Five years had passed since the gala’s cataclysmic night, and the upstate estate stood transformed—a beacon of renewal, its once-wild edges softened by community hands. The lawns now hosted a garden, vibrant with wildflowers and vegetable patches, part of the Vance-Thorne Community Centre that had broken ground two years prior. The glass lodge gleamed under a late September sun, its walls open to local artists and youth groups, the lake’s shore a gathering place for workshops and laughter. Frostfire no longer hung in the city loft, but here, in the centre’s atrium, its flames and frosts, a quiet monument to their journey—chains broken, truths unveiled, love forged eternal.
Elara stood at the garden’s edge, a toddler on her hip—Lila, their two-year-old daughter, her storm-gray eyes a mirro
