Ten years passed without a single silver light on the horizon.
The Deepening did not return. The creatures of emptiness did not come. Ember's Rest grew into a city of seventy thousand souls—walls of white stone, towers that touched the clouds, streets where children played without fear.
Elara walked through the market, her grey hair hidden beneath a hood. People nodded to her as she passed. Some still remembered when she had faced the Deepening's servant. Most just knew her as the void-touched, the keeper of the golden light.
The Deepening is quiet, the void said.
"Too quiet."
You do not trust silence?
"I trust nothing that waits."
---
Lyra sat on the porch of the farmhouse, watching the sunset.
She was fifty-eight now, her body frail, her mind sharp. The void had been gone for a
