---
Aevareth rose like a crown above the clouds.
The city had no walls—only terraces carved into the mountainside, with banners that fluttered high above the world. Silver spires caught the morning light like drawn swords, and the wind smelled of pine and frost. Here, the air was thin but sharp, the kind that made your lungs ache and your thoughts feel clean.
Aria had never been here before. The RealmofAevareth had remained neutral during the war, its people choosing isolation over allegiance. But now, the world was no longer divided into sides. Not clearly. Not simply. Now, it was something else—frayed threads slowly being rewoven, pulled taut by those brave enough to try.
And she was one of them.
Whether she wanted to be or not.
---
The Summit was held in the **CelestialHall**, an ancient structure built from glass-veined stone that shimmered under moonlight. Inside, the ceiling was open to the sky, ringed by carved arches that echoed voices long after they fell silent.
Aria stood at its threshold, cloak drawn close, boots dusted with mountain grit.
Lyrien was beside her, quiet as always. He wore the same traveling gear, but his bearing had changed—shoulders straighter, chin slightly lifted. There was a strength in his stillness now. A steadiness she relied on more than she dared admit.
A steward approached them. He wore silver robes and a calm expression that felt practiced.
"Lady Aria," he said, bowing slightly. "The Council is assembled. You may enter when ready."
She wasn't ready.
But she nodded anyway.
---
Inside the hall, voices rose like smoke.
Dozens of emissaries stood clustered in small circles. Some bore crests on their cloaks. Others wore armor. One woman had a sword forged from obsidian strapped across her back and a diplomat's pin over her heart.
These were not nobles.
They were survivors.
Rebuilders.
The ones who had clawed their nations out of ruin and stitched them back together with fire and will.
And all of them turned when she entered.
The room fell quiet, not out of rudeness—but reverence. And wariness.
To many of them, she was still the girl who'd burned the god-king from within.
The Scorchbearer.
The Echo-Walker.
The Flame-Witch.
No one used her name.
Until one voice rang out.
"Aria."
A man stepped forward. Tall, lean, with gold-threaded braids and an old scar over his right brow. She recognized him—**Kaelen Vire**, former prince of Lorrien, now High Speaker of the Southern Accord.
"Thank you for coming," he said with quiet sincerity. "We weren't sure you would."
Aria nodded, wary. "I almost didn't."
"But you did," he said, and gestured to the central dais. "And the world will be better for it."
She didn't move toward the center. Not yet.
Instead, she let her eyes drift over the gathered leaders. There was **Queen Ellira** of the Westwood Clans, her armor etched with forest sigils. **Torran Vale**, the stone-skinned emissary of the mountain-forged Varnak. And in one shadowed corner, cloaked in blue, stood a representative from the Silent North—where no Echo Fragment had ever been found, but rumors still spoke of songs that could fracture time.
They all watched her.
But they said nothing.
Lyrien stepped closer, his voice low. "You don't have to convince them. Just speak your truth."
"That's the problem," Aria whispered. "I'm not sure I know it anymore."
---
When she stepped onto the dais, her footsteps echoed through the hall. The firelight from the braziers danced on her cloak. The wind whispered overhead.
She didn't speak at first.
She let the silence stretch.
*Let them wonder.*
Then she looked up.
"I was sixteen when the first Echo Fragment chose me," she said. Her voice was calm, but steady. "I didn't know what it meant. I only knew it burned. That it hurt. That it took pieces of me with it every time I used it."
No one moved.
"I didn't save the world because I was brave," she continued. "Or because I wanted to. I did it because someone had to. Because too many others had already died trying. And because Xandros didn't just want to rule us—he wanted to erase us."
A pause.
"I burned him from the inside out. But that fire didn't go out. Not really. It lives in the cracks he left behind. In the broken magic. In the scars we carry."
Her voice dropped. "In me."
Kaelen nodded slowly, and others began to murmur. But Aria raised a hand.
"You want to form a new council," she said. "Unite the Realms. Share resources. Keep the peace."
Some nodded. Others looked skeptical.
"I support it," she said. "But not because I want to lead it. Not because I want to be remembered. I support it because if we don't build something better now, someone worse than Xandros will rise in his place. Maybe not today. Maybe not for a hundred years. But they *will* come."
A silence settled again.
But this time, it wasn't tense.
It was listening.
---
The next three days blurred into negotiation.
Aria wasn't a politician. She didn't know how to twist words or shape them into chains. But she knew people. She knew loss. And when others postured or paraded, she stood still. And because of that, they listened.
She argued against rebuilding the Crucible.
She spoke in favor of giving the remaining Echo Fragments to their original Realms—not to hoard, but to honor.
She told the truth about what the Fragments *did* to those who held them.
And when one northern emissary suggested using the remaining magic to form a military order, Aria's voice cut like frost.
"We don't need more weapons," she said. "We need healers."
---
At night, she couldn't sleep.
She would wander the terraces of Aevareth alone, watching the stars and listening to the wind rush down from the peaks. Sometimes, she'd see Lyrien in the distance, meditating or sparring with old forms. Sometimes, he'd join her. Most times, he didn't need to.
They understood each other in silence.
But on the last night of the Summit, he approached with something in his hands.
A box. Small. Wooden. Familiar.
She stared.
"That's—"
"Yours," he said. "I found it after the war. I didn't know if you'd want it."
She opened it slowly.
Inside lay her **sunstone necklace**—the one her mother had given her. The one she had cast into the Crucible before the end.
She touched it gently.
The stone was dull now. Powerless. But it pulsed with something else.
Memory.
Grief.
Hope.
"I forgot what it felt like," she murmured.
"To belong to something?" Lyrien asked.
She nodded.
He didn't say anything else. He just stood beside her as she held it to her chest, letting the past settle without pressing for words.
---
The final day came.
The Council called for a formal vote to ratify the Aevareth Accord—a binding treaty that would unite the surviving Realms under a shared alliance.
Aria stood at the edge of the chamber, not as a warrior or a weapon—but as a witness.
And when the final vote was cast, when the treaty was sealed with silver and song, the hall didn't erupt in cheers.
It simply… exhaled.
A world, choosing to begin again.
---
Afterward, Kaelen approached her.
"You should stay," he said. "The Council wants to offer you a seat. An honorary position. Not as a queen. As something more."
Aria looked at him, tired but calm. "I'm honored. But I've already played my part."
He nodded. "Then what will you do now?"
She glanced at Lyrien, then toward the mountains beyond.
"I think it's time to go back to the places we couldn't before. The ones we left broken."
"To rebuild?"
"To remember," she said. "And to let them remember me. Not as a myth. Just… as a girl who survived."
---
That night, they left Aevareth behind.
Not in ceremony.
Not in parade.
Just two shadows slipping into dawn.
And somewhere in the snow, between the echo of their footsteps and the hush of morning, a new promise was born.
Not one of fire.
But of *return*.
---