Years rolled by like gentle waves upon a shore—soft, steady, reshaping everything they touched, yet never altering the heart of what lay beneath. The valley flourished. Fields stretched green and golden to the horizon. Villages grew and prospered, their hearths warm, their storehouses full. Travelers came from distant lands to trade and learn, carrying word far and wide of a place where justice was not a privilege, where strength meant protection, and where two lights had burned brighter than all the shadows in the world.
Kaelen and I aged, as all things must—but gracefully, and with peace. Lines appeared around his eyes, etched there not by sorrow, but by years of smiling and laughing and looking upon all he loved. My hair bore threads of silver now, matching the light I had carried for
