The city gleamed like a dream made real. Towers of white stone curved like the petals of a flower, their surfaces rippling faintly with living light. Streets shimmered with threads of gold that pulsed softly beneath every step.
Lyra stood at the edge of a bridge suspended above a wide river, watching as people — real, breathing people — moved through the streets below. Children laughed, vendors called, and the hum of life filled the air.
"It's beautiful," she whispered.
Arka walked beside her, cloak stirring in the morning wind. "It's more than beautiful," he said quietly. "It's… alive."
They'd arrived at dawn, and the city had greeted them like something that had been waiting. Its gates had opened without words, as though it recognized them. No one questioned their presence. No one feared them.
But something beneath the calm still pulsed — a rhythm that didn't belong.
Arka felt it first. It came like a tremor in his chest, a faint discord under the harmony of the city. His mark flickered once, faintly blue.
Lyra noticed. "You feel it too."
He nodded. "The Balance changed, but it didn't vanish. There's something still here—something that doesn't belong in this peace."
They crossed into the city's center, where a grand plaza spread open before them. At its heart stood a crystal spire, not unlike the one that had once anchored the old Balance. But this one pulsed gently — soft, golden, calm.
Lyra reached out to it, feeling warmth hum through her fingers. "It feels… clean."
Arka frowned. "Maybe too clean."
Before she could answer, a faint ripple moved through the air. The light at the base of the spire wavered, then dimmed — only for a heartbeat, but enough to chill the air.
The crowd around them didn't seem to notice. They continued walking, laughing, living — as though the flicker hadn't happened at all.
Lyra looked around, her voice low. "They didn't see it."
"They're not meant to," Arka murmured. "This world hides its cracks well."
A soft sound echoed from the shadows of a nearby alley — like glass cracking underwater. Lyra turned sharply.
Something stood there.
It looked almost human at first, tall and still. But its eyes were hollow, filled with swirling darkness that ate the light around them. Its skin shimmered like mist, its edges unstable.
Arka stepped in front of Lyra instinctively. "Voidspawn…"
The figure tilted its head. When it spoke, its voice was both a whisper and an echo.
"Children of the Balance," it said. "You built a world of light… but even light casts shadows."
Lyra's pulse quickened. "You shouldn't exist."
The creature smiled faintly, cracks spreading across its form. "Neither should I. Yet here I am. Every creation leaves a remainder."
Arka drew in a slow breath. "What do you want?"
The creature's gaze drifted toward the spire. "To remind you. Harmony cannot be forced. It must be lived."
Before either of them could move, the creature dissolved — scattering into countless motes of black dust that vanished into the air.
The plaza returned to silence. The spire pulsed again, brighter this time, as if in warning.
Lyra's hands trembled slightly. "It's starting again, isn't it?"
Arka's eyes darkened. "Not the same way. But yes."
They stood side by side beneath the rising suns.
The peace they'd created was real — but fragile.
And somewhere within the heart of their new world, the remnants of the Void still dreamed.
Far beneath the City of Dawn, in the roots of the golden spire, a small shard of shadow pulsed once — like a heartbeat learning to live again.
The Age of Harmony had begun.
But the shadow had learned how to wait.