The feast that night was overwhelming.
Maya had never seen so much food in her life. Roasted meats glazed with honey and strange spices, fruits that glowed with soft inner light, breads shaped into impossible spirals, and desserts that shifted colors as you watched. The table stretched the length of what Victus called the "Reconciliation Hall"—a vast space built to host every faction leader in the empire.
And they were all here. Watching her.
"Just smile and nod," Kieran murmured beside her, his voice carrying that familiar flat calm. "They're more afraid of you than you are of them."
"I'm pretty sure that's not true," she whispered back, her smile frozen in place.
A Stonewarden elder approached, her craggy face splitting into what might have been a smile. "The Sister of the Void," she rumbled, bowing deeply. "Your presence honors us. The legends said you would come, when the balance required it."
Maya shot Kieran a desperate look. Legends? What legends?
He gave an almost imperceptible shrug. Go with it.
"Thank you," Maya managed. "The... balance is important."
The Stonewarden nodded solemnly, apparently satisfied with this profound statement, and moved on.
Kieran's lips twitched—the closest he came to laughing these days. "You're a natural."
"I'm going to kill you."
"Later. The Tidewell ambassador is approaching. Try not to mention drowning."
---
Hours later, when the last toast had been drunk and the last dignitary had bowed their way out, Maya collapsed onto the cushioned bench beside Elara.
"Your world is exhausting," she groaned.
Elara laughed, a warm sound that reminded Maya of sunlight. "You get used to it. After the Convergence—that's what they call the battle you saw through the rift—everyone was so shattered that rebuilding became its own kind of madness. Now that things are stable, they have energy for politics again."
"You lived through all of it?"
"I did." Elara's eyes softened. "I was the one who brought your brother food when he was dying. I was the one who watched him become... what he is. And I would do it all again."
Maya studied the woman beside her. Pretty, strong, with kind eyes and steady hands. "You love him."
Elara's cheeks flushed. "I—that's—he's not—"
"It's okay. He's my brother. I can tell when someone cares about him." Maya smiled. "For what it's worth, I think you're good for him. He's too cold on his own."
Elara was quiet for a moment, then: "He talks about you constantly. Even when we couldn't see you, when the rift was unstable, he would sit for hours just... reaching toward your world. Making sure you were safe."
The warmth in Maya's chest, the one she'd felt for years without understanding, suddenly made sense.
"He was with me," she whispered. "All those nights I felt like someone was watching over me. It was him."
"Always," Elara confirmed. "The void can't cross easily, but love? Love finds a way."
---
Kieran found them like that—two women sitting in comfortable silence, bound by their connection to him.
"The council meets at dawn," he said. "Victus wants us there."
Maya stood, brushing off her borrowed robes. "What's it about?"
"Old magic. There are... concerns. Things stirring in the deep places, places even the Star-Eater doesn't fully remember."
Elara's face paled. "The places before? The ones your mother wrote about?"
"Yes." Kieran's voice was grim. "The ones even the void fears."
---
Dawn. The Council Chamber.
The room was circular, built into the heart of the rebuilt palace. Its walls were raw stone, unadorned, a reminder of how close everything had come to annihilation. At its center, a round table held representatives from every faction—Stonewarden, Tidewell, Zephyr, Verdant, Iron, and what remained of the Ignis Guard, now called the Flamekeepers in Valerius's honor.
Victus sat at the head, his face drawn with exhaustion.
"Thank you for coming," he began. "I wish it were under better circumstances."
Lyra, ancient and sharp as ever, leaned forward. "Just tell us what's happened."
Victus nodded to a Zephyr messenger, who stepped forward and unrolled a scroll. On it was a map—not of the empire, but of something older. Deeper. The underground networks that spiderwebbed beneath the continent.
"Three weeks ago, a mining expedition in the eastern mountains broke into a cavern that wasn't on any chart. The Stonewardens who entered reported finding... structures. Not natural formations. Architecture."
The Stonewarden elder nodded grimly. "We sealed it immediately, but not before we saw the symbols. They matched nothing in our records."
Lyra's hands trembled. "What symbols?"
The messenger unrolled a second scroll, revealing a crude sketch.
The chamber went silent.
Maya didn't understand what she was seeing—a spiral, yes, but one that seemed to move, to pull the eye inward toward an empty center. But the reaction of everyone else told her everything.
Kieran stepped forward, his face unreadable. But Maya, who knew him better than anyone, saw the tension in his shoulders.
"The Star-Eater recognizes this," he said quietly. "It's older than the empire. Older than the void's awakening in me. It's the signature of the First Silence."
Lyra's voice was a whisper. "That's a myth. A children's story to frighten mages who reach too deep."
"No." Kieran's eyes were distant, seeing something none of them could. "It's real. And it's waking up."
---