The stars didn't look the same anymore.
They shimmered lower in the sky now—closer, clearer—as if the heavens themselves had shifted during the war. The constellations flickered with strange, delicate scars, each one a thread from a timeline that once was, stitched back into the firmament by unseen hands.
Aeris stood at the edge of the ruined Skyhold cliffs, barefoot, her white robes fluttering against her legs like ribbons in the wind. Her fingertips traced the air, and where she touched, constellations shimmered faintly—responding.
The Chronoforge was gone. The heart of time had shattered. And yet... something lingered.
Within her.
Behind her, the wind carried Kael's footsteps—steady, grounded. He no longer wore his armor. Just a dark tunic, the sleeves rolled, his gauntlets removed. Vulnerable. Whole. Human.
"You've been out here for hours," he said gently.
Aeris turned, but her eyes didn't meet his right away. They were distant, reflecting the celestial remnants above. "I can feel them," she whispered.
"Who?" he asked, stepping closer.
"Timelines. Not memories. Not ghosts. Echoes. Like… songs half-sung in the void. I shouldn't hear them. But they're here."
Kael stepped beside her, resting a hand on her lower back. "Is it because of the Forge?"
She nodded slowly. "When Vaelen forced me into the Eye… when I became that thing… I touched something. Deeper than time. Something older. It didn't leave."
There was silence again. But it wasn't fearful. It was listening.
Aeris turned to him. "What if I didn't come back whole?"
Kael looked at her—really looked. The starlight kissed the edge of her face, and for a moment she didn't look like Aeris, the warrior or the weapon. She looked like someone standing on the edge of infinity, unsure whether to leap or step back.
"You didn't," he said. "And neither did I. Or Dray. Or any of us."
His voice was quiet. But firm.
"We're not who we were before the Rift opened. But we're still here. Still choosing."
Aeris's eyes shimmered—bright, gold-tinged with deep obsidian. "I'm scared, Kael. What if the things I touched… what if they're still inside me?"
He stepped closer, pressing his forehead to hers. "Then we face them. Together. We always have."
She closed her eyes and inhaled. For the first time in days, the air didn't smell like burning timelines or shattered stone. It smelled like rain. Like clean earth. Like the scent of possibility.
Later that night, in what remained of the Hall of Origins—now a crumbled monument—Dray unrolled a scroll salvaged from the deep archives of the Forge. Symbols writhed on its surface, glowing faintly with golden ink.
Aeris stood before it, Kael beside her, as Dray read aloud:
"There will come one born of chaos, made not from flesh nor time, but woven from the regrets of the broken. She will be the Gate and the Key. Not to power. But to choice."
The room was hushed. Only the wind outside stirred, whistling through half-buried arches.
"That's you," Dray said softly. "You weren't created just to destroy. You were created so we wouldn't have to."
Aeris swallowed. Her gaze remained locked on the words. "Then why do I still feel… like I could unravel everything?"
Kael's hand found hers. "Because the same thing that can destroy can also rebuild. Fire, Aeris. You've always been fire."
She turned to him. "And what are you?"
He smiled. "Ashes. Waiting for something to grow from."
The three of them climbed the highest cliff at dawn the next morning.
They stood in silence as the sun poured over the fractured horizon. Below them, the people of every surviving timeline had begun to gather—travelers, seers, old soldiers, Riftwalkers, even those who had once followed Vaelen.
Together, they watched the light rise.
Aeris stepped forward, raising her hand. The starlight in her blood shimmered softly, illuminating the sky like veins of memory traced across the clouds.
"I don't know what tomorrow brings," she said, her voice echoing like silver through the still air. "But I know this—time is not a cage. It's a canvas. And we are no longer the paints. We are the hands that hold the brush."
A pulse of energy radiated from her heart—gentle, golden, and vast. A feeling more than a sound. And around them, something ancient sighed in relief.
The world had heard her.
The echoes had found peace.
And from their embers, something new would rise.