The first thing I noticed was the quiet.
Not the kind that pressed against your ears or made your skin crawl—but the kind that came after everything loud had already finished breaking.
Stone dust still floated through the air as we climbed the final stretch of stairs. Each step echoed too clearly, like the chambers themselves were emptying us out, shedding weight with every footfall. My legs burned. My side screamed where Arion had bound it earlier. Every breath tasted old—iron, ash, damp earth.
But we were moving.
That mattered.
No one spoke as the stairway widened and the ceiling rose. The pressure that had lived in my skull since we descended finally began to loosen, like someone slowly uncoiling a hand from around my spine. The symbols faded as we passed them—scraped, broken, inert. No more watching eyes carved into stone. No more whispers stitched into the walls.
Just steps.
Just breath.
Just the sound of people who were still alive.
I glanced back once.
They followed in fragments—not in formation anymore, not even pretending to be soldiers.
Liam limped, teeth clenched, his sleeve stiff with dried blood. Varein leaned heavier than usual on his spear, his movements quieter, more careful. Seraphyne's daggers were still drawn, even though her hands shook slightly when she thought no one was looking. Kazen forced a crooked grin at Arion, murmuring something I couldn't hear—probably a joke, probably thin, but Arion nodded anyway.
Aldred walked last.
Not because he had to.
Because he chose to.
When the stair ended, the light changed.
Gold.
Muted. Dusty. Familiar.
We stepped out into the throne room.
I stopped without meaning to.
The place looked… wrong.
Not destroyed—not the way the chambers below were—but hollowed. Pillars stood tall and unbroken, banners still hung from the walls, but everything felt stripped. The air was clean here—too clean, as if whatever had lived beneath had sucked the warmth out of the upper halls too.
The throne sat empty.
No king.
No queen.
No court.
Just a chair that meant nothing now.
No one rushed forward. No one checked the seat or searched the corners. We already knew. There was nothing left here to find—only confirmation.
Seraphyne swallowed. Loud. "So," she said quietly. "This is it?"
Her voice echoed once.
Then stopped.
Aldred's gaze swept the room, slow and thorough, the way it always did after inspections. "It's over," he said—not loudly, not gently. Just factual.
I took a step forward and felt my knees threaten to give.
Not from pain this time.
From release.
I hadn't realized how tightly I'd been holding everything until there was finally nothing left to fight.
We crossed the throne room together.
Not as escorts.
Not as guards.
Just people who wanted to be anywhere else.
The great doors waited at the far end, slightly ajar, light bleeding through the cracks. Real light. The kind that didn't burn or hiss or glare back at you for existing.
The kind that belonged to the world above.
Kazen reached the door first and hesitated, hand resting against the wood. His grin was gone now. His eyes were tired—older somehow.
"Funny," he muttered. "I keep expecting something to jump out."
Varein exhaled softly. "Don't say that."
Kazen snorted once. "Worth a shot."
I stepped up beside him and pushed.
The doors groaned open.
Sound rushed in.
Wind. Voices. Bells. Footsteps. Distant calls and the roll of the sea far below the cliffs.
Newoaga.
Alive.
Sunlight hit my face and I had to squint, vision blurring. The sky stretched wide above the courtyard, blue and endless, as if nothing beneath it had ever been wrong.
For a second, I just stood there.
Then my legs finally gave.
I caught myself on instinct, one hand braced against the stone, breathing hard. The ground was solid. Warm. Real.
Seraphyne laughed—a short, broken sound that turned halfway into a cough. "Oh gods," she said, wiping her face with the back of her sleeve. "I hate stairs. I hate underground places. I hate demons. I hate all of this."
"No you don't," Liam said quietly.
She looked at him.
Then shrugged. "Okay. I hate most of it."
Arion sat down where he stood, back against the wall, eyes closed. "I thought… honestly, I thought we were going to die down there."
No one argued.
Aldred let the silence sit before speaking. "You didn't."
That was all he said.
People began to arrive then—guards, citizens, attendants. They stopped short when they saw us: bloodied, limping, standing in the open like survivors of something they didn't have words for yet.
Questions hovered on every face.
None of us answered.
I turned slightly, letting my gaze trace the city beyond the gates—the rooftops, the banners, the harbor glittering in the distance. Newoaga carried on, unaware of just how close it had come to vanishing beneath its own feet.
Lumiel stood a few paces away.
Not surrounded.
Not bound.
Just standing.
Her expression was calm, but not empty—like someone who'd stepped out of a long, dark room and hadn't decided yet whether to blink.
Our eyes met.
No titles passed between us.
No words.
Just a shared understanding that something had ended—and that nothing could quite go back to the shape it had before.
Varein shifted closer to me without realizing it, shoulder just barely brushing mine. I didn't move away.
This wasn't dependence.
It was presence.
I looked at them again—really looked.
At Kazen's hands, still trembling faintly.
At Liam's steady posture, even as pain pulled at his steps.
At Seraphyne's jaw set tight as she scrubbed dried blood from her fingers.
At Arion's slow, deliberate breaths as he grounded himself.
At Aldred, standing between us and the crowd, not shielding—but ensuring space.
We weren't victorious.
We weren't unbroken.
But we were here.
And somehow, that felt heavier than triumph.
As medics began to move in and voices rose again, I tipped my head back and looked up through the open sky.
Light spilled down through the broken shadows of the castle walls, cutting clean lines across stone that had hidden too much for too long.
Closure didn't come with applause.
It came with air in your lungs.
With ground under your feet.
With the knowledge that something terrible had ended—and left a mark deep enough that it would never be forgotten.
We left the chambers behind us.
And for the first time since entering them, the world didn't try to pull us back in.
Not yet.
Maybe not ever.
But even if it did—
I knew one thing for certain.
I had grown stronger. Even a little.