The village was quiet.

  A windless hush stretched over the rooftops, the trees, the twisted garlands still clinging to poles. A petal drifted sideways through the air, weightless and slow, as if uncertain whether to fall at all.

  Lythara walked where Auren once had, though the name felt distant now—like a breath she had released and forgotten. Her bare feet kissed the softened earth, and the village opened before her like a flower in decay. Soliris, once cradled in endless golden light, stood frozen—a painting of harrowing beauty.

  And she was the artist.

  The path wound through silence. Not absence, not peace—just the kind of hush that comes after screaming. The air was thick with pollen and stillness, as if the sky itself dared not breathe. Petals drifted from unseen sources, catching the light as they fell, dancing like ghosts in slow descent.

  The village remained dressed in its finery. Ribbons hung limp from trees, their colors faded but clinging. Tables lay untouched, platters blooming with mold and moss. Candles stood in wax-choked holders, their flames long since choked into memory.

  And the people—

  They were statues.

  Where once there was motion and laughter, now there was only stillness.

  A woman sat on the edge of a fountain, eyes wide, hands mid-motion as if she'd been brushing a petal from her lap. Her skin had taken on the hue of early spring bark, and a wreath of tiny blossoms had bloomed along the curve of her throat. Lythara paused before her, though the face was unfamiliar.

  No name came. Just a fleeting impression—of warmth, of conversation, of someone who once laughed too loudly.

  She stepped forward.

  And the woman crumbled.

  Softly, like petals drying in sunlight. Her form blackened from the feet upward, skin turning to ash-veined stem, fingers curling inward like closing buds. The body fell in on itself, soundless, until nothing remained but a curl of dry leaves and a smear of gold dust on the wind.

  Lythara watched.

  Not out of cruelty, but because it was the only mercy she had left to offer.

  She had become grief incarnate, and the world could not carry her.

  With each step she took, more followed. A young man leaning against a post, still holding a half-eaten honeyed bun—his smile now fossilized in bark and petal—withered as she passed. His limbs cracked like frostbitten branches. A mother with arms forever outstretched, caught in the final second of a laugh, dissolved into moss. The vines curled. The flowers dropped. Silence reclaimed their shapes.

  They faded like songs forgotten.

  She moved through the streets like a storm of memory. Her presence was not loud—it did not wail or scream. No, it moved like mourning mist through hollow streets. As silent and final as a sealed tomb. The joy they had once known bled from the world in her wake.

  And she, Lythara, did not weep.

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  She felt nothing at all.

  The sorrow, the weight, the ache—it had all been offered to the world like breath into open hands. It no longer lived in her. It had no place left to cling.

  What remained was silence.

  Not emptiness. Not peace. Just quiet being. A state beyond mourning, beyond rage, beyond even grief.

  She reached the heart of the village.

  The fountain still trickled, though the water had grown sluggish, heavy with petal pulp and the detritus of ruin. The ribbons tied to nearby railings drifted, soft with mildew, their colors bleeding into one another. Even the sky above had begun to dim—not with dusk, for Soliris knew no night, but with something stranger. A dimming of presence. A quiet retreat of whatever had once held the illusion in place.

  Lythara stepped into the square.

  She walked without pause, emotionless and unblinking.

  Until—

  There, before her, stood a child.

  He was no older than seven. Curly hair, berry-stained fingers, a crown of grass half-fallen from his head. He had been caught mid-game, one foot off the ground as if about to leap. His mouth open in a laugh never heard.

  She stepped closer.

  And that’s when his eyes opened.

  Slowly. Smoothly. As if lifted by some unseen hand.

  His gaze met hers.

  And Lythara froze.

  Because his eyes—

  They were suns.

  No, not fire. Not light. Not even gold.

  Suns.

  Endless, ancient, unknowable. A color she could name only because she had once forgotten it. Eyes that did not blink. Eyes that had watched her bloom and burn a thousand times.

  Eyes she had once loved.

  "Astraxian."

  The name left her lips like the first breath after drowning.

  And for the first time since her awakening, she felt again.

  Not the forest. Not the roots. Not the insects humming below the earth.

  But herself.

  Her chest cracked wide. Emotion poured through the fracture—thick and raw. Fury. Sadness. Betrayal. Love.

  So much love.

  And yet it curdled in her veins, because that love had been twisted, broken, murdered by the one who stood before her now, wearing the face of a child.

  She had trusted him.

  And he had erased her.

  Over and over and over again.

  She stepped forward, trembling.

  "How?" she asked, voice low and hoarse. "How are you here?"

  The child did not speak. Not yet.

  Only watched.

  The golden eyes did not flicker. They did not soften. They simply were.

  She waited.

  And the wind stopped moving.

  The boy’s lips parted—just slightly.

  And in a voice soft as breath, Astraxian whispered:

  "As beautiful as I remember."

  Lythara flinched. Not from the words themselves, but from the way he said them—full of longing, of reverence, of something ancient and fragile.

  She stared at him, her voice cold and cracked. "Don’t."

  He didn’t move. He couldn’t. But the eyes—the suns—held her still.

  "I had to see you," he said. "Just once. This form won’t last. Minutes, at most."

  She stepped closer. "You don’t get to say that. Not after everything."

  His expression didn’t change. But something in the air bent with his silence.

  "Did you ever really love me?" she asked. The words came out sharper than she meant. "Or did you just know me well enough to shape me? To bend me into what you needed, every time?"

  "I loved you," Astraxian said.

  No hesitation.

  "I loved you across eons. Across endings. You were the only beautiful thing I ever had."

  Lythara’s jaw clenched. "And yet you erased me. Over and over. Killed me when it suited you."

  "Because you trusted me," he said quietly. "Because if you had remembered...you would have left me."

  She laughed once—a sound like a branch snapping in frost. "I would have."

  He lowered his gaze. "There wasn’t another way. But now... there might be. Ahrimanos and I are going to find Dānessa. There’s a chance. A real one."

  "A chance for what?" she said. "Another cycle? Another cage?"

  His voice softened. "A new way. Something different. No more forgetting. No more lies."

  She stared at him.

  Astraxian—so vast, so monstrous, so full of ache—trapped in the body of a child. A shadow cast from a love she could no longer carry.

  A part of her still wanted to believe him.

  But belief was a luxury she had given away.

  She reached out, slowly. Her fingers trembled—but not with hesitation. With certainty.

  She touched his cheek.

  It was a caress. A farewell. A curse.

  "Then carry this with you," she whispered.

  And she gave him her grief.

  Every drop she had spilled into the world.

  Every sorrow she had ever touched.

  The boy’s body began to crumble.

  His skin blackened, cracked like old bark. The grass beneath his feet withered. His crown of grass slid from his curls, falling in silence.

  Astraxian did not cry out.

  He only closed his eyes.

  And accepted it all.