Weeks passed.
Edenvale—once torn apart by fate and time—was slowly healing. But it was no longer just a city of humans. Something new had taken root in its heart:
> A city where celestial and mortal could exist… side by side.
Ayden stood at the center of it all, no longer just a boy saved by the stars, but a bridge between realms.
He wasn't fully mortal anymore.
And not fully divine.
He was Starborn—the first of his kind.
---
The Council of Light
The ancient ones descended soon after.
Not gods. Not watchers.
But others like Kael—celestial beings who had watched from above for millennia, now drawn by Ayden's defiance, by his choice to rewrite the stars.
A council was formed at the base of the great starlit tree. They called it:
> The Circle of Dawn.
Each member held a piece of light from a different corner of the cosmos—warriors, healers, prophets, and seekers.
Elira was offered a place among them.
But she refused.
"I've had enough of decisions made in the skies," she said. "I want to live on Earth. With him."
Ayden smiled.
He was no longer alone.
---
A Feather That Won't Fade
Still, at night, Ayden often found himself by the lake.
The same lake where Kael had once looked at the stars like a girl longing for a place she could never return to.
He held her feather in his palm.
It didn't dim. It didn't fade.
It glowed—softly, steadily.
As though it waited.
As though she waited.
The Whisper in the Wind
One night, the wind carried a voice.
Faint. Familiar.
> "Ayden."
He looked up.
The stars shimmered unnaturally.
A pulse of golden light rippled across the sky. For a moment, the moon's glow bent, like it was bowing.
And at the edge of the water, reflected in the surface, he saw her.
Kael.
Not in body. Not in form.
But in presence.