Chapter 59 – Return Through Shadow

  “Mirellis!” Leonel’s voice rang out through the ruins, trembling in the silence, but no answer came. Only the darkness of the Rift thickened once more, as if nourished by fear, pain… and anticipation.

  The Guardian of the Threshold had vanished. Not defeated—no. He had absorbed everything around him, becoming the very shadow of this world. Now he was everywhere. In every curve of the air, in every stone, in every step the heroes took trying to find the way.

  “She… couldn’t have just disappeared,” Reina clutched her staff, a note of despair creeping into her voice. “I was supposed to protect her.”

  “We all were,” Ethan whispered. “But damn it, who could’ve seen this coming?”

  “Don’t speak—” Stan froze, glancing around warily. “Do you hear that?”

  The wind. Soft. But unnaturally warm. It smelled of ash and the milk of stars, as though the Void itself had exhaled something new into the world.

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  And then she appeared.

  Slowly, step by step, as though walking through a sheet of glass. First—glowing eyes, then a silhouette, and finally, her—Mirellis.

  But she was no longer the same.

  A dark shimmer glowed in her hair, and across her skin ran faint silver threads, like runes etched by starlight. Her gaze was deep as the abyss itself, and in it… there was no fear anymore.

  “Mirellis…” Leonel breathed. He stepped forward, but stopped. Something within him clenched. “Is it really you?”

  She smiled—not faintly, but calmly. “It’s me. It always has been. I just… remember now.”

  Reina came closer, stunned by the change. “You came back from the Void. How?”

  “I didn’t come back. I emerged from what was my heart. My essence. I wasn’t lost. I found myself.”

  “You heard them?” Ethan asked gently. “The voices?”

  Mirellis nodded. “They whispered of me… and of you. They don’t fear me—they fear us. Together, we are a threat to what hides beyond the veil of this world.”

  Stan wiped his brow. “Well great, now we’re a threat too. First we were just adventurers, now—walking disasters.”

  “Welcome to the team,” Ethan smirked. “So what’s next, oh radiant Lady of Shadow?”

  Mirellis raised her hand. The Rift—still glowing—responded. It trembled, as though greeting her.

  “We move forward. We must reach the Heart of the Rift. That’s where it all began. And there… it may end. Or begin anew.”

  And in that moment, Leonel stood beside her. “Whatever comes—I’m with you.”

  Mirellis looked at him. In her eyes returned the softness they remembered. But now—it was tempered with power.

  “And I’m with you. Now… and always.”

  And they moved forward. Toward the place where the fractures of worlds converged into one point.

  Toward where fate had already begun writing its final page.