Darkness folds around Claeriel like cooling water—weightless, silent, the last echo of pain already fading from his bones. He remembers the final moment of his old life: the screams, the fire, the choice he didn't have time to question. He moved. Someone lived. He didn't.
A soft pulse ripples through the void.
Then a voice—warm, resonant, and impossibly close—threads into him like sunlight sinking into his chest.
"Claeriel," the woman says, her tone neither whisper nor thunder. It's simply there, shaping the darkness into gold. "You carried burdens that were never yours, and still you acted. Few mortals move without hesitation when the cost is everything."
Light blooms. A figure steps forward, barefoot on nothing, her white hair drifting as though underwater. Her eyes catch his—bright, silver, too knowing. Power hums around her like static under skin.
She studies him with a small, contemplative tilt of her head.
"You died saving souls that were already fading. A kindness wasted, some would say. I disagree."
Her fingers brush his sternum. He feels it—something opening inside him, like a door he didn't realize was locked.
"You will be rewarded," the Goddess murmurs, voice dipping with a note of intrigue. "Not with wealth. Not with peace. Those would not fit you."
Golden light surrounds him, curling like threads around muscle, bone, thought.
"No… I will give you a world that needs someone like you. And I will give you exactly the thing you lack—though I doubt you will recognize it at first."
The light tightens. The void cracks.
Her final whisper follows him as he spirals downward into rebirth, carried on a rush of heat and air:
"Try not to break too much, Claeriel. And try not to let the world break you first."
Everything goes white—
—and then the sound of leaves, wind, and distant voices begins to rise around him as his new life begins.