Ellie knelt in the dust, feeling the last vibrations of the power that had surged through her ebb away like a receding tide. The relic in her hands was silent now, its once-blinding glow dimmed to a soft, pulsing ember.

She stared at it, her thoughts tangled and blurred, trying to understand what had just happened, but the threads of her mind kept slipping loose. Around her, the mages began to stir, their ragged breaths mingling with the sigh of the wind.

Kolvin was the first to approach, his staff tapping against the fractured earth as he walked. His face, streaked with ash and weariness, shone with something Ellie had never seen before: reverence.

He dropped to one knee before her, head bowed, and the sight struck her like a blow. This was the man who had trained countless sorcerers, who had led the Academy through the hardest winters and the darkest battles. And now, he knelt to her.

“Ellie Liddell,” he said, his voice roughened by the strain of the battle but steady. “You have done what none of us could. You have sealed the devil king back into the Abyss.”

Ellie swallowed, her throat dry, the taste of smoke still clinging to the back of her mouth. She wanted to deny it, to explain that it hadn’t been her—that she’d only clutched the relic like a child clinging to a lantern in the dark.

But she looked into Kolvin’s eyes and saw a faith there that was unshakeable, a desperate need to believe that their victory had come through something greater than chance. She couldn’t bring herself to take that away from him. “I just... listened to it. The relic—it knew what to do.”

Kolvin’s expression softened, a small, weary smile tugging at his lips. “Wisdom, then, as well as power. We thought we were guiding you, Ellie, but perhaps it was always the other way around.”

The words twisted in her chest, filling her with a strange, aching loneliness. She turned her gaze away from him, sweeping it over the shattered battlefield. The chasm had sealed, the jagged crack in the earth smoothed over with a crust of pale, silvery light that shimmered like frost on glass.

Master Kolvin rose to his feet with a groan, then turned and addressed the circle of survivors. “The danger has passed,” he called out, his voice carrying over the broken ground. “The seals are restored. The devil king will not rise again this day.”

A murmur ran through the mages, soft at first, then swelling into a low, rumbling cheer. Some of them began to stand, unsteady but buoyed by a hope that seemed to fill the air like fresh spring rain. And then, to her horror, Ellie heard her own name being chanted, their voices rough but fervent.

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“Ellie Liddell! Ellie Liddell of Greymire!”

She flinched, her hand tightening around the relic, as if by gripping it she could anchor herself against the flood of praise. Ellie felt exposed, stripped bare by the weight of their gratitude, and she forced herself to her feet, the world swaying dizzily around her.

She wanted to flee, to find a quiet corner where she could let the fear and uncertainty spill out in private. But their eyes—so many eyes—were on her, brimming with a belief she couldn’t understand.

Kolvin turned back to her, his eyes crinkling at the corners. “It seems your place among legends is secured, Ellie. The Academy will sing of this day for centuries to come.”

Ellie managed a weak smile, but her stomach twisted. She could hear the cracks in her own voice, the faltering note that betrayed her unease. “Legends... they’re usually a lot more glamorous, aren’t they?”

Kolvin let out a rough chuckle, but there was a sadness in it. “True. But they are made in moments like these, not in the comfort of stories. You’ve earned your place among them.”

She wanted to protest, to tell him that all she had done was survive, that it was the relic’s power that had turned the tide. But a part of her knew it would be pointless. Kolvin and the others needed a hero to hold onto, a beacon to guide them out of the darkness. And if she couldn’t be that, at least she could let them believe she was, for a little while.

She took a breath, forcing herself to meet Kolvin’s gaze, and nodded. “Thank you, Master Kolvin. But... I think I need a moment.”

He inclined his head in understanding, stepping back with the same respect he might offer a fellow archmage. As soon as he turned away, Ellie slipped past the mages, threading through the debris and broken earth until she found a small rise beyond the edge of the battlefield, where the air felt a little less stifling.

She sank down onto the cold stone, hugging her knees to her chest. The relic lay heavy in her lap, its surface cool now, the runes dim. She turned it over in her hands, tracing the ancient symbols, wondering at the secrets they held. It felt like she had stepped into a story not her own, and now she couldn’t find her way back out.

‘I didn’t do it,’ she thought, the words rattling around inside her skull like pebbles in a jar. ‘It was Merdhyn’s power, not mine. I was just... there.’

Yet even as she thought it, a small voice whispered from the depths of her mind, the memory of that brief, blinding moment when she had felt the relic’s magic entwine with her own breath. When she had heard its voice—a voice that wasn’t words, but a resonance deep within her bones.

It had chosen her, yes. But she had chosen to trust it in return. Maybe that meant something, even if she couldn’t see what it was.

She squeezed her eyes shut, willing the thoughts away. The crisis was over, for now. That was enough. She could think about the rest later.