## CHAPTER 93: _"The Wound That Would Not Close"_
It had been seven days since the collapse of the Valley.
Seven days since the Seraph's tears burned the skies.
Seven days since the curse fractured time itself.
But in Elira, nothing had moved. The winds held their breath. The sun glowed like a wounded god, flickering between dusk and dawn. The moon had not risen. The birds had forgotten their songs.
And Arien had not spoken.
He sat by the remnants of what was once the Obsidian Mirror, now reduced to shards scattered across the ground like the pieces of his soul. Lysia sat across from him, her hand on her chest, the space where the curse had once pulsed now eerily still.
"Say something," she whispered. "Even if it's just a lie."
He blinked slowly.
"I don't remember how," he said.
Elira was unraveling.
Kingdoms began to merge and split at random. Villages appeared where deserts once stretched. Mountains bled into rivers. Dead lovers came back not as ghosts, but as echoes—fragments of who they were.
And every night, the stars spelled new names.
The price of freedom wasn't peace. It was **chaos**.
Arien and Lysia traveled by foot, seeking the new Capitol, a city that built itself overnight from forgotten dreams. There, a child prophet named Nyre claimed she could stabilize the world, but only if Arien gave up what was left of his name.
"What does that mean?" Lysia asked.
Nyre, no older than ten, replied, "Your story is too loud. It must end for the world to begin."
Arien's grip on his sword faltered. "And if I refuse?"
"The curse returns," Nyre said.
It wasn't a threat. It was truth.
They stayed in the city that night. Dreams bled into waking hours. Arien saw his father, kneeling in front of an empty crown. Lysia saw herself with child—then watched the child dissolve like mist.
"We can't stay here," she whispered.
"I know," he replied. "But we can't leave either."
The Council of the Fractured met by starlight. Scholars, warriors, witches, and fools. All argued over whether to preserve the new world or rebuild the old.
Arien stood.
"I will not let Elira become a museum of regret."
He offered his sword—not to fight, but to **plant** into the earth.
"This is my surrender," he said. "And my beginning."
Lysia stepped beside him, a flame in her hand. "And this is my promise: love will not be our curse. It will be our rebellion."
Together, they lit the sword.
It burned bright enough to restart the stars.
The curse stirred one final time… and then fell silent.