Aelria emerged from the Veil like a comet streaking through twilight.
The light that clung to her form dimmed slowly, revealing her body whole but trembling, her eyes glowing faintly like starlit mirrors. The final shard pulsed beneath her collarbone—embedded there, humming softly in rhythm with her heartbeat.
She was changed.
Kalien rushed to her side, catching her as her knees buckled. "You're not okay."
"I will be," she whispered, gripping his shoulder. "The Veil... it knows me now. And I know it."
Riven kept a sharp eye on the surroundings. "No time for reunions. I felt something shift while you were inside. The skies aren't right."
Aelria looked up—and her breath caught.
The constellations were moving.
One by one, the stars realigned, forming patterns unseen for millennia—symbols of old prophecies, signs long thought lost. The Hunter, the Weaver, and most damning of all—the Empty Throne.
The sign of a dying realm.
"The Unseen Court has begun the unbinding," Aelria said softly. "They've sent their agents through the fractures in the Veil. This world... our world… is unraveling."
Kalien's jaw clenched. "Then we stop them."
"Not alone," said a voice from the archway behind them.
The Mirror King stepped forward, not in his illusion of grandeur, but as a man stripped of pride. "I once stood at the edge of the Veil and turned away. I won't make that mistake again."
And behind him—others followed.
The Stargrave Knights, thought lost in the realm between. Elarion, the spirit-bound mage. Even the Ironheart twins, draped in sigils and war paint, their eyes lit with rebellion.
They had answered the call.
One by one, the scattered threads of Aelria's past—the allies, the lost souls, the forgotten legends—returned. Each bore a piece of her story. Each had chosen to fight.
"This is what the Court fears," Aelria said, lifting her gaze. "Not me alone. But us. United. Woven together like constellations."
Kalien took her hand, firm and steady. "Then what's the plan, starborn?"
She smiled, tired but unwavering. "The Unseen Court wants the Throne of Echoes. If they claim it, they'll rewrite the fate of all realms. But if we get there first... I can seal it."
"Where is it?" Riven asked.
Aelria turned toward the distant horizon. The sky above it was darker, stars bending toward it unnaturally.
"It lies beneath the roots of the world—Elarandor," she said. "The forgotten cradle of the first starborn."
Kalien nodded. "Then we ride at dawn."
"Not dawn," the Mirror King corrected grimly. "Now. Before the sky breaks again."
Aelria reached for her blade, the Starshard singing in her grip. Her armor shifted slightly, woven with the essence of the Veil. She stood among them not just as a girl chosen by accident, but as a queen forged by magic, battle, and choice.
She looked to each face—old friends, new allies, even those who once doubted her.
"This is where it ends," she said. "But also, where something new begins. We're not just defending a throne. We're reclaiming a future."
With a flare of light, a celestial gate opened before them—a road of starlight weaving through the sky toward Elarandor.
Aelria stepped onto it first.
And behind her, the army of the forgotten followed.
The final war had begun.