Kael doesn't leave the city.
He becomes a quiet fixture in its streets, a shadow moving through the rebuilt marketplaces, helping where he can. Some recognize him—the man who fought beside the one who vanished. Whispers call him "the Mourning Flame," though he never confirms or denies it. He speaks little. Smiles less.
But he listens.
And it's in listening that he begins to notice the strange things.
Children waking from dreams of a silver-haired girl whispering to them in languages they've never heard. Flowers blooming in ash-marked soil. Stones that hum faintly with warmth when touched by kindness.
A new cycle has begun—but not the one the Revenants wanted.
There are those who believe Lyra is gone forever. That her sacrifice was final. That the stone consumed her and left nothing behind.
Kael doesn't believe that.
Because every night, when he closes his eyes, he sees her. Not in dreams, but in flashes—memories that were never his. Standing beneath twin moons. Holding a blade of light. Laughing among stars.
Memories that feel real.
One night, he hears a knock on his door. When he opens it, a courier hands him a sealed letter with no sender, written in Lyra's handwriting.
> "Kael,
The stone was a prison, yes. But also a gate.
I've seen what lies beyond. And I am not lost.
Not yet."
His hands tremble. The ink is warm. The page smells like starlight.
Kael doesn't sleep that night. Instead, he returns to the cliff where she vanished, the wind colder than usual.
He doesn't cry.
Instead, he closes his eyes and speaks aloud.
"If you can still hear me—come back. I don't care what form. I'll find you. I swear it."
Far below, the city lights flicker. One by one, they blink into a constellation—forming a shape that looks like a phoenix rising.
Then, behind him, a single ember floats through the air.
And lands in his palm.
It doesn't burn.
It pulses.
Alive.
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