Kael's heart beat in time with the Primal Seed's pulse, each throb spreading gold veins across his chest. The rose's thorns coiled deeper, grafting the Seed's rot into his bones. Young Lira's face flickered in the petals, her voice a fragile thread in the storm.
"You have to let go," she pleaded. "Erase us. All of us."
The Seed retaliated, flooding Kael's mind with visions: his mother singing, Older Kael's first laugh, Lyra's hand in his. "This is what you save," it hissed. "This is what you destroy.*"
Mara's ghost materialized, her form translucent, the dagger's hilt glowing in her grip. "The blade's reforged with my essence. One strike, and the Kael bloodline vanishes. No guardians. No vaults. Just… peace."
Kael's hand trembled. "And Lira?"
Mara's gaze softened. "She's already gone."
The Seed's laughter shook the void. Lyras and Gideons peeled from its core, clawing at Kael. He staggered, dagger raised, but the visions paralyzed him—a lifetime of failures, of love twisted into ruin.
"You're weak," Older Kael sneered, his golden veins mirroring Kael's own. "You always choose them over victory."
"No." Kael met his brother's hollow eyes. "I choose them over you."
He plunged the dagger into his heart.
Light devoured the void.
The Kael bloodline unraveled—memories dissolving, timelines fraying. Young Lira's shadow brushed his cheek, her voice warm, alive. "Thank you."
Mara's ghost faded, her final smile bittersweet. "Tell Father… I hated him. Until the end."
The Primal Seed screamed, collapsing into a single, dying star. Kael's body crumbled, his last breath a whisper: "Love is time's only thief."
The meadow returned, unchanged.
No thorns. No gold. Just wind sighing through uncorrupted grass. A lone rose sprouted where Kael fell, its petals crimson, its roots clean.
In a distant village, a girl with Lira's laugh tended sunlit flowers. A man with Gideon's sharp mind but gentler hands scribbled equations, unhaunted by ghosts.
And somewhere, a boy with Kael's storm-gray eyes chased fireflies, his mother calling him home—a name lost to time, but not to hope. Above them all, the stars burned on, whispering of a thief who stole eternity… and a love that outlived it.