneath the morning sun. The air was clean for the first time in centuries, and the wind no longer carried whispers.
Aran stood in silence, the weight of it all slowly lifting from his shoulders. The sword at his side no longer burned—it pulsed softly, like a heartbeat at rest.
Elira walked beside him, barefoot across the dust. Her smile was tired, but real. "We did it." He turned to her, brushing a lock of hair from her face. "Because we remembered. Because we never stopped." In the weeks that followed, word of Nythralis' fall spread across the known lands. The boy—the vessel of the Hollow Star—awoke with no memory of the darkness, only a quiet gentleness in his eyes. Aran and Elira chose to raise him at the sanctuary, not as a symbol, but as a child of peace. Vaerin returned to the Flamebound, sworn to train others not in war, but in resilience. And Aran, for the first time in years, breathed without a sword in his hand. One morning, Elira found him atop Elarian Ridge—the same cliff where it all began. The valley stretched before them, calm and whole. Aran turned, amber eyes warm. "I once promised I'd return with your heart in mine." She smiled. "You never had to fight for it. You just had to keep believing." He kissed her, soft and sure. No longer a soldier. No longer lost. Just a man, whose promise had become his life. And beneath the rising sun, they stood together—not at the end of a tale, but at the beginning of everything else.