Elóranth ascends the spiral.
But the world she left behind?
It no longer fits.
Words bend as she walks through them.
Trees whisper back rewritten lines.
Sky glitches showing versions of events that never happened, but almost did.
Somewhere in the palace courtyard, a knight screams.
Not from pain.
But from memory.
"I killed her," he says, eyes wild.
"In another ending, I killed her."
Others begin to remember too.
The court mage, once loyal to the crown, collapses.
"She burned us alive… but then spared us… but then…"
"How many endings were there?"
The seams of the story tear open like old scars.
And Elóranth walks through them untouched.
She enters the throne hall.
The Empress is already on her knees.
"You were supposed to be vanquished," she whispers.
Elóranth steps forward. Her shadow stretches behind her but it moves like a second body.
"I was supposed to be convenient," Elóranth replies.
"A stepping stone. A warning. A trope."
She pauses beside the Empress. Her fingers brush the golden throne.
"But I remember every version you erased."
"The one where I died quietly."
"The one where I begged."
"The one where I loved someone enough to stop being me."
She leans down.
"None of them worked."
From the corner of the chamber, someone approaches.
A man in black armor.
Once her greatest enemy.
Twice her killer.
Now?
He kneels.
"You were always meant to win," he says.
Elóranth smiles not out of kindness, but clarity.
"No," she replies.
"I was meant to be erased."
She takes the throne.
And for the first time in the story's long, broken life
it bends for her.