SFX: distant hammering, scaffolds creaking, wind brushing across new-grown grass
The city kept rebuilding itself around them—stone ascending in slow, patient breaths, wooden beams stitching into place like ribs regrown. But Kael, Veyra, and Seraphine had stopped walking.
They stood in the center of what used to be the execution plaza.
Now it was just cracked stone and tender green shoots forcing their way up through old blood.
The little girl—Veyra's Final Mirror—was off chasing violet butterflies with children who had never worn chains. Her laughter rang bright in the fresh air.
The adults, in contrast, stood inside a silence with teeth.
Kael stared at his hands.
Open.
Steady.
Empty.
No shadow leaking from the knuckles.
No blood humming under his skin.
No Hunger curling against his ribs like a sleeping animal.
Just skin, scars, and the faint silver line across his abdomen where the Empire had tried to open him like an envelope with forbidden mail inside.
He flexed his fingers.
SFX: skin creaking, knuckles clicking
Nothing answered.
Veyra watched him do it for the third time in ten minutes. Her thorns were quiet beneath her skin—quiet, but not calm. Her jaw was tight enough to crack the new stone under them.
"You're doing it again," she said.
Kael didn't look up.
"Doing what?"
"Checking if the monster's still home."
His shrug was barely a movement.
"It's not."
Flat.
Dull.
Empty.
Veyra's laugh was sharp enough to draw blood.
"Yeah. I noticed."
She stepped closer. Her shadow stretched long and spiked across him—restless, breathing.
"You threw it away," she said. "Everything we were. Everything we built. You just… burned it. Like trash."
Kael finally lifted his gaze.
Crimson meeting silver.
"I burned the leash, Veyra," he said.
"Not us."
"Bullshit."
The air between them thickened—heat rising not from magic, but from pressure, emotion, and all the words they had never spoken.
"You think you're clean now?" she asked.
"You think being empty makes you better than the rest of us?"
Seraphine stood a few paces away, arms folded, expression carved from patience and quiet dread—like someone watching lightning choose which tree to split.
She was silent.
The tension did all her speaking for her.
Kael's voice dropped into something cold, surgical.
"I'm not the one still bleeding every time I breathe."
Veyra flinched.
Barely.
But enough.
Her thorns stirred under her skin—SFX: a low, wet shiver.
"Don't," she warned.
"Don't you dare use that against me."
"Then stop acting like I abandoned you," Kael snapped.
"I walked into the Hollow with nothing. No shadows. No Hunger. Just a promise.
And I still came back."
Her laugh came out cracked.
"You came back weak."
The word landed between them like a blade dropped point-down.
Seraphine shifted—still silent, but now tense.
Kael's fists curled.
"Weak," he repeated.
"Is that what you call someone who didn't need a monster to drag you out of that mirror hell?"
Veyra moved in close—so close he could smell roses, blood, and battlefields that still lived inside her skin.
"I call someone who left his teeth at the door weak," she hissed.
"You think the world got soft? The Hollow was not the last thing that wants to eat us."
She jabbed a finger into the center of his chest.
"This world still has teeth, Kael.
And you just pulled yours out and smiled while doing it."
Kael didn't move.
Didn't blink.
"You want me to take it back?" he asked. Quiet. Terrifyingly sincere.
"The Hunger. The shadows. All of it.
Say the word, Veyra. I'll find a Rift.
I'll open my veins.
I'll become the thing you apparently still need me to be."
Every word hit like an anvil dropped onto glass.
Veyra went perfectly still.
Perfectly silent.
Her thorns froze.
Then she stepped back.
One step.
Two.
Her hands trembled.
"Don't," she whispered.
"Don't you fucking put that on me."
She turned away, shoulders rigid and hurting.
"I didn't ask you to save me by breaking yourself," she said, voice raw.
"I asked you to fight beside me.
Not turn into something I don't recognize."
Kael swallowed.
The space between them felt wider than the Hollow ever had.
Seraphine finally spoke.
Soft.
Calm.
Ancient.
"You're both afraid," she said.
"Not of the world.
Of each other."
Neither of them moved.
"Kael fears that without the Hunger, he's nothing you need," Seraphine continued.
"And Veyra fears that without the monster, you'll stop needing her."
She looked at both of them, steady as the horizon.
"You're wrong," she said.
"Both of you."
Silence.
Then Veyra let out a laugh—wet, broken, far too human.
"Great," she muttered.
"The witch gets to be wise again."
She wiped her eyes with the back of her hand.
Didn't turn around.
Didn't leave.
Kael exhaled slowly, like letting go of a load he'd been carrying since childhood.
"I'm still here," he said to her back.
"Empty hands and all."
Veyra's shoulders rose and fell.
Once.
Twice.
Then she murmured, "You'd better be."
She finally turned.
Red eyes.
Soft thorns.
Still dangerous, but not aimed at him—at least for now.
Seraphine allowed herself a rare, tiny smile.
"Good," she said.
"Because the thing coming through those doors doesn't care if you have shadows or thorns or just a really good aim with a broken heart."
She pointed.
At the far end of the plaza, one of the small, harmless Rifts—more curiosity than threat—had begun to widen.
SFX: low, bending hum, like metal groaning underwater
Something on the other side was leaning forward.
Looking through.
Smiling—
with far too many teeth.
The peace was not over.
It had only just learned to crawl.
And babies, as any parent will tell you…
have very sharp teeth.