When I woke, the world was too quiet.
No wind. No flame. Only the soft hum of stillness — as if the air itself was holding its breath, afraid to move.
The ground beneath me was smooth, silvered like glass. Above, the sky hung low and strange, a pale shimmer that looked painted rather than real. For a long while, I didn't dare breathe. The silence felt sacred — or condemned.
My body ached, but not from pain. From absence. The Flame that once filled every inch of me was now a whisper, a ghost light in my chest. I could still feel its heartbeat, faint and steady, like a creature sleeping after a long hunt.
Kael lay beside me. His face was colorless, his lashes dusted with ash, but when I brushed my fingers against his cheek, he stirred.
"You made it," he rasped, his voice raw as smoke.
"Did we?" I asked.
We both looked around. The landscape stretched endlessly — neither realm nor ruin. It wasn't the world we'd known, nor the one we'd fought to save. It was something in between, something reborn.
Pale trees glimmered in the distance, their leaves translucent, their roots winding through what looked like glassy stone. The air smelled of rain that hadn't fallen yet.
Kael's gaze drifted toward the horizon, where the faintest line of gold shimmered like a heartbeat. "The divide's gone," he murmured. "You did it."
I wanted to believe that. I wanted to feel victory, to let the relief sink in and loosen the ache inside me. But beneath the calm, I felt a tremor — not of earth or air, but of being.
Something watched us.
Something old.
Something patient.
I turned my hand over, expecting the mark to still burn, but it didn't. It had faded to a faint scar — an echo of what it once was. Yet, when I closed my eyes, I could still feel the fire there, buried deep, as if waiting for permission to rise again.
"Kael," I whispered. "Do you hear that?"
He frowned. "Hear what?"
"The silence… it isn't empty."
He reached for my hand, threading his fingers through mine. His warmth grounded me, but it couldn't silence what pulsed beneath the quiet — the rhythmic, distant thrum of something vast awakening.
And then, from somewhere beyond the silver trees, came a flicker.
A glow — faint, blue-white, unnatural.
Kael rose, his movements cautious. "Stay here."
I didn't. I followed.
The light pulsed again, slow and deliberate, like a heartbeat answering mine. When we reached it, the world changed — the air rippled, the trees bent backward, and through the shimmer, I saw faces.
Not gods. Not ghosts.
Reflections.
Ours.
But they weren't still. The mirrored Nyra stared back at me, her eyes lit with the full flame — the one I thought I'd buried. She smiled, slow and knowing, and lifted her hand. The motion sent cracks through the glass between us.
Kael's grip tightened. "Nyra—"
The mirror shattered.
A breath of fire spilled through, not burning — consuming light, devouring silence. I stumbled back, my chest searing as the mark reignited, bright and alive.
The other me stepped through the fracture, her voice a whisper of smoke and memory.
"You thought the Flame could be contained."
She smiled — the kind of smile that promised ruin.
"But it was never yours to keep."
The air trembled. The horizon flared gold, then crimson.
And for the first time since the convergence, the world exhaled — in heat, in light, in warning.