Silence.
Not the silence of death, but of rebirth.
Lyra floated in an expanse of light so vast it felt endless. There was no up, no down—only warmth, weightless and pure. Her hands glowed faintly gold, her form translucent like living starlight.
When she breathed, the light around her rippled gently, answering her heartbeat.
"Am I… alive?" she whispered, though there was no sound, only thought.
"Yes."
The voice came from behind her—calm, familiar, steady. She turned, and there he was.
Arka.
His form shimmered faintly blue, his hair drifting like strands of shadowed light. Even here, in this realm beyond worlds, he looked the same—strong, composed—but there was something softer in his eyes.
"Where are we?" she asked.
He looked upward, where countless stars glimmered above them, suspended in a liquid sky. "Between endings," he said quietly. "The Balance didn't destroy us. It remade everything."
Lyra frowned. "Remade?"
Arka reached out, touching the air. The light bent beneath his hand, revealing glimpses of countless realities—floating shards of worlds that once existed. Mountains of crystal, forests of flame, oceans of glass.
"Every cycle that ever was," he said. "All the lives that were born and ended under the Balance. They're all here… waiting."
She stepped closer, drawn to the endless fragments. "So this is what the Balance wanted?"
Arka shook his head. "No. This is what it feared."
He turned toward her, and their light pulsed together for a moment—gold and blue, forming a bright white hue where they touched.
"The Balance wasn't meant to be eternal," he continued. "It was supposed to end once the two halves of its heart reunited."
Lyra blinked. "You mean us."
He nodded. "We are what's left of its will. The last choice."
Her breath hitched. "Then… we decide what happens next?"
"Yes," he said. "Either we restore the Balance—bring back the old cycle, with all its pain and order—or we break it completely, and let everything fade into silence."
Lyra's light flickered. She looked down at her hands. "If we end it… no one will be born again."
"And if we keep it," Arka replied softly, "then nothing ever truly changes. The same wars, the same deaths, the same suffering."
For a long moment, neither spoke. The expanse around them pulsed gently, waiting.
Then Lyra stepped forward, closing the space between them. "Maybe there's a third choice," she said.
Arka tilted his head. "A third?"
She smiled faintly. "The Balance kept order by dividing everything—light and shadow, life and death, you and me. What if we stop dividing? What if we make something new… not Balance, not Void… but Harmony?"
The idea lingered in the air, fragile and impossible.
"Harmony," Arka repeated quietly, as if tasting the word. "A world where choice doesn't destroy order. Where power doesn't need to control."
Lyra nodded. "Where every being—beast or god—decides what they are without fear."
For the first time since the beginning, Arka smiled fully. "You sound like Kael."
She laughed softly, though her eyes glimmered with tears of light. "Maybe she left her dream inside both of us."
Their hands touched—gold and blue meeting in perfect balance. The light spread outward, brightening until the entire expanse began to hum.
The fragments of old worlds started to move, drawn toward the center where they stood. Mountains reformed, rivers flowed through the void, stars aligned once more.
Arka closed his eyes. "It's starting…"
"Don't let go," Lyra whispered.
"I won't."
The light engulfed them.
When the radiance faded, the silence was gone.
Wind whispered through tall grass. The sky stretched above—blue, alive. Birds sang in the distance, and far away, a city of glass and stone rose under twin suns.
Two figures stood on a hill overlooking it all—human once more.
Lyra blinked against the sunlight. "We did it."
Arka looked down at his hands—flesh, warm and real—and exhaled softly. "It feels… right."
But deep within his chest, the mark of the Balance still pulsed faintly.
Lyra saw it too. "It's not gone."
"No," he said. "It's changed."
She smiled, stepping closer to him. "Then maybe that's enough. The world doesn't need perfection. Just a beginning."
He nodded slowly, looking toward the horizon where dawn broke over a new world.
For the first time in eternity, they felt peace.
Far above them, unseen, the remnants of the Balance watched quietly.
Two lights—gold and blue—twined together, forming a single, endless flame.
The cycle had ended.
A new era had begun.
The Age of Harmony.