//2 years later//
The sun was soft above the hills, not bright, but warm—as if the sky itself was tired of shining too strongly.
The wind whispered over distant meadows, carrying the scent of wildflowers and forgotten memories. In the silence, nothing stirred.
Reya had searched for years.
She had traced whispers through forgotten ruins, followed trails left behind in burnt temples, and crossed rivers that once split kingdoms. Always one step behind the man who had disappeared after saving the world.
No one knew where Caelum had gone.
Only stories remained—of a shadow walking in the wake of broken gods, of flowers blooming where no seeds were sown, of a blind man who never left footprints.
Now, she stood at the edge of a cliff, where the mountains brushed the sky. Before her lay an untouched valley. No roads led here. No birds sang. And yet, in the very center… bloomed a single white flower.
She fell to her knees beside it. Her hand trembled as she touched the soil. Warm.
A carved wooden flower lay half-buried in the earth. Faded by time.
She closed her eyes.
A whisper echoed—not from the wind, but from memory.
"Because she told me to try."
---
Caelum sat beneath the shade of a withered tree far above, deep in the mountains, unseen by all but the sky.
His robes were weathered, his sword long buried in the earth behind him.
The Hollow Bloom no longer called to him. He had sealed it, along with the doorways between this world and others.
He had given everything—his voice, his sorrow, his power—to protect a world that had never asked for a savior.
Now, he lived for moments. Planting flowers in silence. Speaking only to the wind.
He remembered everyone.
Elienne.
His family.
Reya.
And the old man in the Void.
"You've been fighting so hard to forget pain," the memory had said. "But pain isn't a fire to smother. It's soil."
Caelum smiled faintly, watching petals drift through the mountain air.
He had chosen to vanish, not because he was lost—but because, for the first time, he had found something he never had before.
Stillness.
Not peace. But something close.
A place where love could echo, even if unspoken.
He closed his eyes.
He was not healed.
But he was still walking.
And that, finally, was enough.