The sun rises over Eldermoor.

One month since the Binding was broken. One month since the shadow lifted. One month since the Purple Gem transformed from prison to memorial, its light now pure and gentle where once it was desperate and dim.

You stand in the town square, where construction crews work to repair the damage. New scaffolding climbs the old buildings. Fresh paint covers scorch marks. Life returns, slowly but surely, to a city that learned to hope again.

A statue stands beside the gem now. Not of the founders—those remain, their true story finally told in the plaques beneath them. This statue is of five figures: the four founders and a fifth, younger, standing among them as an equal.

You.

“You’re not supposed to be alive to see your own statue,” Neve says, appearing beside you. She’s changed in the past month—less the frightened girl who joined you on the road, more the confident young woman who helped save a city. “I think it’s bad luck or something.”

“I’ll risk it.”

She follows your gaze to the statue. “They got your nose wrong.”

“They got everything wrong. That’s the hero everyone needed. I’m just…” You gesture vaguely.

“The person who saved us?”

“The person who got lucky.”

She laughs. And for a moment, everything feels normal. Ordinary. The way it was supposed to be, before visions and prophecies and the weight of three centuries.

Your allies have scattered.

Mira returned to her hunting, though now she hunts different prey—the remnants of Varek’s cult, those who benefited from shadow and might try to bring it back. She sends occasional messages, brief and practical. She’s healing, in her way.

Theron stayed in Eldermoor. He’s on the new Council, using his merchant’s skills for the city’s reconstruction. “Redemption through service,” he calls it. He looks younger now, somehow. Lighter.

Wren returned to the Thornwood. But before she left, she planted something in the square—a seedling from Thornwen’s grove. It’s growing fast, its leaves already reaching toward the gem. In a century, it might rival the crystal itself.

And the founders…

You feel them sometimes. Not trapped anymore—at peace. But present. Watching over the city they died to protect. Their presence is gentler now. Grateful.

The Elder approaches.

He looks older than before, but also stronger. The burden of keeping secrets has lifted from his shoulders.

“The gem has changed,” he says. “I can feel it. It’s no longer fed by suffering.”

“What feeds it now?”

“I don’t know.” He smiles. “But I think it’s something better.”

He places a hand on your shoulder.

“Varek made the gem a prison. You made it a promise.” His eyes are wet. “Thank you. For all of us. For everyone who suffered, everyone who waited, everyone who hoped.”

You don’t know what to say.

So you just nod, and look up at the gem, and feel the morning light on your face.