The sky no longer bled.
For the first time in countless cycles, dawn came gently—not as a warning, not as a scream of fractured timelines, but as a quiet breath. The light spilled over the horizon like liquid gold, seeping through the valley's mist, kissing the charred remnants of war-scorched trees and coaxing flowers from ashes.
Aeris stirred, curled beside Kael beneath the low-hanging branches of the reborn Worldspire Tree. Its bark shimmered with runes that pulsed slowly—alive once more. Each beat of light matched the steady rhythm of Aeris's breath, as if she and the world were healing together, symbiotic and sacred.
Her eyelashes fluttered. Beneath them, her eyes held galaxies—not burning, not storming—just… calm. Like ocean waves after a typhoon. She blinked against the morning light, brow creasing as if uncertain this warmth wasn't another illusion crafted by the rift.
Kael lay beside her, awake but unmoving, eyes trained on the sunrise as if afraid it might vanish. His hand rested against hers, fingers interlaced loosely, like he was holding onto a dream he wasn't ready to release.
"Kael," she whispered.
He turned to her slowly, as if reverence had taken over even his smallest movements. "Hey."
"Are we… here?"
He nodded, eyes misty. "We made it."
She sat up slowly, and her body moved like she was rediscovering how to exist. The grass felt real beneath her fingers—damp with dew, soft against her skin. In the distance, birds—real birds—sang a song untouched by temporal corruption. A melody that didn't skip, repeat, or vanish. It just… was.
"I saw everything," she murmured. "All the lives I could've lived. All the ones I did. And then… I chose this."
"You chose us," Kael said gently. "Even when the universe gave you everything else."
She turned to him, eyes shimmering. "And you pulled me back. Again."
"I always will."
Silence fell, not awkward but sacred.
Then Aeris moved closer, slowly, cautiously, like a porcelain figure learning to dance. She leaned her head against Kael's shoulder, her breath soft against his neck. He wrapped his arm around her, fingers brushing the edge of her collarbone where faint golden scars—beautiful, intricate—marked where the ember had changed her.
They sat like that as the world reassembled itself around them.
In the distance, Dray stood at the cliff edge, his coat fluttering in the wind, watching new rifts—harmless ones—form above the lake like auroras. Spectral windows showing peaceful possible futures. In one, children played in a meadow under three suns. In another, Kael and Aeris danced at a festival of stars. The world was dreaming again.
Aeris raised her hand toward the sky, and her fingers sparkled with light that pulsed faintly in tune with the Worldspire. She turned it over, palm up, watching tiny particles swirl like fireflies.
"I thought I'd be a monster forever," she whispered.
Kael leaned in. "You never were. You were just lost in the noise."
She closed her fingers and lowered her hand. "Do you think… we could be normal now?"
Kael chuckled, brushing a kiss against her temple. "Define normal. Because if waking up beside you, under a magic tree in a valley rebuilt from the bones of broken timelines, is normal… I'll take it."
She laughed—a real, full laugh. The kind she hadn't let out in three books' worth of pain. It echoed down the valley, a ripple of life.
They lay back again, side by side. The Worldspire's branches arched above them like cathedral ceilings. Sunlight filtered through the leaves, casting mosaic patterns of light across their skin.
A breeze passed through—carrying no whispers, no warnings, just the scent of flowers newly reborn. The kind that only grow when the soil remembers sorrow.
"Kael?" Aeris murmured.
"Yeah?"
"When I was inside the Rift… I saw a future where we never met."
He went still.
"It was quieter. Safer. But… I was hollow."
He turned his head toward her. "And in the future where we met?"
She smiled, brushing her fingers along his jaw. "There was pain. Loss. Fire. But I was whole."
He kissed her. Not urgently. Not as goodbye. But as a promise—one they both finally understood.
Around them, the valley bloomed.