Three days.
For three days, I didn't leave Maya's side. I slept in the hard plastic chair beside her bed, ate vending machine crackers, and watched the monitors track her steady, miraculous improvement. The doctors were baffled. Terminally ill patients don't just... get better. But the tests didn't lie. Whatever had been killing her was simply gone.
I knew the truth. The rift's energy, flowing through me into her, had done what no medicine could. The void had touched her, and instead of consuming, it had cleansed.
But the void always demanded payment.
On the third night, as Maya slept peacefully, I felt it. A pull. A whisper from the space between worlds.
...the balance...
I closed my eyes and let my consciousness drift, following the thread of power that still connected me to the rift. It was still there, hidden behind the veil of this world's reality, a wound that hadn't fully healed.
Through it, I saw.
---
The Forum was a graveyard.
Bodies had been removed, but the scorch marks, the shattered stone, the burned oak—they remained. The city was in chaos. Without the Mana Core, every enchantment had failed. The wards that kept disease at bay, the crystals that heated homes, the communication arrays that bound the empire together—all dark.
And in the Imperial Palace, a war for succession had already begun.
Victus stood in the throne room, surrounded by loyalists. But Valerius's faction, though leaderless, hadn't surrendered. They fought in the corridors, in the courtyards, in the streets. The empire was tearing itself apart.
Lyra had fled to her temple, its wards now reinforced with alchemy rather than magic. Elara, I saw with relief, was with her—alive, unharmed.
They were waiting. For what, they didn't know.
But I knew.
The rift was closing. Without the Mana Core's continuous power, it was slowly, inevitably shrinking. In a month, maybe two, it would seal completely. I would be trapped in this world, cut off from the void, from my power, from the Star-Eater itself.
And the Star-Eater would not go quietly.
...hunger... it whispered, but the word was different now. Less demand, more... warning. ...cannot be caged again...
I understood.
If the rift closed, the Star-Eater wouldn't just fade. It would fight. It would tear its way out of me, consuming everything in its path—my soul, this world, maybe both. The seal my mother had unknowingly placed in my bloodline wasn't designed to hold a fully awakened void entity. It was a temporary fix, a bandage on a wound that needed surgery.
I had two choices: stay here with Maya and watch the Star-Eater destroy everything, or return to the other world and find a permanent solution.
Either way, I lost.
---
Maya woke as the sun rose on the fourth day. She found me staring out the window, watching the city stir to life.
"You're leaving again."
It wasn't a question.
I turned to face her. She was sitting up, color in her cheeks, eyes clear. So much like our mother. So much like the little girl I'd protected through years of hell.
"I have to."
"Why?"
How could I explain? Void entities, cosmic hunger, an empire in ruins, a rift between worlds? She was fourteen. She'd already survived too much.
"I made promises," I said instead. "To people who helped me get back to you. They need me now."
She was silent for a long moment. Then, quietly: "Will you come back?"
The question hung in the air between us, heavy with all the times I'd failed her. All the nights I couldn't protect her from uncle's fists. All the mornings she woke alone. All the years I'd been gone.
"I don't know," I said honestly. "But I'll try. I'll always try."
She nodded slowly, then held out her hand. I took it, and she pulled me into a hug—fierce, desperate, strong.
"Then go," she whispered into my shoulder. "But come back. Promise me you'll try to come back."
"I promise."
---
I found the rift where I'd left it, hidden in the space between heartbeats, in the gap between one breath and the next. It was smaller now, a shimmering scar in reality.
I stepped through.
---
The Forum was worse than I'd imagined.
The bodies were gone, but the silence was worse than any sound. No birds. No wind. No distant city hum. The ley lines beneath were dead, their energy consumed. The Mana Core was a shattered crystal husk.
And waiting for me, alone in the center of the devastation, sat Victus.
He looked older. The Spider Prince, master of webs and whispers, sat on a chunk of broken stone with his fine robes torn and his face streaked with dust and dried blood. When he saw me, he laughed—a hollow, broken sound.
"The ghost returns. Just in time for the funeral."
"What happened?"
He gestured vaguely at the empty city beyond. "Civil war. Factions fighting over ash. Valerius's people blamed me for his death. My people blamed them for the collapse. The Iron Legion fractured. The Stonewardens sealed themselves in their guildhall and won't come out. The Zephyr Compact just... vanished. And the Emperor..." He shook his head. "They found him in the throne room. Smiling. They don't know what to make of that."
I sat beside him on the broken stone. The void within me was quiet, watching, waiting.
"There's more," Victus said. "The rift. It's closing. When it does, the Star-Eater—whatever it is inside you—it'll break free, won't it?"
"Yes."
"And when it does?"
I thought of the Star-Eater's memories. Galaxies consumed. Stars winking out. The silence between everything.
"Everything ends."
Victus nodded slowly, as if he'd expected this answer. "So what's the plan, brother? How do we stop the apocalypse?"
I looked at the sky, at the faint shimmer where the rift still hung. "The Star-Eater isn't evil. It's just... hungry. Alone. It latched onto me because I had purpose. A reason to fight. If I can give it a new purpose—one that doesn't require consuming everything—maybe..."
"Maybe it becomes something else."
"Maybe."
We sat in silence for a long time, two brothers on the ruins of an empire, contemplating the impossible.
Then Victus stood, brushed off his torn robes, and held out his hand.
"Then let's give it one. A new purpose. Let's rebuild this ash heap into something worth protecting. Something the Star-Eater might actually want to watch over instead of eat."
I stared at his hand, then at his face. He was serious.
"You want to rebuild an empire with a void god as your partner?"
"I want to try." His eyes held mine. "What else are we going to do? Sit here and wait for the end? I've spent my whole life building webs. Let's build something that matters."
I took his hand. He pulled me up.
---
One Year Later
The Forum was no longer a graveyard.
Stonewardens worked alongside former enemies, their earth magic slowly reshaping the shattered ground into something new—not a replica of what was lost, but a foundation for what could be. A garden grew where the ancient oak had burned, its plants a gift from the Verdant Circle, who had emerged from hiding when they sensed the void's presence was no longer hostile.
The Zephyr Compact had returned, carrying messages between factions learning to trust again. House Tidewell had reopened the aqueducts, water flowing clean and free through the city. The Iron Legion, reformed under a new commander, patrolled not as enforcers, but as protectors.
And at the center of it all, where the convergence had torn reality open, stood a new structure. Not a palace, not a temple. A sanctuary.
Within it, I sat in meditation, the Star-Eater's vast presence coiled around my soul like a patient dragon.
It had been a year since I'd returned. A year of learning, of teaching, of slowly convincing the entity within me that creation could be as interesting as consumption. It wasn't easy. The hunger never fully faded. But it had found new fuel—not death, but purpose. Watching a world rebuild was, it seemed, almost as satisfying as watching one burn.
...the girl... it whispered occasionally. ...she thrives...
Yes. Maya was thriving. I'd found a way to send small pulses of healing energy through the rift before it stabilized—enough to keep her healthy, strong. Enough to let her live a normal life. She was in school now, making friends, laughing. The nightmares had faded.
She didn't remember me, not really. The trauma of our past had been replaced by peaceful dreams. A small mercy I'd asked the Star-Eater to grant, and it had, with something almost like tenderness.
...the balance holds...
For now.
Victus entered the sanctuary, his steps echoing on the new stone. He looked different now—not the Spider Prince, but something else. A leader. A builder.
"The council's ready," he said. "They want to hear your proposal for the new charter."
I opened my eyes. The void within me stirred, but gently. Attentive.
"Tell them I'll be there."
He nodded, but didn't leave. "Kieran. Are you... are you still you? After everything?"
It was the question everyone wanted to ask but never did.
I considered it. The boy who killed for his sister. The strategist who planned an apocalypse. The vessel who held a cosmic hunger. Which of them was real?
"I'm the brother who came home," I said finally. "The rest is just details."
Victus smiled—a real smile, not the old calculating mask. "Good enough."
He left.
I rose and walked to the sanctuary's entrance. Outside, a city was rebuilding. A world was healing. And inside me, a hunger was learning, slowly, what it meant to care about something other than consumption.
The rift was stable now, a permanent scar between worlds. Through it, I could sometimes feel Maya's presence—a warm, distant glow. She was safe. She was happy. That was enough.
For now.
The Star-Eater stirred one last time, its vast attention turning toward the future.
...what now...
I stepped out into the sunlight, into the sound of hammers and voices and life.
"Now," I said, "we build something worth keeping."
---
THE END
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