Location: Ruins of Ravenspire — Two Weeks Later
POV: Seris Valen
The god was gone. But the silence left behind was worse.
The sky hadn't returned to blue—it remained a dull, bruised violet. The moons pulsed in the heavens like slow-beating hearts. And the ground, where Thamaris had stood, refused to grow anything. Not even rot.
Seris walked alone through the shattered stones of Ravenspire's heart. No crown. No chains. Just scars that hummed when the wind blew too cold.
She had survived a god.
But not herself.
---
The Cost of Victory
Ashren had not spoken in days.
He kept to the cliffs now, staring into the horizon, haunted by what he had seen—what he had nearly become. Caelis visited him once, said nothing, and left a blade behind. A peace offering. Or a threat.
Caelis himself now led the remnants of the rebellion.
He was not trying to rule.
He was trying to bury what he had done.
The March of the Broken Crown had ended, but the world didn't feel free. Just… numb.
---
Council of Ashes
They gathered at dusk beneath the Weeping Arch—a place once used for executions.
Seris. Caelis. Ashren. Enrys. Two witches. One shade. And a mortal scribe who wrote everything down because someone had to remember.
"We need a new order," Enrys said.
"No," Caelis replied. "We need no order. Not yet."
Ashren looked up. "Then what do we become?"
Seris answered:
> "Not kings. Not gods. Just… the ones who survived. And maybe—maybe—something better."
No one argued.
Because they had no better answer.
---
The Letters That Followed
Seris wrote to no one.
Pages filled with ink and ash, sealed and burned. She wrote about pain, power, memory. About being hollowed by a divine scream and finding herself still breathing.
She never expected anyone to read them.
But someone did.
---
Final Scene — Beneath the Vale
Deep beneath the cursed roots of Ravenspire, where Thamaris had once been chained, something shifted.
A heartbeat.
Slow.
Faint.
But real.
And on a stone wall, carved in ancient blood:
> "GODS DO NOT DIE. THEY TRANSFORM."