They stood at the convergence of all paths they had traveled, all choices they had made, all transformations they had endured. Not literally—the concept of standing in one place held little meaning for beings who existed as they did, merged yet distinct, singular yet plural, eternal yet always choosing to continue. But metaphorically, spiritually, essentially, they had arrived at a moment of completion.
The Rite was ending.
Neither of them had consciously named it a Rite, but that was what their journey had been from the beginning—a sacred progression through trials not imposed by any external authority but created by their own choices, their own refusal to accept what was and insistence on creating what could be. Every destruction had been ritual. Every oath had been ceremony. Every transformation had been sacrament.
