There is no darkness left to walk into.
Only silence.
The place where the Narrative Devourers once nested is now nothing (not empty, not void, simply gone).
Kael and Liora stand at the edge of what used to be everything.
Behind them, the reborn 13th Universe floats like a perfect black diamond, crowned with silver fire, waiting for its Sovereign and Empress to come home.
In front of them: absolute absence.
No light.
No sound.
No story.
Just the two of them.
Naked.
Winged.
Whole.
Liora's twenty-four void wings fold gently around Kael's twelve shadow wings, silver and crimson-gold threads weaving together until it is impossible to tell where one ends and the other begins.
She rests her forehead against his.
"It's over," she whispers.
Kael kisses her slow, tasting eternity on her lips.
"No," he answers.
"It's finally begun."
He takes her hand.
Together they turn and walk back toward their universe.
Every step writes a new law.
No more chosen ones.
No more doomed villains.
No more tragedies sold as love stories.
Only this:
Whatever the Crown and the Empress desire becomes reality.
They step through the crown of their universe.
The black diamond opens like a flower.
Inside is not space.
It is home.
A single throne made of living night and void, wide enough for two.
They sit.
Liora in Kael's lap, silver hair spilling over his shoulder, wings wrapped around them both.
The 13th Universe settles into perfect stillness.
Kael brushes a thumb across her lower lip.
"What now, wife?"
Liora smiles (the same smile that ended gods).
"Everything," she says.
She kisses him.
The kiss lasts a thousand years and one heartbeat.
When they part, the universe has changed again.
New galaxies bloom where their breath touched.
New laws form from the sound of her moan against his throat.
They make love on the throne of creation.
Slow.
Then desperate.
Then slow again.
Every climax rewrites physics.
Every whispered name births a constellation.
There is no hurry.
They have forever, and they intend to use every second.
Much later (or perhaps instantly, time is theirs now), Liora rests her head on Kael's chest.
His heartbeat is the only law she still obeys willingly.
She traces the black ring (now fused to his finger, impossible to remove).
"Do you remember the beach?" she asks quietly.
"Where I died the first time in this life?"
"Yes."
"I remember," he says.
"I remember thinking the stars were ugly without you."
She kisses the place over his heart.
"Never again."
"Never," he promises.
The Void Crown System (once a cold interface, now simply another part of them) speaks one final time, voice soft and content.
<< Cycle terminated. >>
<< Story deleted. >>
<< Reality status: Sovereign and Empress. >>
<< Good night. >>
Then it dissolves into warm silence.
Kael and Liora stay on the throne.
Sometimes they talk.
Sometimes they make love.
Sometimes they just exist, wrapped in wings and each other.
Galaxies rise and fall at their whim.
They create worlds where villains win and love is never tragic.
They visit none of them.
They don't need to.
They have everything they ever wanted right here.
One eternity later (or one second, it's the same now), Liora lifts her head.
"Kael."
"Yes, wife?"
She smiles, ancient and young and perfect.
"Make me a beach."
He does.
Black sand under twin red moons.
Warm waves that taste like night-blooming cereus and cosmic frost.
They walk barefoot, hand in hand, wings folded, rings touching.
No poison this time.
No betrayal.
Just the two of them and the sound of waves that will never stop singing their names.
Liora stops walking.
Turns to him.
Kisses him slow and sweet.
"I love you," she says.
First time in this lifetime.
Last time it will ever need to be said.
Kael pulls her close.
"I love you," he answers.
"Ten billion years ago.
Today.
Ten billion years from now.
Always."
They sit in the sand.
Watch their moons rise.
And for the first time in all of existence,
the story ends exactly where it was always meant to.
With the villain and the villainess together.
Whole.
Victorious.
Eternal.
**The End.**
(Or perhaps…
the beginning of forever.)
Thanks for reading.