Mara awoke in the Devereaux Manor bedroom. Dawn’s light crept through the cracked window. Her phone remained dead. The storm outside had passed. The manor was silent, ordinary.


And yet she was irrevocably changed. She carried the weight and beauty of infinite lives, yet she was anchored in the one she had chosen.


The whisper came one last time, soft and knowing: Mara.


“I’m ready,” she said.


She stepped outside, greeted by the morning air, crisp and clear. The manor loomed behind her, a relic of the past, but no longer a prison. The darkness had not been punishment—it had been revelation. She understood herself fully, the lives she could have lived, the choices she had made, the infinite possibilities that shaped her.


And somewhere in the quiet, the threads of other lives shimmered faintly, waiting for the day she might reach for them again.


Mara walked forward into the sunrise, carrying every echo, every shadow, every joy, and every regret. She was whole. She was alive. And she was free.