"Someone New"
The shard vanished the moment he spoke, the echo of "Someone" new still trembling in the silence it left behind.
For a moment, he stood in nothing.
No stars.
No glass.
Just air.
Breathable, calm, not heavy with history or soaked in guilt.
And then the world blinked again.
He landed hard, knees digging into dirt.
Real dirt.
Warm, sun-drenched.
He looked up.
A road stretched ahead, lined by whispering trees, golden leaves trembling like they, too, remembered him.
But the air was different here.
Not the sulfur-stink of ruins.
Not the sterile chill of memory.
It smelled of life.
Dust.
Bread baking far off.
Woodsmoke.
"You're late,"
Said a voice behind him.
Lyrium turned sharply, instinctively raising a hand, only to realize it sparked with no glyphs, no power.
Just a hand.
The woman who stood there was old, but not fragile.
