The horizon didn’t wait for her—it received her. Each step Elthara took no longer echoed with fear, but with something harder to name. Not peace. Not certainty. But possibility. The Spiral faded behind her, no longer spiraling, no longer a test. It had fulfilled its final task: to return her to herself.
The light ahead had no center, no throne, no command. It shimmered like the surface of still water, mirroring her as she was—worn, flame-tempered, crowned in memory but stripped of armor. She stepped toward it without flinching. No voice called her name this time. No prophecy stirred. The silence was sacred.
She reached the light and touched it. It did not burn or vanish. It yielded.
And when it did, it split—down the center—unfolding like a page too long sealed. Behind it stood a figure. Not a god. Not a ghost. Herself. The version that had never fought, never flamed, never broken beneath the weight of names and battles. This version had never led armies or watched love fall into sile
