Twenty-five years after the threshold, the Sanctuary held its largest gathering yet, families from across eleven territories arriving for what had become an annual tradition, a celebration not of any single event, but simply of the community itself, gathered together in genuine, hard-won peace.Kia stood at the garden's edge, watching it all unfold, Soren coordinating logistics with the same patient competence he brought to everything, Liora moving among the visiting families checking on several patients with quiet professional care, Mira, now grown and married, playing music for the gathered crowd with the specific joy of someone who had never once needed to carry more than the ordinary weight of an ordinary, happy life.Xander joined her, his hair fully grey now but his bearing still steady, still hers, after all these years."Look at what we built," he said quietly."Look at what everyone built," she corrected, the way she always did. "I just survived long enough to start it.""Tha
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