The World Without Moons
When Lys opened her eyes again, the sky was gone.
No Vaelen.
No Ashrah.
No silver hung like sorrow.
No darkness stitched like hunger.
Only blankness overhead. A colorless expanse that wasn't quite cloud, wasn't quite light.
"He really did it," she whispered.
Her voice fell flat. No echo.
No world above or below to catch it.
Only silence.
Only stillness.
The city was gone.
No Unspoken towers.
No mirrored streets.
No ghost-haunted stairs.
Only empty earth, cracked and dry where memory used to grow.
In the distance, the bones of Concordium's spires leaned like drunks in fog.
Useless.
Forgotten.
Waiting to rot.
She stood alone.
Not by accident.
By design.
"Someone must remember."
"Someone must remain."
Sevrien's words hung heavy in her ribs.
Not because they were prophecy.
Because they were choice.
Lys walked.
Not far.
There was no far anymore.
Just horizon.
Just dust.
Just windless space where no names waited to be spoken.
Her steps left no mark.
The ground did not notice her.
The sky did not follow her.
But something else did.
At the place where the moons once crossed paths—
Where Vaelen had kissed Ashrah, and Severance had first been birthed—
She found it.
Not a door.
Not a temple.
Not a ruin.
A scar.
Black. Deep. Breathing slow beneath the earth.
The last wound this world would carry.
And above it, in the space where moons used to watch:
A single shape.
Not light.
Not shadow.
A word.
Hung there.
Waiting.
Still spoken.
Still echoing.
SOLITIUDED.
Not his name anymore.
Not hers.
Not anyone's.
A truth, now.
A law.
A shape the world couldn't swallow, even when it tried.
"You left me with this," Lys said, not bitter.
Just tired.
"You ended the cycle. You broke the moons. You closed the door."
She touched the scar at her chest.
It did not burn anymore.
It simply… waited.
"And you left me behind to carry what's left."
No answer came.
None was needed.
Some endings do not speak.
Some just hold.
Some just linger.
She sat by the scar and waited.
For what?
She didn't know.
Not for him.
He was gone beyond doors now.
Beyond memory.
Beyond even the Solituded One.
But something would come.
A wind.
A root.
A whisper.
A beginning.
Because endings never stand alone.
They fold beneath something new.
Above her, the sky flickered.
Not stars.
Not moons.
Something deeper.
The breath before the first word.
The silence before the first scream.
The waiting before the first fire.
Lys closed her eyes.
And spoke.
Not a name.
Not a prayer.
Just one word.
Soft.
Simple.
Sharp as birth.
"Begin."
And the world listened.
And the scar throbbed.
And somewhere, in the spaces where gods no longer walked and Concordium could not follow—
Something smiled.
Something waited.
Something prepared to wake.