You are the choosing.
I screamed infury and aweas I pushed fear aside and the weight of four futures wrapped around my shoulders and dug into my bones.
The calling path bent, not forward, not backward, but it twisted outward in a spiral.
And at the center stoodme.
Pillar.
Bridge.
Anchor.
For the first time in the shimmer’s ancient history, someone saidnoto the design as the realms cracked open along the edge of the vision.
I could see glimpses of another version of an Academy nestled in a mountain, a different Celeste standing tall as a warrior, a Keegan with darkness in his eyes instead of light.
Timelines blurred as magic chose chaos, but I was still standing.
I had not fractured.
I hadbecome.
The shimmer collapsed back into itself like a star imploding and then flared wide open in a ring of light.
I stumbled forward.
And the vision, the path, opened before me anew with no longer one choice, but rather a convergence and a tether not to one truth, but tomany.
I had made the impossible possible.
And as I stepped forward, reverent silence followed.
The path pulled back slowly, like a curtain being drawn after the final act.
It was as if magic was trying to understand what just happened as much as I was with each step.
The ground beneath me was solid again, though it still hummed faintly, as if it remembered the magic that had passed through me and wasn’t quite ready to let go.
Light filtered in as the scent of lavender drifted on the wind.
And then—I was out.
I stepped through the last veil and felt it slide across my skin like silk. The world beyond the path opened slowly, with the Academy just ahead.
Still standing.
Still twinkling with the magic that had awakened.
Keegan stood at the edge of the Ward, eyes locked on mine, frozen mid-step as though he wasn’t sure I was real. The expression on his face was a mix of wonder, disbelief, and relief.
I opened my mouth to speak, but then I stopped.
Because behind him, just beyond the stone path that led toward the Academy’s entrance, a shadow unfurled. Not large, not loud—but sharp. Deliberate.
And in the middle of it, a figure stepped free.
Not from the Academy.
