10. Chapter 10: Ashes, Again

Ren does not let Eiris perform the Soul Anchor. Instead, he makes a final choice: he walks into the heart of the dying Scar — the origin point of the curse embedded in Ashenfall's broken ground — and burns it from the inside. The curse collapses. Malveth's power shatters. But Ren does not return. Eiris waits at the edge of the ruins for three days. On the third morning, a man with no scar and no name walks out of the ash. He does not know her. But he stops when he hears her voice — and says, without knowing why: "I think I've been looking for you." A bittersweet ending: love survives, but memory does not. They begin again, from ash.