The Heart of Aetherion pulsed in its skyglass prison—beating like something alive, something ancient and near breaking. Each pulse echoed through the Broken Ring like the toll of a distant bell.
The Hollow Star stirred.
And the Witness did not move.
Orin stepped forward, the marks of the three bound anchors on his chest glowing like a constellation forming in real time. The fourth mark—the final point—was still dark.
"This ends now," he said.
"You are mistaken," the Witness replied, its voice gentle, almost mournful. "This… begins now."
From the shadows around the Heart, the Hollow Star's shards surged forward—dozens of them, fanged and twisting, fragments of dying light and collapsed memory. Mira leapt into action, blades sweeping in arcs of fire. Kaelen raised a storm of crystal wards, deflecting blasts of voidfire that tore through the shattered air.
Orin ran.
Toward the Heart.
Each step felt like moving through tar, the Hollow Star's gravity pulling at him, trying to unmake him with every breath. His bones ached with the strain of memory not his own. Flames from the anchors sparked around him—burning without consuming, guiding him forward.
Behind him, Mira screamed his name—half in warning, half in hope.
A final tendril of shadow slashed across his path, but Orin didn't flinch. He raised his hand and unleashed all three bound anchors in a burst of light.
Time twisted.
The world stilled.
And Orin touched the Heart.
It shattered like glass and poured into him.
Agony. Euphoria. Understanding.
He saw the moment the Skyborn made the anchors—not to seal the Hollow Star, but to delay it. To buy time. A hope passed down through thousands of years. Now in him.
The final mark burned onto his chest.
Four stars. A closed circle.
The Skybrand was whole.
The Hollow Star let out a sound—not a roar. A mourning. A warning. The Broken Ring collapsed inward, the shards falling upward as the sky itself bent to the presence of the completed anchor.
The Witness removed its mask.
Its face was Orin's.
"You always were the storm," it said. "And the stillness after."
Then it faded.
The Hollow Star pulsed.
And vanished.
Not destroyed.
Withdrawn.
Orin collapsed to his knees, breathing in shards of broken starlight, eyes wide, chest glowing.
Mira caught him. "You did it."
Kaelen looked up at the fractured sky. "No. We did. But it's not the end."
Orin nodded slowly. "It's only the silence… before what comes next."