The stars were stitching themselves back together.
Above the cradle of the valley where time had once fractured, the night sky shimmered with constellations not seen in millennia—new ones. Woven from timelines reborn, stitched across the black by unseen hands, they twinkled like quiet witnesses to what had been saved.
Aeris stood on the edge of the old cliff—the one that once teetered over the ruins of possibility—and let the wind braid itself through her hair. It was longer now. Wilder. No longer the battle-cut strands of a warrior running from herself. She had let it grow as the world had grown.
Behind her, Kael approached in silence. His steps were no longer heavy with burden or war. His armor had been melted down and reshaped into something else—runes on a leather band around his wrist, a pendant made from a shard of the first broken Rift, glowing faintly with living warmth.
"Still watching the stars?" he asked softly.
She nodded. "They feel... different."
"They are."
He joined her at the edge, their shoulders touching.
"The Paradox Guild is gone," Aeris said. "The Ember sleeps. The Rift is sealed. And still, I feel like something is listening."
Kael's jaw tightened slightly. "It probably is. But maybe this time, it's not here to take. Maybe it's just... watching. Like we are."
A pause.
Then: "Do you regret any of it?"
Aeris turned to him, her silver-blue eyes catching starlight. "Not the pain. Not the fall. Not even becoming what I feared. Because you saw me through all of it. You never stopped."
He smiled faintly. "You saved me too. We saved each other."
She leaned into him. "So what now, Kael?"
He reached into his coat and pulled out a small device—round, crystalline, pulsating faintly. Not a weapon. Not a time-anchor. But something new.
"I've been talking with Dray. The timelines are stable, but fragile. There are still echoes—stray fragments of stories that never got told. Realities where people are still stuck in the moments we escaped. I think we can help them. Quietly. Not as soldiers, but as... menders."
She looked at him, eyes wide. "You want to travel again?"
"I want to give people the same second chance we got."
A beat. Then, her lips curved into a smile.
"Then let's write a better future. One shard at a time."
He reached for her hand. Fingers laced. Not with urgency. Not with fear. But with hope.
Behind them, Dray stood on a ridge, watching them with a knowing expression. His coat flapped in the wind, and the glowing quill tucked behind his ear pulsed faintly with untold tales.
"Time listens," he whispered to no one. "But now… it listens with love."
Far above, a shooting star streaked across the heavens—burning bright and vanishing into the night.
But for Kael and Aeris, the journey was far from over.
It had only just begun.