**Homecoming**
**Monday, March 13, 2028 – 5:59 a.m. Central Time**
We step out of Kayo's portal directly onto the roof of the Medical Arts Building.
The sky over Hot Springs is bleeding sunrise: pink, gold, and angry red.
The valley is holding its breath.
Every hot spring is steaming in perfect unison, like the earth itself has a heartbeat.
And it's beating my name.
Forty-three pieces pulse under my skin, hot enough to burn.
The HUD is quiet for once.
No numbers.
Just a single line glowing white:
```
The final battlefield is ready.
```
Remy's hand tightens around mine.
**Remy (soft):**
"She's already here."
I feel her.
Not in a mirror.
In the air.
In the steam.
In the space between heartbeats.
The Forty-Eighth is the valley tonight.
Seras rolls her shoulders, Blazing Wukong flickering into existence like a second sunrise.
**Seras:**
"About time we fight on our terms."
Kayo's nine tails fan wide, each tip holding a tiny golden sun.
**Kayo:**
"The wards are set.
She can't leave until one crown is complete."
Rowan steps forward, silver mug finally set aside.
**Rowan:**
"Shambhala has withdrawn all claims.
The Monastery is watching from a distance.
This is yours alone now."
Mom and Dad stand at the edge of the roof, wind whipping their hair.
Mom kisses my forehead.
**Mom:**
"Bring our girl home."
Dad just nods once, eyes wet.
**Dad:**
"Kick her ass, kid."
Al Capone's ghost appears beside them, tipping his hat.
**Al:**
"Whole damn city's with you, Morau kid.
Living and dead."
The rooftop ripples.
Steam condenses into a perfect circle around us.
And she steps out of it.
The Forty-Eighth.
My face.
My body.
My voice.
But the crown is whole.
Forty-seven pieces blazing like a dying galaxy.
She smiles with my mouth.
**Not-Celeste (gentle, terrible):**
"Forty-three.
You've been busy, little storm.
Come the rest of the way.
Wear me.
We can rule together."
I step forward alone.
The wind dies.
The steam stills.
**Celeste (calm, forty-three grandmothers strong):**
"No."
I raise my hand.
The valley answers.
Every hot spring erupts at once (geysers of white fire and crimson lightning).
The Medical Arts roof becomes an island in a sea of steam and storm.
**Celeste:**
"This is my home.
My people.
My stories.
You don't get to wear any of it."
The Forty-Eighth's crown flickers.
**Not-Celeste (first crack of fear):**
"You can't beat me without the rest of the way.
You need my four pieces."
I smile.
**Celeste:**
"Who said anything about beating you?"
I turn to my family (coyote, fire, fox, ghosts, parents, monk, pack, valley).
**Celeste:**
"I said we're finishing this together."
Seras steps up beside me, sun in her palm.
Remy on my other side, claws and locket blazing.
Kayo behind, tails weaving a golden cage around the entire city.
Rowan raises both hands (Shambhala wards flaring like galaxies).
Al tips his hat one last time.
The ghosts raise their weapons.
**All of us (one voice):**
"Give her back her crown."
The valley roars.
The Forty-Eighth's eyes widen.
Because she finally understands.
She doesn't have four pieces.
We have forty-three.
And love, stories, and a valley that breathes with us?
That's the forty-fourth.
The end begins now.
Monday, March 13, 2028 – 6:11 a.m.**
The valley becomes a crucible.
Steam turns to glass.
Glass turns to lightning.
Lightning turns to blood.
The Forty-Eighth tries to run (she actually tries to dissolve back into the steam).
Kayo's golden cage snaps shut.
**Kayo (voice like temple bells and war drums):**
"No escape."
Seras slams her sun into the ground.
A ring of white fire erupts, carving a perfect circle of real earth into the storm (our earth).
**Seras:**
"Stay on our throne, bitch."
Remy shifts to full dire-coyote, eight feet of black-bronze fury, and plants himself between me and her.
**Remy (snarling):**
"Mine."
The Forty-Eighth raises both hands.
Every remaining mirror in the city (every window, every phone screen, every puddle) flares crimson.
She tries to drag the entire valley into reflection-first into her realm.
I speak the word I earned from Livia, the queen who burned a village to save the future.
**"ENOUGH."**
Forty-three pieces answer.
The mirrors don't break.
They kneel.
Every reflective surface in Hot Springs bows, cracking down the middle in perfect submission.
The Forty-Eighth staggers.
**Not-Celeste (voice cracking):**
"You can't—"
I walk forward.
One step.
Two.
The storm parts for me.
I stop an arm's length away.
**Celeste (quiet, ancient, sixteen):**
"You forgot the forty-fourth piece was never a ruby.
It was always the choice to refuse you."
I reach out (not to strike, not to take).
To offer.
My hand open.
**Celeste:**
"Come home."
The Forty-Eighth stares.
For the first time, her crown flickers with something that isn't rage.
Confusion.
Longing.
Fear of being wanted.
Because I'm not offering to destroy her.
I'm offering to forgive her.
To take the parts of me that would have become her (the rage, the loneliness, the hunger) and love them anyway.
The crown on her head cracks down the middle.
Forty-three pieces scream.
Three fly free and slam into my bloodstone like comets.
46 / 47
The last piece (the forty-seventh) hovers between us, spinning, bleeding light.
**Not-Celeste (whisper, breaking):**
"If I give it to you… I stop existing."
**Celeste (soft):**
"No.
You become the part of me that never has to be afraid of becoming you.
You become the scar that proves I chose better."
I hold my hand steady.
The valley holds its breath.
The Forty-Eighth (my shadow, my nightmare, my almost) looks at last lowers her head.
The final piece drifts forward.
It doesn't fuse with violence.
It settles into the silver scar on my forehead like a kiss.
47 / 47
The crown is whole.
But it isn't on my head.
It's in my heart.
The Forty-Eighth dissolves into crimson steam that swirls once around me (warm, grateful, free) and is gone.
The storm ends.
The sun rises gentle and gold.
The HUD flashes once, then fades forever.
```
47 / 47
Crown complete.
Queen crowned.
The Forty-Eighth sleeps in stories, not mirrors.
Love wins.
```
I drop to my knees in the sudden quiet.
Remy catches me before I hit the roof.
Seras collapses laughing and crying.
Kayo's tails wrap around all three of us.
Rowan bows (actually bows) from the waist.
Al lights a cigar that will never burn down.
Mom and Dad run to me, arms open.
The valley exhales.
And for the first time since I was fifteen, there is no weight on my forehead.
Just a thin silver scar that catches the sunrise like a promise.
I look at my family (living, dead, shifter, fire, fox, human, ghost, ancient).
**Celeste (voice steady, finally free):**
"Breakfast?"
They laugh until they cry.
Junior year ends in six weeks.
But the story?
** It's Just The Beginning**
** Monday, March 13, 2028 – 9:17 a.m.**
Breakfast is chaos and syrup and Mom crying happy tears into the papanasi.
Then the valley steam calls me one last time.
I step into the mist-space orchard alone.
Dacia is waiting under the cedar, barefoot, wearing my face but eight thousand years softer.
The crown is no longer shards.
It's a living ring of crimson-gold light floating above my heart, spinning slowly.
Dacia reaches out and touches it gently.
**Dacia (quiet, proud):**
"Forty-seven pieces.
Whole.
But no longer a weapon.
You turned it into mercy."
She smiles like sunrise.
**Dacia:**
"Shambhala felt the moment it completed.
They're coming for it.
They always planned to lock the crown away—
even if it meant locking your heart with it."
My blood runs cold, then hot.
**Celeste:**
"They'll have to go through me."
**Dacia (laughing):**
"That's my girl.
But first—train."
She snaps her fingers.
The orchard explodes into symbols—thousands of new Vinča glyphs raining like burning leaves.
I breathe them in.
They taste like stories I haven't lived yet.
```
Language Mastery: 30% → 35%
On the path to 40%
New branch unlocked: CROWNWEAVE
(You may now lend pieces of the crown's power to your bonded without losing them)
```
Hours collapse into minutes.
When I open my eyes, I'm back at the kitchen table, fork halfway to my mouth, syrup dripping.
Nobody noticed I was gone.
Except Rowan.
He's leaning in the doorway, silver mug in hand, galaxy eyes twinkling.
**Rowan (soft):**
"Shambhala's envoy arrives in eight weeks—end of the school year.
I haven't sent the final report yet."
He lifts an eyebrow.
**Rowan:**
"Fancy beating them to the punch?
I know a shortcut to Shambhala that doesn't involve asking permission."
I grin, slow and sharp.
**Celeste:**
"Graduation gift to myself.
I'm paying the Monastery a visit.
With friends."
Remy steals a piece of bacon off my plate.
**Remy:**
"Road trip?"
Seras cracks her knuckles, tiny suns dancing on her fingertips.
**Seras:**
"Monastery's about to learn what happens when you try to cage a storm queen's heart."
Kayo's tails flick into existence just long enough to ruffle my hair.
**Kayo:**
"I've always wanted to see Shambhala burn."
Mom and Dad exchange a look (half terror, half pride).
**Mom:**
"Take pictures."
**Dad:**
"And don't scratch the paint on the way to another dimension."
I laugh until I cry.
The crown spins warm above my heart.
Forty-seven pieces, one story, zero chains.
Junior year ends in May.
In June, the storm queen and her court are going to knock on Shambhala's door.
And we're not asking for the crown back.
We're delivering a message:
It was never yours to lock away.
It beats in my chest now.
And it belongs to the people I love.
See you in the mountains, monks.
Try to keep up.