EMMA'S POV
The decision did not come in a moment of thunder or revelation. It arrived quietly, the way truth often did—slipping into the spaces between breaths, settling where denial could no longer reach it.
Aren stood alone at the edge of the High Terrace long before dawn, the city stretched beneath him like a living map of light and shadow. The Wells hummed softly now, no longer erratic, no longer restrained. They moved with the rhythm of people—hope, fear, resolve—an ever-shifting harmony that had begun to define this new age.
Behind him, the Echo waited.
Not urgently. Not insistently.
Patient.
That patience frightened him more than its power ever had.
He rested his hands on the stone railing, feeling the faint vibration beneath his palms. Once, he had believed strength meant holding everything together through sheer force of will. Now he understood the lie hidden in that belief. Strength was not permanence. It was transition.
