The Voice Beneath All Things
The moment Mira placed the voidlight crown upon her head, the chamber of the temple exploded with silence.
It was not the absence of sound—it was the silencing of all things. No heartbeat. No breath. Not even thought. Her companions stood frozen, their mouths open in mid-word, their eyes wide with awe and terror. Time itself had bowed.
In that terrible stillness, the world peeled back.
The walls of the temple faded to starlight. The ground beneath them dissolved into an endless plain of silver mist. Mira stood alone in a realm outside existence—a space where time was born, where stars whispered and creation still echoed with the voice of beginnings.
And that voice returned.
"You have come farther than most. Few stand where you stand. Fewer still remain."
Mira turned toward it, though there was no direction. Her body flickered between her present self and versions that had walked thousands of lives—some noble, some monstrous, some divine.
"Where am I?" she asked. Her voice rang like a chime in a cathedral.
"At the root of the Between. The moment before all moments. The breath between what was and what must become."
A shape appeared before her—massive, coiled, radiant with darkness and light. It was not a being but a concept given form. It had no name, only presence. And it spoke again:
"The Keepers preserved the Balance. Caelen sought to change it. You have done both. Now you must decide what follows."
Visions poured into her mind:
—A world reborn in harmony, green and peaceful, but static, unchanging. —A world of storms and shifting truths, where magic flowed free, wild and beautiful, but dangerous. —A world without Balance, where every soul shaped their own reality, birthing chaos and creation in equal measure.
And one final vision—
—A path unwalked. A future not yet written. Mira as something new, not a Keeper, not a destroyer, but a Weaver. One who does not guard or rewrite the Balance but allows it to grow.
Her body began to glow with the light of all her choices, all her burdens, and all her hopes.
"I don't want to remake the world in my image," she whispered. "I want to set it free."
The presence pulsed. Approval? Warning? It was impossible to tell.
"Then step forward. Become what you must."
She did.
The crown dissolved. The orb broke apart into thousands of stars.
And Mira opened her eyes in the real world.
Her companions had fallen to their knees, shielding their faces from a radiant glow pouring from her body. The temple around them was gone, replaced by an open field beneath an endless sky.
Mira stood not as she was, but as something between human and eternal. Her voice echoed with memory. Her eyes held the Between.
"I am not the last Keeper," she said. "I am the first Weaver."