The world breathes again.
But not the same breath.
Not the breath of prophecy, or gods, or stories penned by hands too afraid of chaos.
No
This is the breath of something untamed.
Wild. Primal. Free.
And it answers me.
Those who walk behind me now don't kneel.
They follow.
Not out of fear.
Not out of loyalty.
But because they recognize what I am:
A flame with no hearth. A queen with no throne. A truth that cannot be tamed.
I cross the Ashen Divide, where the old gods once kept the Wild Gods locked away.
But the seals are broken now.
And they remember me.
The first to greet me is not human.
Not divine.
She has the face of moonlight, the voice of roots breaking stone, and wings made from the dust of collapsed stars.
She kneels but not to worship.
To study.
"You are not what they expected," she says.
"You burned the chains and the forge."
She is Oravelle, Mother of Beasts.
A god born before memory.
And she brings a warning:
"In unbinding the world, you've set loose the One Who Waits."
"The Nameless Hunger. The god who devours stories and spits out silence."
And I remember.
The name no prophecy dared record.
The one being who does not fear the end.
Because it is the end.
And it's coming.
Not for the world.
Not for the gods.
For me.
But I do not flinch.
Because I am not the girl they erased.
Not the goddess they feared.
Not the villainess they cursed.
I am Lyraxis.
Final flame.
First freedom.
The story that can never be swallowed