The Black Sun had retreated to a distant, sullen disk—still visible, still draining, but no longer the immediate executioner. The city breathed again in shallow, painful gasps. Water trickled back into dry riverbeds. Plants pushed faint green through ash. People moved—slow, dazed—helping one another from rubble, sharing what little remained of food and water, burying those who had not survived the long night.
Elias sat on the eastern hill—where the monastery ruins still smoked—Lucian's body laid gently on a flat stone slab. The boy looked smaller in death than he ever had in life—silver hair catching the weak returning light, face calm, hands folded across his chest as though still in prayer.
Elara knelt beside the slab, fingers tracing the edge of a wilted flower she had placed there earlier. Behemoth stood a few paces back—stone skin cracked and dull, but upright. Liora sat cross-legged on the ground—arms wrapped around her knees, staring at nothing.
No one spoke for a long time.
The weight of what had happened pressed down heavier than the Black Sun ever had.
Elias finally lifted his head.
His voice was quiet—hoarse from disuse, raw from grief.
"I stopped him," he said. "I stopped Abaddon from ending it all. I stopped Lucifer from tearing open the heavens. I stopped the Black Sun from swallowing everything in one breath."
He looked at his hands—black veins faint now, golden cracks dulled to thin scars.
"But I couldn't stop this."
He placed one hand over Lucian's still chest.
"I couldn't save him."
Elara's voice cracked when she answered.
"You gave him a choice. You gave him the chance to end it on his terms. That's more than anyone else ever did."
Behemoth rumbled—low, slow.
"Stone endures loss. Stone remembers."
Liora lifted her head—eyes wet but steady.
"He carried heaven and hell in the same body. He carried them so we didn't have to. And when he couldn't carry them anymore… he chose to let go. That's not failure. That's victory."
Elias stared at the boy's peaceful face.
"I keep thinking… if I had just said yes once. If I had let Abaddon finish it in the cathedral. If I had let Lucifer open the Gate. If I had let the Black Sun drink everything…"
He trailed off.
"Then none of us would be here," Elara finished quietly. "And neither would he. But we are. And he is… free."
Elias nodded—slow, painful.
The price had been everything.
Every refusal.
Every mercy.
Every moment he chose to keep going instead of ending it all.
He had saved the world—for now.
But the world had taken Lucian in payment.
And the boy who once refused to let the end come now carried the memory of the one who made sure it didn't.
He stood.
"We bury him here," he said. "On the hill. Where he can see the sky he helped keep."
Elara rose—tears silent on her cheeks.
Behemoth moved forward—hands gentle despite their size—and lifted the slab with Lucian's body as though it weighed nothing.
Liora stood beside Elias—small hand slipping into his.
They walked a short distance—toward the highest point of the hill—where the first real sunlight in days touched the broken stone.
Behemoth set the slab down carefully.
Elara knelt—dug with her hands until a shallow hollow formed in the soft earth beneath the rubble.
Liora gathered the last faint shadows—thin, fragile—and wove them into a soft blanket that draped over Lucian like a shroud.
Elias placed the flower—still clinging to a single green leaf—on the boy's chest.
Then—together—they covered him.
Earth.
Stone.
Shadow.
No words.
No prayers.
Only the quiet sound of soil falling.
When the grave was sealed—simple, unmarked but unmistakable—Elias stood.
The Black Sun still hung—distant, diminished, waiting.
But the sky around it was blue again—faint, bruised, but blue.
Elias looked at the others—three survivors who had lost gods, friends, and pieces of themselves.
"We keep going," he said—voice steady for the first time in days. "Because he asked us to. Because he chose us to."
Elara nodded.
Behemoth placed one cracked stone hand on the grave—silent vow.
Liora squeezed Elias's hand once—then let go.
They turned away from the hill.
They walked—down into the city that still breathed, still hoped, still hurt.
Behind them, the grave lay quiet under returning light.
And somewhere far above—beyond the fading Black Sun—an indifferent eye watched.
No longer bored.
No longer indifferent.
Curious.
The story continued.
Without the boy who carried heaven.
But with the boy who refused to let it fall.
And with three others who chose—again and again—to walk beside him.
Into whatever came next.
End of Chapter 42