The void trembled—not with force, but anticipation.
The Child of Absence hung suspended in the Loom's heart, a shape without shape, composed of absence and almosts, of stories left untold and fates left untouched. It pulsed not with light, but with possibility denied.
Orion extended a hand.
Not in defiance. Not in pity.
But in recognition.
"I know you," he said softly. "You're the silence after a song. The breath never taken. The love never spoken."
The child shifted—tendrils of nothingness curling inward, uncertain. In that moment, it felt young, despite its infinite weight. Timeless, yet freshly born. It responded to intent, not language.
Lyra stepped beside Orion, her flame dimmed into a soft glow. "You're not wrong to exist. But you don't have to unmake everything."
The child shimmered. Not in anger.
In confusion.
Kael moved last, blade sheathed, eyes wary but steady. "We're not asking you to become like us. Just… to see. Let us show you what it means to choose."
From his cloak, Orion withdrew the seed.
It had changed.
It pulsed now—not just with life, but resonance. It carried every story they had passed through, every fragment of a world that had survived their mistakes.
And it responded to the child.
The seed hovered from Orion's palm, drifting toward the unraveling presence. It did not strike. Did not burn. It sank into the child, merging—not overpowering, but introducing.
Memory flowed.
A village rebuilt under twin moons.
A child laughing at a star's rebirth.
A choice made in mercy, not in fear.
And for the first time, the Child of Absence reflected.
Its edges curled inward, forming shape—first a hand, then a body, vague and fluid, like light filtered through dreams. A child, perhaps ten. Silver hair. Hollow eyes blinking into awareness.
"I… was not," the child whispered.
"You are now," said Orion.
"I… could end it."
"You could," said Lyra. "Or you could begin it again—with us."
The child looked around the Loom. Threads fluttered where it had touched, once frayed, now twining into new patterns. Not healed. Not perfect. But possible.
"Then… I choose," it said.
And with that word, a burst of quiet surged through the Loom—powerless and profound. The kind of silence that held space for something new.
The Weaveless watched from afar, unreadable. "You've done what none of us could. Taught absence to listen."
Kael crossed his arms. "So what now? We build another Veil? Guard it again?"
"No," Orion said. "We plant a new kind of seed. Not a prison. A garden. Not to hide the truth. But to grow from it."
Lyra smiled. "A place where absence and presence can dance."
The Loom shivered.
The void shifted.
A doorway opened—not one they had created, but one the child had shaped, a portal into a realm not bound by the old rules.
Not salvation.
Not victory.
But a beginning.
Together, the four stepped through.
And the multiverse sighed.