The world was quiet again — but not in peace.

It was the kind of silence that came after something sacred had been broken.

Adrielle stood at the center of it, her body aglow with soft threads of silver, her hair lifting slightly as though weightless in unseen wind. The air around her shimmered faintly, bending the ruins into strange reflections — echoes of what once was, or what might have been.

Alex watched her like someone seeing a star about to fall.

Her eyes, once warm and alive, now held entire constellations within them — too bright, too ancient.

“Adrielle,” he whispered, stepping closer. The ground beneath his boots cracked, whispering back in strange tongues. “Please… come back to me.”

She turned, slow and unsteady. The faint smile she gave him wasn’t hers anymore.

“I am back,” she said, voice layered with a thousand others. “Just… not as you remember.”

Maren stepped forward, awe burning in his gaze. “She’s transcended the crown. The veil didn’t consume her — it became her.”

But Adrielle flinched, her hand trembling as she touched her temple. Whispers bled from her skin, fragments of forgotten wars and dying prayers. The memories of the veil — all of them — screamed for space within her.

“It’s too much,” she breathed. “I can’t hold them all…”

Alex grabbed her shoulders, desperate. “Then let it go! Let me take it—”

She looked at him, and for one heartbeat, she wasn’t the veil’s chosen — she was just Adrielle. The girl who once laughed under moonlight, who once dreamed of a world beyond chains and ash.

“You already gave too much,” she said softly. “I remember now… what you traded for me.”

Alex froze. The world around them dimmed.

The veil remembered, and it showed her — his memory. The night he stood before the crown, bleeding, begging the veil to take him instead. It had refused. But it had listened.

And now, the debt was due.

The silver glow around Adrielle began to flicker, turning darker, sharper — threads of shadow curling between the light. Maren stepped back, realization dawning in his eyes.

“The veil’s not stable… it’s splitting her.”

Adrielle’s voice broke as she looked between them.

“If I stay, the veil breaks. If I leave… the world does.”

Alex shook his head, eyes glassy. “Then we find another way.”

But the light around her was fading fast, scattering like ash in a storm.

She smiled one last time — gentle, resigned. “There never was another way, Alex.”

Then she stepped forward — and the world turned to light.

The ground trembled. The air screamed. Every shadow bent toward her as the veil exploded open, a thousand memories burning into the sky. For a moment, everything — time, pain, love — became one endless, blinding truth.

And in that final silence before the dawn, the veil whispered her name like a prayer: