There was no mountain anymore.
Where stone and fire had once met, only horizon remained — an unbroken plain of molten light stretching in every direction, calm as a sleeping sea. The sky above was neither day nor night but both: one half burning with a dawn that refused to fade, the other glowing with the slow pulse of twilight stars.
Kael stood at the center of it, barefoot on glass that had once been rock. It was cool beneath his feet, though he knew it should have been molten. Every breath he drew made the light tremble, as though the world itself were holding its breath with him.
He remembered the forge. The voice. The light that had called him Seedbearer.
And then—everything.
Now, when he looked outward, he could see the echo of that vision painted over the real world: faint outlines of constellations that were still being born, streams of gold dust falling like rain across unseen galaxies.
His hand moved on its own. For an instant, the air where his fingers passed filled with symbols of light — ancient runes, each one humming with creation's resonance. He stared, awed and afraid.
"It's answering me," he whispered.
Behind him, footsteps.
Lyraen emerged from the haze, her cloak glimmering with flakes of radiant dust. The look in her eyes was something between reverence and terror.
"You shouldn't be standing," she said softly. "You were gone for—"
She stopped, searching for the right word.
"—for longer than the mountain existed."
Kael turned to face her. The world's reflection still burned faintly in his eyes, like stars glimpsed through stormwater.
"I don't know what I am anymore," he said.
Lyraen stepped closer. "Then perhaps that's what makes you still human."
He tried to smile but couldn't. His gaze lifted to the horizon, where distant shapes moved beneath the shining sea — enormous shadows that might have been mountains, or things older than mountains.
"They're coming," he said. "The others. The Seeds that fell asleep when the forge went dark."
Lyraen's voice wavered. "The ones from your vision?"
He nodded. "The Flame woke me. But it woke them, too."
The glass beneath their feet rippled. Lines of fire traced patterns across it, forming a circle around them. At its center, the ground folded inward — not breaking, but bending, as if reality itself were making room for something new.
Kael felt the pull in his chest, the same heartbeat that had guided him into the forge. But this time, it wasn't leading him downward. It was leading him beyond.
He looked at Lyraen. "If I follow it, I might not come back."
"Then I'll follow," she said. "Someone has to remember what you become."
The circle ignited.
Light rose like water, enveloping them both.
For an instant, Kael saw through everything — through continents, oceans, clouds, through the very veins of the world. He saw where rivers of creation had begun to stir again, flowing outward to the stars.
And deep within that infinite light, something vast turned its gaze toward him.
Not hostile. Not kind. Just aware.
The Forge Eternal was awake.
Worldseed… the shaping begins.
The voice thundered through every atom. Kael's body dissolved into light — not destroyed, but expanded. Lyraen saw his form blur, stretch, and scatter into constellations until only a silhouette remained, radiant and calm.
Then the light exploded outward, washing across the horizon.
When it faded, she was alone.
The plain had become a sea of crystal, reflecting a new constellation in the sky — one shaped like a hand reaching toward the stars.
Lyraen fell to her knees, whispering to the silence.
"Remember yourself, Kael… before the gods forget what mercy means."
Far above, the stars pulsed once in answer.