The city did not celebrate.
It did not mourn either.
It simply continued, as cities always did—people rebuilding broken walls, clearing shattered glass, convincing themselves that what they had seen was not as important as it felt.
Aerun watched from the edge of the plaza, body aching in ways that had nothing to do with wounds. Every breath scraped. Every movement reminded him that restraint, once broken, never healed cleanly.
Lyrae stood beside him.
Fully present now.
Too present.
"You shouldn't be standing," she said quietly.
"Neither should you," Aerun replied.
She almost smiled.
Almost.
The sky above them was wrong. Not cracked anymore—scarred. A faint misalignment ran through the clouds like a seam that refused to close.
"They'll come again," Lyrae said. "Not like today. Not openly."
Aerun nodded. "They always do."
Footsteps approached behind them.
Aerun didn't turn.
Talrek Vos stopped a few paces away, no armor, no sigil—just a man who had watched certainty fail.
"This city is compromised," Talrek said. "They'll seal it by nightfall."
Lyrae stiffened. "Seal?"
"Memory revision," Talrek replied. "Selective. Gentle."
Aerun finally turned. "People?"
"Most will remain," Talrek said. "Some will be… simplified."
Lyrae laughed bitterly. "You mean erased quietly."
Talrek did not argue.
"They won't stop," Aerun said.
Talrek met his gaze. "No. They won't."
For a moment, none of them spoke.
Then Talrek said the thing Aerun had been dreading.
"They've decided on a sacrifice."
Aerun's heart stuttered. "Who?"
Talrek's eyes flicked—not to Aerun.
To Lyrae.
"No," Aerun said instantly.
Lyrae inhaled sharply.
Talrek's voice was calm, practiced. "She destabilized the record. She exists as proof of contradiction. The Chorus believes removing her will stabilize the system."
Lyrae straightened.
"So that's it," she said. "I'm the apology."
Aerun stepped forward, fury blazing. "You said she was unresolved—not sentenced."
Talrek nodded. "That was before today."
The warmth at Aerun's back surged violently.
Lyrae grabbed his arm.
"Don't," she said.
"They'll take you," Aerun said. "Erase you."
Lyrae shook her head slowly. "No."
She looked at him then—really looked.
"If they try to erase me again," she continued, "you will draw the blade."
Aerun froze.
"And if you do that," Lyrae said softly, "this world breaks."
Silence fell between them.
Talrek looked away.
Lyrae exhaled.
"This isn't them winning," she said. "This is me choosing where the line stays."
Aerun's voice broke. "I didn't save you."
Lyrae smiled—fully this time, sad and fierce and unbearably human.
"No," she said. "You taught me when not to be saved."
The air shifted.
The Chorus descended again—but only partially, their presence light, surgical.
A boundary formed around Lyrae.
Not a cage.
A conclusion.
Aerun stepped into it.
Instant pain tore through him, sharp enough to steal breath.
"Step back," Lyrae said urgently. "Please."
He didn't move.
"I won't let them—"
Lyrae placed her hand on his chest.
And for the first time since they met—
She pushed him.
Not physically.
Conceptually.
Aerun stumbled backward, the boundary snapping closed between them.
"No!" he shouted.
Lyrae stood alone inside the narrowing space, her form already beginning to fade—not into nothing, but into irrelevance.
She looked calm.
That terrified him.
"Remember this," she said. "Not as loss. As proof."
The Chorus spoke as one.
"Correction complete."
Lyrae vanished.
No light.
No sound.
No echo.
Just absence where meaning used to be.
The boundary collapsed.
The sky sealed.
The city exhaled.
Aerun dropped to his knees.
The warmth at his back went cold.
Not gone.
Focused.
Talrek turned away, voice hoarse. "I'm sorry."
Aerun did not hear him.
He stared at the place where Lyrae had stood.
She was not dead.
She was worse.
She had never been.
The world moved on.
But Aerun didn't.
He rose slowly to his feet.
And for the first time—
He did not restrain his grief.
The cloth at his back loosened on its own.
The weapon responded.
Not with hunger.
With recognition.
Far below gods and systems and history, the counterweight settled fully into place.
The silence was no longer waiting.
It was choosing.
Aerun turned toward the horizon.
"Now," he said quietly, "we remember."