"Stay. Learn. Grow. Help us tend the gardens." Ronan smiled. "You've spent eternity trying to destroy hope. Maybe it's time to try something different."The being looked at the new garden growing where the weapon had been. At the Seekers who were watching, uncertain, hopeful."I would like... to try."The celebration that night was unlike any before.Not because they had won they had won many battles. But because an enemy had chosen. A being who had spent eternity trying to erase hope had decided to become part of it.The new being it chose the name "Quest" sat beneath the great flower, asking questions, learning to wonder."How do you know which hope to plant?" it asked Elara."You don't. You plant them all. Some grow. Some don't. That's okay.""And the ones that don't grow?""They become soil for the ones that will."Quest considered this. "That is... inefficient.""Life is inefficient. That's what makes it beautiful."Ronan sat apart from the celebration, watching.Lyra found him

The garden screamed.Every flower, every root, every seed that Ronan had planted over the years all of them cried out as the figure wearing his face raised its hand. The sky darkened. The rivers ran backward. Reality itself seemed to bend around this being.Ronan stood frozen, staring at himself.Not his old self. Not Kai, the reflection who had chosen to become something new. This was something else. Something that had been waiting in the shadows of his own soul for fifty three years."You're not me," Ronan said quietly."I'm every part of you that you buried. Every doubt you suppressed. Every moment you wanted to give up but didn't." The figure smiled cold, perfect, terrible. "I'm the version of you that chose perfection over love. Certainty over hope. Power over connection."Lyra stepped forward, her blade drawn. "Step away from him.""Lyra." The figure's eyes softened with something that might have been recognition. "You chose him over your family. Over your future. Over everythi