The silence after the battle was deafening.
They stood beneath the fractured vault of the Skyhold, staring into a sky that shimmered with raw starlight. Shards of the broken throne still floated around them, catching the light like memories suspended in crystal.
Kaelen sat on the edge of a collapsed archway, bare feet touching the stone floor like he hadn't felt solid ground in centuries. He looked younger than Elara had expected—ageless, yes, but there was something bruised about his posture. Worn. Fragile, even as power shimmered just beneath his skin.
Cassian kept his distance.
Ithiriel paced.
Elara watched them all, but it was Kaelen who finally spoke.
"You broke the seal." His voice was a melody half-remembered, echoing with distant galaxies. "And you carry my memory. I should thank you. But that's not why you came, is it?"
Elara took a breath. "We need the truth. About the Pact. About what really happened before the stars fell silent."
Kaelen's gaze flickered to Cassian, then back to her. "You're not going to like the truth, Elara Thorne."
She stepped forward. "I don't need to like it. I need to survive it."
He told them of the beginning.
Of a time before time, when the constellations walked among mortals, each representing a primordial force—Light, Thought, Time, Change. He was one of them, but he had loved a mortal queen. For that, he had fractured the order of the heavens.
"The Pact was a punishment," Kaelen said quietly, running a finger along the floating shard of his throne. "A way to bind us. Each of us gave something up. Our power. Our immortality. Our memories."
"But someone cheated," Ithiriel guessed.
Kaelen nodded. "The Unraveler refused. Instead, he created the Ashen Coil—mortals who would do his bidding in exchange for pieces of his stolen divinity. And then… the sky burned."
Cassian spoke for the first time in hours. "And you think Elara is the key to fixing this?"
Kaelen looked at her. "She's not the key. She's the fulcrum."
Elara sat beside him, the wind tugging gently at her hair.
"I'm tired of being a pawn in someone else's prophecy," she said.
"You're not," Kaelen said, his voice softer now. "You're the first player in eons who got to choose."
She looked at him then—really looked—and saw not a god, not a celestial prince, but a man who had loved, lost, and been left behind by a world that couldn't bear him.
"You loved her," she said. "The queen. The one you gave it all up for."
"I still do," he admitted. "But her bloodline died out. Or so I thought."
Elara's breath hitched. "You think I'm her descendant?"
"I don't think. I know."
Cassian stood in the shadows, watching their conversation unfold.
He hadn't spoken of it, but he'd felt it—the echo between Kaelen and Elara. The way the air shimmered slightly around them, like reality bent to their presence.
Ithiriel joined him.
"You're thinking too loud," she said.
"I'm watching," he replied.
"You're afraid."
He didn't deny it. "If Kaelen is what he says… Elara's more than we ever guessed."
"She's still Elara."
"Is she?"
That night, as stars spun gently above the remnants of the Skyhold, Elara couldn't sleep.
She sat alone near the cliff edge, the shard of the mirror in her hands. It no longer showed directions—it reflected her. Just her.
"You're not alone, you know," Cassian said, appearing beside her.
She didn't look up. "Aren't I?"
His voice was rough. "You're scared. I get it. I am too."
She laughed softly. "Scared doesn't even cover it. I'm supposed to be a grad student with a thesis on meteor dust. Not… a cosmic bloodline with an apocalypse timer ticking in my bones."
He knelt in front of her. "Look at me."
She did.
"You are still the girl who punched me in the face when I tried to steal your pack," he said. "You're the same person who climbed that crystal cliff with a broken wrist. You're Elara. The rest? It's just stardust."
She exhaled, shaky. "You always know exactly what to say."
He smiled. "No. I just mean it."
And then, without fanfare, without magic or stars, he kissed her.
Later, as dawn teased the sky with gold, Kaelen stood alone in the ruins of the Hall.
His gaze turned eastward.
The stars had spoken to him in dreams while he was trapped, and now their warnings grew louder.
Elara was indeed the fulcrum.
But fulcrums balanced two forces.
And soon, she would be asked to choose.
Between restoring the sky.
Or burning it clean.