The Sythari.
The surviving Mmuhr’Rhong lurking in the dark corners of the universe.
The work ahead would take centuries.
Perhaps millennia.
But now there was something beyond survival waiting for us at the end of it.
Life.
Love.
Home.
The universe had tried to convince me I was born from darkness.
That I existed only because something had gone terribly wrong.
But Caelor’s final words still echoed through me.
You were my second chance.
Not his shadow.
Not his replacement.
My own soul.
My own future.
And beside me stood the female who made me want that future with a fierceness that bordered on terrifying. The bond between us pulsed warm and steady, no longer carrying desperation or fear. Only certainty.
Mine.
Not possession.
Belonging.
The stars shifted above us as the Hall slowly darkened into evening light.
And for the first time since the universe broke, I felt peace.
EPILOGUE
Several hundred years later,I still could not truly comprehend immortality. I tried sometimes. Usually whilestaring at Thyros. Which, admittedly, happened often. But every time he casually referenced events that had happened five thousand years ago or spoke about centuries like they were seasons, my brain simply refused to cooperate.
Millions of years.
The number remained absurd to me. Then again, so did most things in my life now. Like the fact that I lived in a celestial palace suspended between stars. Or that I could tear open space with my mind if sufficiently annoyed. Or that I was apparently part goddess. That one still felt deeply unreasonable.
The Hall of Seven had eventually restored the Reconstitution process fully after stabilizing Nox Eternum. Once the fracture stopped poisoning the Aelyth bond, immortality returned naturally to all bonded pairs, just as it existed before the First Collapse.
The universe, apparently, had decided to correct itself. Which brought us to the truly impossible part. Ella was pregnant. Actually pregnant.
The first Arkhevari pregnancy in existence.
No one had believed it possible at first. Not even Nadine, and she had spent nearly two decades aggressively researching Arkhevari biology while muttering scientific obscenities at anyone who interrupted her.
