In the Mirror Realm, there was no sky.
Only reflections.
Of choices unmade. Paths unwalked. Faces twisted by possibility and regret.
It was here that Ilyra stood—alone—before the paradox-forge, surrounded by the echo of her own divinity fractured into a thousand shivering shards. The place reeked of uncreation. Balthoros's erased essence had not dispersed. It had been trapped, screaming silently in a knot of time that could not resolve itself.
She reached into it.
And pulled power from pain.
Where Balthoros's sacrifice had fueled a paradox to erase Liora, Ilyra twisted what remained into something darker. Not to destroy.
But to undo Vaerion.
Not kill him. Not even unmake him.
But unanchor him—from Liora, from memory, from purpose.
She whispered to the spear as it formed, her voice trembling.
"You were always the threat behind the throne," she said. "The soul she could never let go. The part of her that made her hesitate."
The spear gleamed—sleek and pale, humming with unstable resonance.
"When I cast this, she'll still stand," Ilyra murmured. "But she will be alone."
And she launched it into the fold of fate.
Liora stood on the cliffs of the Weeping Hills, watching storm clouds coil around the heavens like a tightening noose.
She had not touched the Shard again since the vision.
It hovered behind her now, patient and unreadable, like a god waiting to be born.
Beside her, Vaerion adjusted the black mantle on his shoulder. His fingers brushed hers—familiar and warm, grounding.
"I've been thinking," he said, eyes on the horizon. "What if we don't use it?"
She glanced at him.
"What if we just… bury it. Take the Shard beyond the veil. Let the world try to fix itself. Let them see how empty their thrones are without us."
Liora didn't answer immediately.
"I wanted to burn everything," she admitted. "But now I don't know if that's justice or vengeance."
He nodded slowly.
"We were never meant to be gods."
"No," she whispered. "We were meant to remind them what it means to bleed."
The air changed.
The sky folded inward.
And Liora's soul—her very essence—screamed in warning.
She turned too late.
The spear hit Vaerion squarely in the chest.
But there was no sound.
No explosion.
He simply… stopped.
His mouth opened, but no words came.
His body froze, suspended mid-breath.
Liora screamed, running to him.
He didn't fall. He didn't blink. His hand still hovered in the air, inches from hers.
"No," she whispered. "No—NO—"
The Shard pulsed behind her in mourning.
Kelvir and Veyron appeared, drawn by her scream, weapons half-raised—then halted when they saw him.
"What… what happened?" Kelvir asked.
Liora didn't respond.
She was too busy holding Vaerion's face in her hands, sobbing, shaking him.
But his eyes no longer saw.
His soul was still present, but it had been cut loose, drifting in a sea of silence.
The paradox had worked.
Not erased.
Not slain.
Just…
Disconnected.
Inside her mind, the rage took root.
Every lesson the gods taught her.
Every lie they'd spun.
Every time they chose cruelty over truth.
And now this.
They hadn't taken her.
They'd taken him.
The one tether she still clung to. The one person who reminded her she was more than a flame.
And they had unmade that bond.
The storm above roared.
The Shard of Origin flared with warning.
"Do not tempt me," she whispered to the sky.
But the sky only crackled in response.
So she stood.
She kissed Vaerion's forehead.
And she turned toward the heavens.
In the Aether Sanctum, the Dreamer rose from his throne.
"Ilyra," he said, his voice calm and cold, "what have you done?"
She stood proud, surrounded by silence.
"I ended her hesitation," she replied. "Now she will fall."
"No," the Dreamer said.
Now she will rise.
Liora returned to the Stones of Cirth.
Her army followed in silence, sensing the shift.
She walked barefoot, the wind swirling with embers.
The Shard floated before her once more.
And this time…
She reached for it.
No hesitation.
No fear.
She didn't grasp it.
She merged with it.
The crystal shattered into a thousand threads of light that poured into her skin, her veins, her eyes. Her scream was not pain. It was becoming.
The world shook.
The gods trembled.
And in the heavens above, the stars rearranged themselves into a new constellation:
A woman crowned in fire, with her hand outstretched toward a soul lost in the dark.