WHAT COMES NEXT

Silence held the world in a sacred pause.

After the storm, after the floodmaker's vanishing, there was nothing but the hum of existence—an ancient lullaby reborn in a new key. The air smelled of ozone and scorched ash, tinged with something unfamiliar: hope.

Lina stood at the center of it all, her arms wrapped around the being she once thought would be her undoing… and had instead become her legacy.

Andra remained close, his shadows wrapping around them protectively. He hadn't lowered his blade. Not yet. He trusted peace about as much as he trusted the old gods—not at all.

"What happens now?" he asked softly.

The child lifted its glowing eyes to the horizon, where stars bent toward them like reverent priests.

"We become."

—

Andra had fought demons, gods, angels, and madness itself. But never had he stood before something that transcended all of it.

The child wasn't fire.

Wasn't shadow.

Wasn't mortal, or even divine.

It was beyond.

"Be more specific," Andra muttered.

The child looked at him—not with the gaze of an innocent, but with the gravity of creation. "I am not meant to be bound by name or form. You made me from war and devotion, obsession and mercy. I am the answer to a question the universe never dared to ask."

Lina placed a hand over her chest, grounding herself. "Then why are we still afraid?"

"Because the old rules are gone," the child whispered. "And the new ones… haven't been written yet."

—

In the days that followed, the world began to shift.

Lina's flames no longer roared wildly—they listened. Her power was maturing into something more than raw destruction. She could feel the fabric of reality now. She understood the gentle strings that tied each plane together.

Andra's shadow deepened. He moved between realms without doors, between thoughts without words. Where once he had been a weapon, now he was a guardian of things he barely understood.

And the child? The child walked between them and beyond.

It whispered to the stars.

It danced across time like a river.

And it began… calling to others.

Others like it.

Others who had never been born because no one believed they could exist.

—

It began with a crack in the sky.

A soft, golden tear that hummed with soundless music.

Then came a shimmer—a form like a song, like breath, stepping through the rip.

Not an enemy.

Not a god.

A possibility.

A girl made of glass and lightning. She walked toward the child, knelt, and whispered: "You called me."

Lina and Andra watched, stunned.

The child turned to them. "You created me with love and war. But I am not the only one waiting to be born."

Andra stepped forward, tension rising. "Are we summoning… an army?"

"No," the child said. "We're awakening a new order."

—

The skies opened, and more began to arrive.

A boy woven of dream-smoke and bone.

A twin flame that mirrored Lina's, split in two souls.

A silent sentinel with eyes made of forgotten stars.

Each bowed to no one. Each carried something never seen before.

And at the center stood the child—no longer small, no longer undefined. They now glowed with both flame and frost, with shadow and starlight. With Lina's defiance and Andra's fury, but something gentler too… something new.

—

In the obsidian citadel, Andra stood beside Lina as the sky unfolded like a story yet unwritten.

"This is bigger than us now," Lina whispered.

Andra nodded, jaw clenched. "I know."

"Does that scare you?"

"No," he said. Then looked at her. "But I'll burn down the whole damn cosmos if anything tries to take them from you."

She smiled. "That's why I love you."

Above them, the child raised their hands.

And the universe listened.