The air in the Epilogue had grown thicker over the years—not with smog or weight, but with the density of history. Every stone in the village square now held a story; every tree in the meadow was a descendant of a seed carried from a distant, once-broken Shard.
Han felt the change in his own body. His joints, once as springy as young saplings, now moved with the deliberate, slow dignity of old oak. He didn't mind the slowing down. It gave him more time to notice the way the light caught the dust motes in his workshop, turning the simple act of sweeping into a cosmic event.
Mira was no longer the fumbling apprentice. She stood tall, her hands sure and her eyes clear. She had begun to develop her own style—a way of carving that was less about "Fixing" and more about "Revealing." Where Han’
