The world had changed but it had not yet realized it.
In the eastern sky, twin suns rose in tandem, a phenomenon unseen since the First Age. The seas no longer whispered to the drowned gods, and mountains once chained by forgotten oaths now trembled with the breath of newborn spirits. The fabric of reality had not merely mended it had been rewritten.
But in the Valley of Aeren Syl, far from courts, crowns, and broken prophecies, the winds spoke of nothing.
Because here, at the edge of all things, peace had taken root.
A cabin stood in a clearing beneath a silver-barked tree quiet, unremarkable, and achingly mortal. Birds called from unseen branches. A river murmured over rounded stones. The world had found a heartbeat again.
Within the cabin, Zeirion Althar stood by the window, shirtless, hair down, steam curling from a cup in his hand. There was no throne beneath his feet. No crown above his brow. Only the warmth of a morning that did not ask who he had once been.
Behind him, soft footsteps approached. A delicate yawn.
Aralya, wrapped in a robe of dream-thread and morning air, rested her head against his shoulder. "Did you feel it?" she asked.
He nodded. "Something… moved. But not toward us. Away."
They stood in silence for a moment.
"Do you think it's begun?" she asked.
Zeirion sipped his tea. "No. Not yet. The world is still pretending it hasn't changed."
"And when it remembers?"
"Then it will come looking."
Aralya leaned against him, her voice a whisper. "Then we better savor the time we have left."
Outside, in the clearing, a single bloom opened beneath the silver tree the first sign of the seed they had planted. The Last Dream had taken root.
But far to the west, beneath the buried city of Kael Orun, something stirred.
A chained song awakened a melody not sung since the gods first learned fear.
And in a chamber without doors, lit by a flame that could not die, a child opened her eyes.
Born not of blood, nor will, nor divine intervention.
But of the Spiral's unmaking.
Her name was not yet known.
But when she spoke, the stars bent closer to listen.