The child had no name, yet all of creation knew its presence.
Where it blinked, stars bloomed.
Where it sighed, tides formed.
Where it smiled, galaxies spun closer to bask in its warmth.
It was not divine.
It was not damned.
It was simply possible—the very essence of what Lina and Andra had fought for.
But in the farthest corner of what remained of the old void, something ancient stirred.
Something hungry.
And it did not want flame.
It wanted balance.
—
He had once been called Elion, long before the gods carved the heavens. He had walked among titans before time was written. Not a creator, not a destroyer. A balancer.
Where fire rose too high, he summoned rain.
Where light scorched too bright, he brought eclipse.
And where love burned too violently—he drowned it.
Now, Lina's fire threatened to consume everything.
A child born of contradiction.
A world untouched by law.
A soul that answered to no higher power.
And so Elion whispered through the oceans between stars:
"Bring me the child."
—
Back on the flame-forged world, Lina felt it first—a tremble in the tides she'd created.
Her expression shifted. "The water's moving wrong."
Andra stood at the peak of their obsidian tower, watching clouds gather unnaturally fast. "I feel him too."
"Who?"
Andra narrowed his eyes. "Old. Cold. He's not like the others we've fought. He isn't rage. He's… restraint."
Lina's flame flared instinctively. The child in her arms didn't cry—but its glow dimmed.
"Elion," she whispered. "He's come to drown us."
—
The storm struck like a blade.
Torrents of dark water sliced through the sky, hissing as they clashed with Lina's heat. For every flame she cast upward, Elion summoned rain to smother it.
His form appeared above the shattered moon—tall, cloaked in tides, skin carved from obsidian reef. His eyes were tidepools, and his voice was ancient erosion.
"You were never meant to last, Flameborn," he said.
Lina stepped forward, child in one arm, the other sparking with fire. "And yet, here I am."
"You have upset the balance. You have cheated extinction."
"I rewrote it."
He raised a hand. The sky wept harder.
Andra appeared beside her in a blink, blade drawn, eyes blazing. "Touch her or the child, and I'll carve your name into the void myself."
Elion tilted his head. "You would stand against the tides for a spark?"
Andra didn't hesitate. "For my flame? I would stand against the end of time."
—
The battle raged.
Lina conjured walls of fire so hot they turned rain to steam midair. She shielded their child, her arms burning but never faltering.
Andra danced through the flood like a storm of shadow, cutting through Elion's summoned beasts—serpents of water, whales made of sorrow.
But Elion wasn't just water. He was memory. He was balance. And slowly, the tide began to turn.
Lina faltered. Not because she was weak—but because she felt the fear. The whisper of doubt.
What if Elion was right?
What if her love, her flame, her freedom… was too much?
—
Andra saw the hesitation in her eyes.
He roared, slicing through another wave, and called out:
"Don't you dare question what we built. Don't you dare dim now."
She looked at him.
And suddenly, the child between them lifted its gaze to the sky.
Its eyes opened—twin stars of flame and shadow.
And for the first time, the child spoke:
"Enough."
—
The storm stopped.
Elion's form shuddered. The rain halted mid-drop. The air went silent.
The child floated upward, untethered from even gravity.
"You are not our balance," it said. "You are fear. We don't need balance. We are becoming."
With a soft breath, the child touched Elion's chest.
And in a blink—he was gone.
Not destroyed.
Just… forgotten.
—
The skies cleared.
The moon pieced itself together again.
And Lina fell to her knees, breath shaking, cradling the child as it drifted gently back into her arms.
Andra was beside her instantly. "What was that?"
The child looked up at them.
Its smile was all of them.
"I am what comes next."