## CHAPTER 85: _"The Garden of Dying Stars"_
The world was shifting.
Not like a page turning or a shadow stretching—but like the bones of reality were cracking. Across Elira, the skies bled violet. Trees trembled. Rivers whispered names not spoken in centuries.
And in the wake of the broken flame, Arien and Lysia emerged from the collapsing tower.
Behind them, the mountain groaned and split open like a wound. The First Flame had burned its last breath, and with it, the final seal had shattered.
Arien's hair was streaked with ash. Lysia's eyes no longer glowed—they burned. Something in both of them had died, and something older had taken its place.
"The gods," Arien said, voice hoarse. "They're real."
Lysia nodded. "And they remember."
Below them, the army of Elira waited. Faces wide-eyed, weapons lowered. Even the Widow Queen's banners were stilled by a wind that didn't belong to this world.
A shadow passed over the army—a giant form with wings made of light and sorrow. The sky cracked with its arrival.
A god.
It didn't speak. It simply looked. And that was enough to bring soldiers to their knees, screaming blood from their eyes.
"Arien," Lysia whispered, "if we don't control this—"
"We'll become the curse."
And so they ran—not away, but toward it. Toward the Garden of Dying Stars.
—
The garden was not of this world.
There was no sky, only endless falling light. Each tree grew upside down, roots in the air, blossoms made of ash and fire. And beneath their feet, the ground pulsed like a heartbeat.
Here, the gods were born.
Here, the curse had been written.
They found the tomb of the First Maker—a throne carved from a single ribbone of the sleeping titan. Beside it, a well that glowed with forgotten wishes.
"It's not a garden," Arien murmured. "It's a graveyard."
"And a cradle," Lysia said. "This is where endings become beginnings."
A voice echoed—not from outside, but from within both of them.
**"Two who should never have met. One who should never have lived. One who should never have loved."**
A god emerged.
Not man, not beast. Not light, not dark. It wore no face. Its body was a tapestry of every soul ever cursed.
It held out a hand.
"Return the love you stole," it said.
Arien stepped forward. "We didn't steal it."
Lysia joined him. "We *chose* it."
The god laughed, and the world fractured.
Suddenly, they were apart.
Arien found himself in a version of Elira where Lysia never existed. He was king, beloved, powerful. But empty. He walked through halls of gold, hearing only silence.
Lysia stood in a world where she'd never met Arien. She lived quietly, healing the sick, unburdened by magic. But every night, she cried without knowing why.
The god watched.
"You see?" it said. "Without each other, you are safe."
"But dead," Arien whispered.
"But hollow," Lysia wept.
With effort beyond pain, they found each other again.
Lysia stepped through the well of wishes.
Arien gave up his name.
And together, they screamed one word.
"ENOUGH."
The god broke.
Like glass, like memory.
And the curse bled out of the world.
When they awoke, the stars above were no longer dying—they were singing.
And Elira, for the first time in a thousand years, exhaled.
But far beyond the Garden of Dying Stars, something stirred. Something older. Something that remembered the First Flame, and hated the new world it saw.