The Realms had changed.
But the change wasn't loud.
It didn't come with trumpets or declarations, nor grand ceremonies in crystal halls.
It came in silence.
In the quiet sound of a child waking in a Realm where the sky no longer bled.
In the soft hum of threads now whole, running through places where voices had long been silent.
In the subtle shift where possibility had returned.
Lyra stood at the edge of the Loomheart, gazing out at the Threads now aglow across the cosmos.
The Fragments no longer orbited her like weapons or burdens.
They had settled into her, fused not just with her soul—but with every word she had ever spoken, every choice she had ever made.
She was not a vessel now.
She was the Weaver.
"People will call this the end," Kaelen said as he approached, his tone contemplative "The final stitch in a grand design."
"It isn't," Lyra replied, brushing her fingers over a floating strand of light "It's the start of a pattern no one's ever dared to imagine."
"A multiverse without borders. Without rulers."
"Without silence," she whispered "No more broken Realms. No more voices lost between the stars."
He looked at her.
"And what about you?"
"I'll follow the threads."
She turned from the Loomheart, the others gathered nearby.
Elian had been quiet since the battle, the music within him re-tuning to this new cosmic chord.
Nysera now wore her oathbands like medals, no longer bindings but reminders—of what she'd given, and what she still stood to protect.
Vaelion had not spoken since Serian faded into the Loom's embrace.
He sat quietly near one of the largest anchor-threads, his sword embedded into the stone beside him, as if in vigil.
"They've sent messengers from the Ember Dominion," Elian said "And the Frostweld Peaks. Even the Obsidian Dunes. They all want to parley. They say they remember their ancient dreams."
"The Threads are reaching," Nysera said "People are remembering who they were. Who they might still become."
"And Serian?" Lyra asked.
Vaelion finally stood, walking toward them.
"He's within the Loom," he said "Not imprisoned. Not erased. Integrated. As he once was."
"He'll wake?" Kaelen asked.
"If he chooses. But no longer as a tyrant."
"Then he gets what the rest of us get," Lyra said firmly "A chance."
They traveled then—not by ship, not by gate.
But by thread.
Lyra learned how to walk them like rivers, tugging strands into bridges between Realms.
And everywhere she went, people remembered.
She stepped into the Verdant Spiral—where a thousand years of civil war stopped the moment her flame brushed the sky.
She visited the ruins of the Dreamborne Temple—where children touched her hand and cried without knowing why.
And she passed through the Ashen Vale—where the dead whispered in gratitude before turning finally to dust.
One night, aboard a drifting Realmseed, Kaelen found her in a chamber woven of starlight and memory.
"You never sleep," he said.
"Not in the way I used to," Lyra replied "The threads don't let me. They show me instead."
"What do you see?"
"Everything."
She turned.
"Kaelen… they're not done. The Realms. The people. There are still voids. Places where threads never formed. Fractures that didn't come from Serian's shattering—but from before."
"Before even him?" he asked.
She nodded.
"There are corners of this tapestry untouched by any weaver. Dark threads that hum with something older than grief. Older than time."
"Do we face them next?"
"We don't have to."
"But we will," he said "Won't we?"
She smiled sadly.
"Yes."
Their next step wasn't conquest.
It was expedition.
To places no Realmwalker had ever dared go.
The Weft Between Stars.
The Broken Eternity Coil.
The Echofold—where time looped on itself like a Möbius path.
And within those places, they found… signs.
Runes that predated even the Loom.
Creatures made of anti-thread—existences that devoured connection, fed on silence.
"These aren't Serian's creations," Nysera whispered after their first encounter in the Coil "These are… voidborn. The absence of weaving."
"Not the opposite of Realms," Elian added, shaken "But the rejection of them."
"And they're waking up."
In the center of the dark, beyond the known charted paths of all Realms, there lay a tear.
Not a gate.
A scar.
It pulsed.
Once.
Twice.
And Lyra felt something look back.
"Whatever lies beyond," she said, voice steady as the stars, "we won't turn away."
"What if it's not meant to be understood?" Kaelen asked.
"Then we'll become the understanding."
As the Realms healed and people rebuilt, the Starborn turned their eyes outward—not in fear, but in purpose.
For the threads no longer waited to be found.
They now reached for them.
And Lyra, with seven Fragments no longer separate but woven into her very soul, stood ready.
The Realms were no longer shattered.
But some truths were still hidden.
And the Weaver's journey was far from over.