For the first time in what felt like a lifetime, Caelen and Elira walked into the morning side by side—not as fugitives, not as dreamers haunted by loss, but as survivors who had finally stepped through death's shadow and found one another whole.
The sky was soft with the blush of dawn, every cloud kissed in rose-gold. Birds called from the canopy above the temple ruins, and below, the land exhaled slowly, as if waking from the same long nightmare they had survived.
Caelen's legs trembled as they reached the temple's edge, where stone met sunlit grass, where pain began to feel like memory instead of reality. His fingers curled tightly in Elira's. Not out of fear this time—but to make sure she was still there.
Elira noticed the tension in his grip, and her own fingers wove tighter into his. "You're not alone," she whispered, her voice still husky with the echo of all they had endured. "Not anymore. Never again."
He turned to her, sunlight catching the faint shimmer of tears at the corners of his eyes. "I don't know how to live without pain," he admitted. "Even now, when it's fading, I feel… hollow. Not like the Hollows. Just… emptied."
She reached up, brushing the hair from his forehead. "You're not hollow, Caelen. You're healing. There's a difference. Pain carved you deep, but that means there's more room now—more space for love, for joy, for peace."
He swallowed hard. "You sound like the stories you used to tell in the dark. About hope. About gardens."
"Maybe it's time to make them real," she said, stepping closer. "Time we gave Aerthalin not just a savior, but a future."
Behind them, the Weeping Blade—now resting in a sacred stone beside the temple—gleamed faintly. No longer humming with suffering, but resonating like a heart reunited with its rhythm.
The temple's priestesses emerged at last, silent and reverent, bowing their heads not to royalty, not to warriors, but to two people who had given their very souls to keep kindness alive.
"Your journey is not over," said the eldest, her voice like aged parchment. "But the curse has changed. What was once a burden passed from bearer to bearer… now lives in only one place."
Elira's hand moved to her chest. "Me?"
The priestess nodded. "You carry its echo, not its weight. The world may still cry, but it will not crush you."
"And him?" she asked, glancing at Caelen.
The priestess smiled faintly. "He carries the resonance of all who came before… and turned it into something new."
"A song," Elira whispered.
Caelen looked to her, confused.
"You said once," she murmured, brushing his knuckles, "that if you ever lived past all this, you'd turn suffering into song. Maybe now you can."
He didn't answer at first. He simply looked up at the sky. Not at the sun. But at the light. He could finally see it. And believe in it.
A wind moved through the hills, carrying with it distant laughter from a nearby village. Life. A future.
And yet, even in the peace, Elira's eyes turned eastward—where a distant storm cloud gathered on the horizon, dark but small.
"I think the world will test us again," she said, her voice low.
Caelen stepped beside her, his silhouette tall in the light. "Then let it come. This time, we begin with hope, not sorrow."
They turned together, leaving behind the temple—not as a tomb, but as a beacon. Behind them, the Weeping Blade pulsed once, softly, like a farewell… or a blessing.
And as they stepped onto the grass, morning warmed their faces, and the sun rose not on an ending—but on a new story.
A story of the Ashbound who chose to feel.
And the woman who taught the world that kindness was not weakness—but the strongest force it had ever known.