The moon that bore no name had long been erased from celestial maps. It hung in silence above the Hollow Span, cloaked in shadow so dense it devoured the gaze of gods. No light reached it. No prayer touched it. No song dared speak of it.
Because she was there.
She, the one forgotten by the stars but remembered by time.
She, whose power once rivaled Zeirion's own.
She, whose fall had been too great for death to claim and too sacred for myth to preserve.
And now, with the shattering of the First Pact, she stirred.
Crimson veins of awakening rippled across the ancient tomb. Sigils inscribed in lost tongues flared and failed. Chains forged by the Nine Origin Wills snapped one by one. The sky above the nameless moon cracked, showing glimpses of storms that hadn't touched the world since the first fracture of fate.
Then she opened her eyes.
And the moon bled.
Elsewhere – The Aetheric Sanctum
Far across the threads of time, Zeirion stood still, his fingers clenched around Eclipsion. The blade hummed with unease—not fear, but recognition.
Aralya's expression shifted, brows tightening, lips parting with breathless silence. "She's awake."
He nodded. "I felt her."
Aralya turned away. "It was never just about the realms fearing you. It was always about keeping the two of you apart."
A slow exhale left Zeirion's lips. The memory surfaced unbidden—of a woman cloaked in starfire and sorrow. Of another path he might've walked, had his heart not already belonged to Aralya.
"I sealed her away," he murmured, not in guilt but duty. "Because if we had joined… the cycle would have ended. Too soon."
Aralya didn't flinch. "And now?"
"She'll come for me."
"Or for us?"
Zeirion turned to her. "You are my world, Aralya. No power—not even hers—can shift that."
But beyond the Sanctum, the heavens had begun to fracture. All across the realms, seers convulsed in unbidden prophecy. The Pale Mirror screamed and shattered into dust. The Stormborn Sect's skies turned black. Even the Hollow Oracle closed its eyes.
Because she walked once more.
The Forgotten Name
She stood barefoot upon the ruins of her cage, the silver dust of a fallen moon clinging to her skin like memory. Her hair was obsidian flame, her eyes eclipsed suns. Her aura—a tapestry of creation and oblivion—pulsed with restrained devastation.
The stars murmured her name, one by one.
Ilyara.
She was not a villain.
Nor a hero.
She was a finality that had been denied.
And now, as the last locks shattered and the orbiting dead husks of former gods wept, Ilyara raised her hand toward the void.
"Zeirion," she whispered, not with hatred…
…but longing.
Back in the Realm of Embers
Aralya stood alone at the Sanctum's edge, her gaze cast upward. Not with fear. Not with jealousy. But with the calm of a woman who had already chosen.
"She's coming," she said aloud.
Zeirion stepped beside her. "Then let her come."
"No walls between us," Aralya whispered, sliding her fingers into his. "No secrets. Not now."
He nodded. "Never again."
Far above, a streak of violet flame tore through the sky—the herald of a power long buried.
And for the first time in an age, Zeirion whispered a name he had not allowed himself to speak.
"Ilyara."
The air cracked.
The fate of realms shifted.
And somewhere deep in the beating heart of creation, Destiny smiled.
The true storm had only begun.